Beef Bagel

I’m going to play five a-side football this afternoon. My chances of survival are not good. Exercise for me is getting up to change channels when I’ve lost the remote or running to the Lane when I’m late. I am concerned. My footballing skills are very mediocre, so I usually adopt the Michael Brown approach - run everywhere, shoulder people off the ball and just leather it on site of goal but I’m not sure how effective this will be without any level of fitness. I can imagine that it would hamper Browny’s game somewhat if he had to spend every five minutes out of ten on the sidelines coughing up a lung. The game’s down in Brixton but perhaps I should take another leaf out of Michael Brown’s book and leave half way through and go to Fulham. There’s some lovely pubs along the river down there.

In fact, my chances of lasting the 60 minutes are about as good as Tottenham’s chances of leaving Liverpool with anything more than a point. As I’m sure you’re aware, beating the Red Machine on their home turf is yet another of those records we haven’t broken for quite some time. The last time we did the damage was back in 1993 when Ossie inspired Teddy to bag a brace at Anfield. So that’s coming up to 15 years or what’s known in football as ‘a while’.

Worse still only four of the encounters since have ended in a draw, making the odds for a Lilywhite victory look more like an Australian batting score. Yet still, for some reason, the papers are quoting some unnamed vague source, i.e hearsay (not the band), and stating that MJ needs to win it to save his job…again. That’s not really much of a chance but if you really want proof of lies, damn lies and statistics, then there are two ways to look at it:

1) We have won once in eight games and that was at home to Derby

2) We are undefeated in five games.

Take your pick. Personally, I could be a little more optimistic about it if we weren’t playing so badly but then all it takes is one game to turn the corner and that game will have to come at some point in the season. If it doesn’t we’re in some serious trouble.

If you managed to miss both the goals in Thursday afternoon’s jaunt to Cyprus then this is what they looked like…

The story of the game for me though was the Little Yiddo’s consistent missing of chances and that’s a major problem of our season, not Jermain himself but the fact that we’ve only got one striker with his eye in. Dimitar the Great, the Little Yiddo and Wanker have yet to come to life. Last season we were leakier than a boat with a colander hull but the difference was we still had our strikers to bale us out. Now we’ve only got Bale to bale us out. Issues, my friends issues.

Jonny Villain had in right in the View from the South-West Corner , “Villa have a youthfulness and pace about their play that Spurs seem to lack.” The word I would use is ‘vigour’. Villa were hungry, energetic and strong, where right now we are hesitant and unsure. Talentwise we out-do most teams but we’ve got to snap into life and I’m not too sure how it’s going to happen. MJ’s latest Wenger-like comments comparing ourselves to Liverpool are all very good…

“You still can’t compare us. They made investments and we bought Gareth, Younes and Kevin-Prince Boateng, but that is different. That is for now and for the future.”

“Tommy Huddlestone is pulling the strings but he is 20 years old.”

“I would be happy if we had a settled team and pushed one or two younger players through. That would be an ideal situation but we are not in that situation so I have to play them.”

…but what about the likes of Berbatov and the Didier Zee, who’s on his second or third last chance by now? These guys are in their late 20’s. In fact the Little Yiddo is 25 on Sunday. These guys have got to get the smelling salts shoved right up their hooters and their fingers out of their bottoms. I’m not after a win at Anfield but I’m after a performance and a good one at that. Whatever happens, let’s leave Liverpool with our reputation and our hubcaps in tact.

“Wolfman’s got bagels!”

The Bagel.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 6th, 2007 at 2:57 pm and is filed under Bagel News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.