On Saturday I went to Stamford Bridge and saw the worst Spurs performance I’ve seen since the night David Ginola said, “The crowd have given up.”
I think that was after a League Cup tie against Derby at the Lane. Ginola was spot-on but he should never have said that. The crowd had given up and I didn’t blame them. Indeed, I was surprised so many kept turning up.
On Saturday it was nice to be in a box on the halfway line, and intriguing to find that, on Friday, Anelka had signed for Chel$$$$ki.
This derby now had two points of interest
What are Spurs like and would they beat Arsene’s kids in the Carling Cup second leg on Tuesday 22 ?
And will Anelka, the mercenary sharpshooter, make a difference to the title race?
I’m obliged to report that Spurs were pitiful at Stamford Bridge.
Robbie Keane had the most anonymous game I’ve ever seen him play. Lennon is lively but stupid. Berbatov is a Bulgarian Henry. A diva always picks her games and Berbatov didn’t want to be out there and made that wholly evident from the first minute. He was a disgrace to the EPL as well as to THFC and I’d flog him today.
O’Hara is a competent 21-year old kid with a good attitude and will develop. Dawson is a bull in a china shop. Malbranque is no left winger and takes too many touches and couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a banjo.
Chimbonda is agile, quick and positive. He might conceivably be turned into Tottenham’s Dani Alves but you can’t play Lennon in front of him because AL goes AWOL.
Jenas was absent here but JJ only gives you one good game in five. He can run box-to-box but Spurs don’t use that enough.
Spurs had one good player : Ledley King.
Before the first leg I thought Spurs would beat Arsenal’s kids over two legs. But having seen what a rabble they are, I’m not so sure.
Juande Ramos has to do huge rebuilding job. If he loses to Arsenal’s kids at White Hart Lane, he’ll have had a very bad Juanduary.
In truth, Spurs will never have a team until they replace Carrick. Actually, they’ll never have a team till they replace Damien Comolli, who signed Zakora (useless) and Kaboul (worse than useless).
They buy young players like Arsenal, but they get second-rate young players.They need an Agbonlahor, a James Vaughan, an Ashley Young. Otherwise they won’t keep their best player, Gareth Bale.
Anelka is a classy striker whose general composure is as important as his finishing. He came on for half an hour and his composure was world class.Contrary to some reports about him training with Chelsea on Friday, he had not trained with them at all.
Just as I was thinking, “Those two have played together at Man City,” Shaun-Wright Phillips backheeled a ball to Anelka, who spun and fired a left-foot shot low inside the post but Cerny dived to save it.
At the death, Anelka smashed a rising drive against the underside. He is so good he doesn’t need to train with his new team. He is the kind of player who can get the ball, look around, and do something useful with it. Let’s give him three weeks to get his feet under the table.
On a future partnership with Drogba, Anelka said, “I think it will be easy to play with him because he can do everything.” That’s true. But Drogba will definitely leave in the summer.
Ballack won every 50-50 ball in the air and showed a terrific range of skills. He can play with Anelka, I’m sure.
What do Saturday’s results mean?
Does 51-51 mean that Arsenal and Man United are still fighting for the title? Or does 1-1 and 6-0 and 2-0 mean that Arsenal and Chelsea are fighting for second place? Or does Anelka joining Chelsea mean that Arsenal are fighting Liverpool for third place?
It’s early January. Best not to read too much into the events of one day. More will be revealed soon enough
There were six of us in the box and ten minutes into the second half Mark went in to check what else was happening on our Samsung TV monitor. Then he came back.
“Same scores as before, except for one,” he said.
“Arsenal?”
“Yes.”
“You’re winding me up!”
“No, it’s 1-1.”
After Chelsea had won 2-0 we stayed on to let the crowd disperse and we watched the Man Utd-Newcastle game on Setanta. Rooney had 4 shots and didn’t score in the first 25 minutes and then I left and when I got home United were 2-0 up and it was only 2-0 till the 69th minute when I saw Rio score for 3-0, then I saw Ronaldo score Goal of the Month to make it 4-0 and soon Ronaldo complete his hat-trick and Tevez made it 6-0 in stoppage time.
Yes, Man Utd will have far more challenging games than Newcastle. Maybe Fergie did want to smash them because Mike Ashley sacked Big Sam, his golfing buddy, far too soon.
New owner Ashley has already allowed the Toon Army to sack Allardyce after 21 league games and for five minutes it looked as if he might allow the crowd to hire the Keegan-Shearer “dream ticket”.
Shearer, meanwhile, has been playing golf in Barbados with former owner Freddie Shepherd, who famously called him “Mother Theresa” during a controversial binge in Spain in 1998.
Shearer fancies the job and the fans fancy him. But why should Shearer walk into a top job without his coaching badges?
Ashley has yet to show any sign that he can be a successful club-owner. So far he has looked like a clown and I doubt if he will ever get it right up there.
What Newcastle need is a proper chairman like Sir John Hall, who was an English oligarch who sold us a vision of the Geordie nation, with tribal cheerleader Kevin Keegan leading a cavalry charge that was loads of fun.
Is the return of Keegan Ashley’s best idea? Why would Mark Hughes go there? Ashley should have hired Alex McLeish when he had a chance.
For 48 hours we faced the bizarre prospect of Harry Redknapp commuting by private jet from Poole to the Newcastle training ground ! Meanwhile, Jose Mourinho wants Rafa’s job and has apparently contacted the American owners through a third party. Wouldn’t it be weird if Mourinho ended up without a job at a top club?
As Richard Littlejohn used to say, You couldn’t make it up. The EPL is now somewhere between a circus and a reality show.
Arguably, it is Rupert Murdoch’s greatest creation.
PS : Jake has written to me this morning.
I’m assuming Jake is a Chelsea fan.
He says : just to point out jenas didn’t play. boateng did. he is the one that tried to rugby tackle Joey Cole.
Myles replies : I mentioned Jenas because he will play against Arsenal, as he did in the first leg. I said he was absent at Chelsea. He wasn’t there. I do know the difference between Kevin-Prince Boateng and Jermaine Jenas. And I did see him grab Joe Cole round the waist. I hate that because it is not football. It’s rugby, as you say. I don’t mind rugby. But Tottenham Hotspur are not a rugby team. Neither are Chelsea.
I may have confused or misled more than one reader by writing that sentence. I can’t always find exactly the right words for what I’m trying to say, especially when writing quickly.