Brad Friedel joins Spurs

Posted by Stevio in Transfers on June 3rd, 2011

Something certain of late is how unpredictable and perhaps even incomprehensible Spurs signings have been of late.

In January we were screaming out for a new striker, did we get one? No. We instead bought a midfielder in Steven Pienaar, who you have to say wasn’t really needed.

Today has seen us sign Aston Villa’s veteran ‘keeper Brad Friedel. At 40 years of age, he’s still a very capable goalkeeper. However, one has to ask why sign him?

One would assume Heurelho Gomes is on his way out of White Hart Lane, especially since Carlo Cudicini signed a new deal. However, this is Spurs we’re talking about, where logic isn’t always applied.

Admittedly, I had enough of Heurelho Gomes and his shocking errors, there were times though that he made some fantastic saves. We have seen all this before and the Brazilian did bounce back big time.

So who will be our number one next season? Gomes? Friedel? Cudicini? Only two months to find out!

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City beaten, Burnley next

Posted by Stevio in Tottenham Hotspur on May 9th, 2010

I’m still pretty speechless following Spurs’ 1-0 win at Manchester City. Such an amazing night. To qualify for the Champions’ League is just fantastic. Sure we still have to come through some tough sounding qualifying matches, but just to get there is brilliant. Of course though, I for one won’t be wanting our Champions’ League campaign to be brief.

Unbelievably, we could still claim third position in the league if Arsenal lose. Admittedly, I doubt they’ll lose, as Fulham as have eyes on the Europa Cup Final. Plus we’ve got to get a win at Burnley, who as we’ve seen before, won’t be a pushover. But nevertheless, after Wednesday, anything can happen!

As for team news, hero Heurelho Gomes is doubful with thigh strain. Ledley King is out, and Vedran Corluka, Niko Kranjcar, Carlo Cudicini and Jonathan Woodgate are all still missing.

We’ve had a great season, I really hope we can finish on a high. COYS!

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Spurs beat Bolton, Manchester City next

Posted by Stevio in Tottenham Hotspur on May 5th, 2010

Following weekend victories for Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City, it is now set us up for an exciting game tonight, where if Spurs win at City’s Eastlands stadium, we’ll wrap up fourth position in the Premiership.

At one point, City were losing to Aston Villa after John Carew scored but unfortunately for Spurs they came back and beat Villa 3-1.

Spurs on the other hand beat Bolton Wanderers 1-0 with a stunning long range effort from Tom Huddlestone. The victory was deserved, even though Bolton didn’t have much to play for, they kept trying and thankfully didn’t come up with anything.

I would dearly love Spurs to get a win at City tonight, although, this being Spurs it is never simple. Anyone remembering what happened at West Ham a few years ago knows full well anything can happen. I just hope Spurs have employed a food taster for pre-match meals.

The referee tonight is Steve Bennett, who interestingly has only referred just two Spurs games all season. Wonder why that is.

From Harry Redknapp’s comments earlier, it sounds like it’s going to be a pretty open game, and they have some fine quality players with Carlos Tevez, Emmanuel Adebayor and Craig Bellamy. The aforementioned are suspect temperament-wise but one cannot doubt their ability, and recently City have scored quite a few goals.

Interesting that ex-Spurs ‘keeper Marton Fulop will be in goal for City, he of course conceded a goal a minute after he came on as substitute for Sunderland when they visited the Lane earlier in the season.

The big question for us is who will be in goal for Spurs? Heurelho Gomes has a groin problem and we really need him, as there’s question marks surrounding Ben Alnwick. Also, as always, we have doubts over Ledley King, who played at the weekend.

I’m guessing if Harry is expecting an open game then he’ll stick with Luka Modric and Huddlestone in the centre of midfield. As we saw against Old Trafford a few weeks back, Wilson Palacios came back from suspension and didn’t play too well. So I’m expecting an unchanged team apart from the possibility of Gomes and King being out.

So what will happen? We do have a good record up at City, but with their influx of cash and better quality players, they’ve certainly improved. I’m sure they remember their defeat at White Hart Lane, which was their former manager Mark Hughes’ last game in charge, so perhaps they’ll be after blood.

I do have a feeling that we can get three points at City, but we’ve got to keep our heads. We’ve also got to start being more clinical, as tonight if we don’t, it could be costly.

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Spurs 2-1 Arsenal

Posted by Stevio in Tottenham Hotspur on April 14th, 2010

So happy that Spurs managed to pull off an outstanding 2-1 win over Arsenal. Sure, it was a tough game with Arsenal having lots of possession, but for most part of the game, they failed to break Spurs down.

The opening goal was just fantastic, Danny Rose got on the end of an Almunia clearance and volleyed home from 30-yards out. Admittedly, I was shocked to see it go in, but a good kind of shocked!

Rose was a surprise starter in place of David Bentley, but with goals like that, hopefully he’ll have more chances in the Spurs first team.

The second half started and soon after Gareth Bale had put us two-nil up. Jermain Defoe with a beauty of though ball found Bale in the penalty area, who just tucked the ball home. How Bale ended up in a striking position I’ll never know, but the Welshman is so full of running, you can expect him to appear anywhere on the pitch at any time!

Of course, even being 2-0 up the game was never over, especially against a side like Arsenal. They pressed and pressed and eventually got their goal through Bendtner, this despite some wonderful goalkeeping from Gomes.

Thankfully they failed to get the equaliser with Gomes and our defenders standing firm. Michael Dawson was his usual solid self after the disappointment of the weekend, also Ledley King was outstanding considering how long he’d been out injured.

All in all, a wonderful victory that puts the horrors of Sunday to the back of one’s memory.

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The good, the bad and the ugly

Posted by Stevio in Tottenham Hotspur on January 17th, 2009

It has been quite a while since my last post, since then things have improved, sadly even with a new manager installed, the results and the performances have not been good enough.

With 21 league games played this season, we’ve won 5, drawn 5, and lost 11, scoring 20 and conceding 26. We’re currently third from bottom in the relegation zone.

Something positive is that we’re still in all the cups, and all being well, we can at least look forward to a League Cup final.

The performance in our latest game – the defeat at Wigan Athletic – wasn’t our worst this season, however, it was far from our best.

Even though manager Harry Redknapp had made changes to compete with a physical Wigan side, many of our players failed to perform, most notably Gareth Bale.

In recent months there have been some positives, defender Michael Dawson has once again found his form and has been a rock at centre half, also Heurelho Gomes has overcome a spell of uncertainly to show that he’s more than a capable ‘keeper.

Upfront we’ve seen Darren Bent struggle despite scoring 12 goals this season, while fellow striker Roman Pavlyuchenko has improved of late with goals in the FA Cup and League Cup against Wigan and Burnley respectively.

Since the transfer window opened Jermain Defoe has returned to White Hart Lane in a big money move from Portsmouth. He scored 15 goals in 31 appearances for Pompey, fingers crossed he can keep the same 1 goal in 2 games ratio up at Spurs.

I have faith in Harry Redknapp to turn it around, however, the problems at Spurs are chronic, and I’m unsure whether the team’s problems can be solved in time to prevent relegation.

Harry needs to build a new team. The current one is so fragmented, sometimes it’s like watching a team of eleven strangers. You’d think after training and playing together the players would be able work together and know each other’s game – sadly not.

If it’s true that the club are splashing out tens of millions on players in a desperate bid to avoid relegation then I fear we may find out it’s a big mistake, as sadly I doubt a big turnover of players during this transfer window will save us from heading down into the Championship.

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Duo sign for Spurs

Posted by Stevio in Tottenham Hotspur on July 1st, 2008

Tottenham Hotspur have signed a new ‘keeper, sadly it isn’t Gomes, but Mirko Ranieri.

Ranieri is an under-16 Italian international and comes from Perugia.

Spurs’ sporting director Damien Comolli told the official website: “Mirko is 6ft 2″ and an excellent shot stopper. His distribution and decision making is improving all the time.

“He is a highly-intelligent individual and another very good young goalkeeper we have attracted to the Club.”

In other news, Tom Huddlestone has signed a new five-year deal at White Hart Lane. This comes after the 21-year-old was recently linked with a move to Everton and Middlesbrough.

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Robinson set for Aston Villa talks?

Posted by Stevio in Rumours on June 25th, 2008

The Evening Standard are reporting that Paul Robinson is to hold talks with Aston Villa this week.

The ‘keeper, who lost his place in the first team to Radek Cerny in March, could move for a fee of £5m.

Who will be Robinson’s replacement? Cerny has gone to QPR leaving just Ben Alnwick as the only first-team goalkeeper.

The last week or so Heurelho Gomes of PSV has been linked with a move to Spurs numerous times.

We’ve also been linked with Allan McGregor (Rangers), Emiliano Viviano (Brescia), Gregory Coupet (Lyon) and Joe Hart (Manchester City).

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Latest Spurs rumours: Coupet, Robinson, Eto’o & Gomes

Posted by Stevio in Rumours on May 24th, 2008

Lyon ‘keeper Gregory Coupet has admitted that he’ll be leaving the French club this summer.

The 35-year-old said: “Yes, I’m leaving, it had become an open secret.

“My way of saying thank you to the fans will be to win the Cup by being invincible.”

Unfortunately it doesn’t look like he’ll be headed to Spurs as Coupet’s club have said the following: “Lyon categorically deny having received any offer from the English club Tottenham about the transfer of Gregory Coupet,”

If Frenchman doesn’t arrive, then if the Daily Star are correct, then we’ll need a new ‘keeper as they report Paul Robinson is wanted by Aston Villa and Bolton Wanderers.

An odd bit of news includes Gustavo Poyet. He’s supposedly told a Spanish radio station that we’re not interested in Barcelona striker Samuel Eto’o.

The Uruguayan reportedly told Ona FM: “Samuel Eto’o is not a priority for our team. Moreover, we’re not interested in him,”

He added: “We’ll be having a meeting next week to talk about signings, as we’ve already made one interesting one for next season.”

Finally, Spurs have failed in a bid for PSV ‘keeper Heurelho Gomes say The Independent. The Dutch club reportedly want £11.6m for the Brazilian. AC Milan are favourites to land him.

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