Spurs vs Chelsea - FA Cup take 2
Freezing my buns off down at WHL to watch us get knocked out of the FA Cup in front of far too many Chelsea fans was not my idea of a good night at the Lane. It still hasn’t really settled in. How can Wembley ever be finished until we’ve played there?
Chelsea’s quality only really showed in the 6 minutes that they wiped the smile from my face. Both strikes were, well unstoppable really and the first basically undefendable. You could see the looks on our back four faces that said, “Ok lads, hold fast, we’ve got this one covered.” I don’t think they moved a muscles for a good 30 seconds after the goal had gone in. I’ve got an image of Rocha emblazoned in my mind standing legs apart, ready for action with only his face telling of that knife in the guts feeling of conceding a goal that every fan knows far too well.
On the whole we defended well and it was further up the field where we were all to mediocre. Didier Zee and JJ were probably playing too far back, with neither having the games of their lives but really it was the man of the hour who ‘let us down’. Dimitar the Great was less so last night. You can’t really complain about a man who’s been playing so far out of his skin he’s shed it and grown a new one but you could see that his touch just wasn’t quite there, not like it has been. There were all too many heavy touches and against a top four side that one is all you get. It can’t have been easy with pube haired Carvalho raking his heels, elbowing him in the back and probably insulting Berbatov’s family, ancestry and choice of aftershave. (No offence intended to yourself YotN and Nadia).
We were not the better team on the night but the dirty Chelsea back should’ve been off the pitch after that penalty kick and with the 10 minutes of raining balls into the enemy box and the blues down a man, it’s very likely we’d have got the second we were looking for. There seems to have been very little of this in the press but then why focus on another tainted Chelsea win by hook or by crook when the far bigger angle was young Mr Timothy Smith?
I saw him make a break for the field and right up to the celebrating scum wondering what the hell he was going to do when he got there and good on him and his cast iron balls for actually backing up his intentions with a proper swing at Frank Lamplard. Such a shame he missed. It may have made a fairly dark day in football but God, I would have felt some satisfaction at seeing the overweight badge kisser sparked out on the grass. Mr Smith was bundled an instant by the entire Chelsea staff and rumour has it Drogba was stamping on his leg trying to break it for good measure. So far that’s just hearsay but it may well be why the Crown Prosecution Service advised police no to charge the runaway Spur for assault or it may be because Mr Smith never actually touched anyone.
So was Timothy Smith some waster thug so brainless as to believe that his course of action was the best; a man who has no more hopes in his life than to share his inevitable jail cell with a someone who isn’t going to try to use his mouth as a cock warmer? No. Timothy Smith is an eighteen-year-old trainee architect from Datchet in the royal county of Berkshire.
The powers that Spurs were quick to stamp a life ban on Smith as well they need to avoid as losing as much money in fines over the incident as possible. The interesting thing for The Bagel’s money is that the other pitch invader of the evening has gone largely ignored. The was one man out there who was The Bagel’s Yid of the day. The man who ran onto the pitch to take the ball off Petr Cech, I think, who had been time wasting and give it back to Keano to get play rolling again in the dieing minutes of the tie.
We were all on our feet for the last five or ten and right or wrong it was fantastic to see this man’s expression of all our frustrations as Chelsea edged their way to the semis via unsporting behaviour rather than trying to prove they were a better team. Naturally the gentleman was rewarded with a round of ‘Yiddos’ but I’m not sure how good that feels when you’re being bundled out in a sea of reflective coats. Probably feels pretty good actually.
So much for Wembley then. Just Glasgow and a top four finish then. Not much to ask, is it?
He nearly knocked his bagel off.
The Bagel.
March 20th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
i understand why he did it… i certainly don’t condone it… But, fuck me, why oh why couldn’t he have actually hit the bastard? Hit him square on the jaw.. oh, how i would have cheered. Ah well.
Sorry you’re out boys. You did yourselves proud though. Would have loved a Man U - Spurs final.
You should have had ‘em first time round. I dunno.. Jol and his crazy subbing.
March 20th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Hi Bagel
No offence taken about the familt ties & all that, anyone sporting naturally sprouting pubic hair from his ugly head would have an attitude problem anyway, even if the sensible thing to do would be to have a neat tightly shorn razor cut of sorts, but there’s no counting for good taste on the cranial pubic sprouting!
My eldest son was far from his best, but still did look fairly nifty, but, yes his touch was jaded & no doubt a result of a game too many (unlike Freddie Flintoff, but anything else just isn’t cricket… What am I going on about now!)
I Onwards & upwards, we now march sharply focussed on the UEFA Cup & another finish in the league to qualify for another European tour next year!
COME ON YOU SPURS!
March 21st, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Two unstoppable goals. We just didn’t gel on the night and Berba had an off night. Why wasn’t Ghaly introduced?
Are you going to Seville Bagel?
March 21st, 2007 at 10:26 pm
I think the real disappointment of the night was Lennon. He had several crucial runs in the Blues’ end, but could not find a pass to save his life. He really looked his age out there and his speed and dancing could not make up for the lack of quality on his final touches. I thought he really killed us with turnovers, especially near the death of the game when he had a few runs with some real potential and could not hold onto the ball. I know Dimitar was invisible, but without any good service, how could he win it for us? The one good ball that he missed was Jenas’s cross in the first half that went just over his head. I thought we were garbage when it came to getting the final through ball in to Berbatov, with Lennon as the main culprit. I think you should go after Lennon instead of Berba, Bagel.
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Now that UEFA have told Sevilla excatly how much they care about religious festivals, The Bagel does have a perfect time window to travel to Spain, loyalty points providing. A bit of Iberian sunshine and real Euro match up sounds perfect. I could even stay over the Easter break. Hmmm…sangria and senoritas.
As for the Lennon issue, Mitch:
You’re right Lennon couldn’t get that ball across but then that’s his weakness on the whole and shooting unfortunately. I think I remember the moment you’re talking about when he made it to the by-line inside the pentalty area and just didn’t play the ball.
Now, as MJ was playing him on the left, we do have to expect even worse passing/crossing by the little man’s left boot. I can’t really blame Lennon (not that I intend to blame any player on the night) because he makes so many of those opportunities on his own that we simply wouldn’t have without him.
Berbatov on the other hand squandered one or opportunities handed to him, one’s which he normally converts. There’s one I remember where he just touched the ball with too much weight and you could see the frustration on his face where he knew he just wasn’t having a good evening.
I don’t intend to go after the man as a scapegoat or any on the team that evening. We just weren’t firing on all those wonderful cylinders we’ve been seeing of late, the most wonderful of which being Berbatov.
I would like to praise the defenders. The first goal they coneded was a strike of genius and the second a fine, quick move. Dawson in particular was a giant and Rocha’s been doing us proud considering his short experience in English football.
The Bagel.
March 22nd, 2007 at 9:58 pm
I agree with your comments. I love the way our defense has played, and I think Chimbonda deserves a lot of credit for our recent success. He has been a beast on the attack, and although he looks a bit untidy and clumsy on defense at times, he usually is quite disruptive.
March 25th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
He’s been good all campaign and even Stalteri’s been on the case whenever he’s been called on. Reading should provide an interesting test for one and all after swinging between the likes of Chelsea and either Watford or a sub-standard UEFA side.
The Bagel.