Beef Bagel

It was a very relaxed Bagel who arrived at White Hart Lane for the rarity that is a 3 o’clock Saturday fixture. Despite turning up to find our big guns playing cards on the sidelines we were all still looking to administer a healthy spanking to the club resting firmly at the base of the table or as we later put it ‘Going down with the West Ham. It became clear very quickly that this wasn’t to be.

The first half was one of the most boring I’ve seen all season. Watford just hoofed the ball at all available opportunities, even when there was no pressure on the ball whatsoever. It seemed like a tactic designed to drag us down to the level of their football and actually, it worked but I soon realised this was no move of managerial mastery when Watford first tried to play a passing game. They couldn’t string together more than a few balls before a mistouch, a miscontrol saw the “move” break down. I slightly felt for them as I remember the agonising frustrations of watching old Spurs in the Jamie Redknapp era of WHL.

It wasn’t so much Berbatov, Keano and Lennon that we were missing as some bite in the middle, courtesy of little talked of form player, Didier Zee. Although, I must say that being spoilt by months of the most electrifying striker in recent Spurs history has really shown up how not-up-to-standard Mido is. He gave it a reasonable go but, well, he’s just not Dimitar the Great.

The Watford defense did a reasonable job and size was definitely their strength and that size came in the monstrous shape of Danny Shittu.

Just to give you an idea of scale, that’s actually the Epcot centre painted red and white. The man is massive. Each leg is an oak; his shoulders, two other people and his head a cannonball. Imagine Noe Pamarot’s legs with a body to match. Forget Baptista, this man is the beast. I mean if there were a fight between beast, it would even be a contest. Shittu would just eat him.

Thankfully, JJ slotting one before the break did plenty to calm are nerves second half. Nice header. Good jumping and nice angled shot made it impossible for Foster and that’s the way we like it. Ah yes, Foster. Now, Watford are another team, who think that England’s No.1 plays for them. It is of course our duty to let them know otherwise and the usual battle of chanting commenced with such classics as ‘England’s No. (insert 2 - infinity)’.

However, as this time it was a little different. This time it wasn’t us who made the point. I was only barely paying attention as Robbo placed the ball for what was a foul? and offside just next to his penalty area. That’s how interesting the game had been. I half watched as the ball lumped its way towards the other end and it was only when it bounced and I was alerted by that collective conscious of 36,000 when that tells you something important is just about to happen. The whole team ran back to the man most usually all alone whenever we net a goal. The white shirts mobbed our man in black and whole Lane, bar some very stunned Watford fans, leapt to their feet in glee to cheer with one of the most popular figures at Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Our rendition of ‘England’s No.1′ carried on long into the restart. Every time he touched the ball we shouted, “shooooot” and all the Spurs songs were turned into Robbo ones:

‘We love you Robbo, we do; we love you Robbo, we do; we love you Robbo, we do; oh Robbo we love you!’

‘Nice one Robbo, nice one son, nice one Robbo, let’s have another one!’

Foster pulled off a cracking save later in the game, after our semi-second stringers had woken up along with the crowd but despite keeping out a thunderous shot from the Man Mountain, which had even been deflected, the damage had already been done and it was the Park Lane and all around who had the last words, as we all shouted to the real England goalkeeper:

‘That’s why you’re Number 1, that’s why you’re Number 1, that’s why you’re Number 1, that’s why you’re Number 1!’ (to the tune of La Donna e Mobile).

It was only a shame that the clean sheet that had looked so likely all day was spoilt in injury time through a mistake by Chimbondabonda, covering for a subbed off Lee, the Korean having put in another performance to silence even more of his critics.

So where does this all leave us? Well, in 6th, with our three best players rested, some sky high confidence, an invigorated keeper, two cracking cup fixtures and maybe, just maybe a late dash for the Champions League.

I’m dreaming of a white bagel,

The Bagel.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 17th, 2007 at 8:42 pm and is filed under Match Reports. 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.