Beef Bagel

It’s 4 o’clock in the am and I’ve been sitting leading a team of grunts on a night shift through some very strenous hours of playing flashgames on the internet. Tough gig this. This is my current favourite by the way. Can’t get past level 7 though.

So yes. 4am and by the time I wake later there’ll be very little time to consider my plight in the big, bad world before I head out to what promises to be an Arctic night at the Lane. I’ll be buying a few copies of that 100 page programme if only to screw up and shove down my sleeves like a tramp. Perhaps I could bring in one of those barrels with a fire inside like you see on the streets of American films, surrounded by down and outs in brown coast toasting their harms and passing round soe kind of hooch in a brown paper bag. When last I looked, there were still tickets available for the game which means it’s going to be even colder. Nothing like being sat next to a very fat bloke when it’s nippy at WHL. The roles of flab spilling onto your lap become like a blanket. Once you pick up your bovril at half time, you’re set.

So what can we expect from our guests this evening? Well, it’s hard to say. Sure, there’s no Alex any more and their teamsheet isn’t exactly loaded with household names but then thing with PSV is that the their names are only household in retrospect. The club has very rich history as a proving ground for players before they get picked up by bigger teams in Europe. Ronaldo (fat one), Romario, The Horse, Robben, Alex, Gudjohnson, Stam and even the likes of Park Ji-Shirt Sales and our own Brucey Lee all started their lives there as wee bairns and there are one or two potentials amoung the current crop of men from Eindhoven.

Like Alex before them, Chelsea have a couple of youngsters on some kind of shady loan contracts most likely courtesy of ex-PSV, ex-Yiddo Frank Arnesen. Slobodan Rajkovic is a 19-year-old, highly rated Serbian defender, the youngest player at the UEFA U21 European Championships last time around. The deal that took him to Chelsea was a record amount of money for an 18-year-old at nearly £4m. Ismaïl Aissati is one of PSV’s prized assets. He’s an attacking midfielder fantastic on the ball and a great passer too. He made the all-star team at the UEFA U21 Championships in 2006. The club rate him at £15m. Eric Addo, former Ghana and Belgium Footballer of the Year is dangerous when fit. Much older at 29, the only reason he never hit the big time is an injury record comparable with Jonny Woodgate. If he’s fit to play, Didier Zee’ll have a fight on his hands.

The Dutch league leaders will be walking into this one without any pressure on them but all the confidence and experience that comes from repeated Eredivese titles and regular CL action. Thankfully we come in with Carling Cup confidence and perhaps the best tonic of all, the strong smelling salts that was the St. Andrews experience last weekend.

“The loss at Birmingham hurt me. I approach all games in a professional way and expect my team to do the same,” said Juande in a warning to his players via the press just in case they hadb’t already heard it.

“I will not let the level drop in any of the games we have left to play. Playing PSV is an important test. They’re a very good side, they are top of their league and they are very solid. This is a barometer of where we can go and if we can compete at that level.”

No pressure then. In our favour, we’ve almost a full squad at our desposal, minus the first choice full-backs and, fingers crossed, PSV will be without their top striker local boy Danny Koevermans, who finally managed to score his way into the national side last year at the age of 29. At 6′3″ he could be a handful.

So, which Spurs will turn up tonight; cup winners or league losers? Good thing it’s a cup.

This is the bagel of a carpenter.

The Bagel.

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 6:23 am and is filed under Know Your Enemy. 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.