chicken_badge
Gudni Bergsson
Not intending on taking the shine of an excellent win, but I've just seen a stat that's given some substance to a theory I've had for a while now: Spurs now have the best AWAY record in the Premier League. Yep, more points from away games than Arsenal, City, Liverpool, Chelsea.... all the way through to crud like Cardiff and West Ham. Of course, you can't read into single statistics like this too much, with the season half gone, but for a club in crisis that's a ridiculously good record and one which I believe cuts to the Hart of our problem.....
Clearly, we are all unhappy with the results at the Lane against West Ham, Liverpool, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, and the performances against pretty much everyone else. But where exactly are we going wrong?
Size of the pitch
Moose had a whine about this earlier in the season, claiming that the small pitch at WHL made it easy for defensive minded teams:
http://www1.skysports.com/football/...te-hart-lane-makes-it-difficult-for-tottenham
I don't buy it though. Surely with our fast, counter attacking potential we can be up the other end scoring before the opposition knows what hit them. I mean, the scum team of 2004 basically won the league doing just this - peg it up the other end, score three times and its game over before half hour. Helps if you've got a talented cheat like Henry (and thanks partly to the fact they never replace their stars and also their failure to adapt to the bigger new pitch they still haven't won anything since moving to the library:
http://www.spurs.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=7887)
An obvious flaw in our play is the lack of crosses into the box and if WHL is particularly small and therefore narrow, is that limiting our opportunity for this?
Stage fright
Heard a Villa fan talk about this on the radio this week, about why they have such a poor record at Villa Park and thought it may be relevant to us. Our stadium is a real iconic, great English ground and some players will turn up and be motivated about being there. In short, their players are more up for it, where as ours are at the same old same old.
The fans
AVB said it after Hull http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24697318 but personally I think it is nail on head. Our players' confidence is so hampered by the pressure put on them by the WHL crowd. Now it's not everyone, maybe not even the majority. But if one in ten people boo then it will be a helluva noise and unfortunately we've got far too much negativity in our stands. They don't accept us drawing 0-0 with any team, so if we haven't scored against a team by a particular time (eg Saudi Sportswashing Machine 60 mins, WBA 30 mins, Crewe 20 mins) then it is treated as if the team have failed with the simplest of tasks. You can see it coming, so can the players.
So where do these boo boys come from? Well, I think it's our massive season ticket holder base that's to blame. Some of those who are there week to week, and it's not a big deal a Spurs game, and they've been tremendously spoilt. Again, I stress that I don't think it's the majority, but if you go to a game - especially a league one, where there is going to be about a 3:1 ratio of season ticket holders to non, you know exactly who they are. The loud mouths who is all "hallo mate" to the regulars around them and when the whistle blows they are picking holes in everything. Do you ever hear then sing? And are they ever there at the final whistle? "Right I've had enough of this. Don't know why I bother.". Oh I'm so glad you did, got you fat rat moustache out just to wreck my afternoon at the Lane. £50 well spent, would you like some cash as a way of thanking you for your technical analysis throughout?
To this, I'd add another bugbear of mine - the appalling number of "fans" who leave early. Players have commented on this before in autobiographies... Yes, they are supposed to be professionals and play for the shirt etc but if we really believe that us fans can have an effect on a game, give the players a lift, then surely the sight of 20,30% of us saying "lets give up now, saving fifteen minutes on a tube queue is more important" can hardly make them want to fight for that late winner?
I've been here before with this and, whilst I respect that we have fans like paxtonwolf who travel significant distances and five minutes can make all the difference in getting home or not, I live on the South Coast and I would bet my journey home takes longer than the vast majority of our fans. I've never left a game early and whilst I don't want a medal, I do not want fans who do bail out like that to be getting their full loyalty points for the match. Make everyone scan their card on the way out, award LPs just to those leaving after the whistle has gone. Solves soooo many problems that.....
Anyway, just a few thoughts. It's obvious WHERE the problem is, but WHAT exactly is it, and what's the solution?
