Rivals : Spurs
- Thread starter Frogfish
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Poor the Spurs. I was going to add Everton too but I thought that was taking it too far !
Spurs can get to fuck! Rivals my arse! Hateful club.
The race for 5th starts now!
I guess pochettino is in much the same situation that Rodgers is in, he's having to teach his philosophy to a load of players from scratch, and it'll take a bit of time. I'd expect both theirs and our form to pick up considerably in the 2nd half of the season when both squads stop being silly bastards.
They're knackered for strikers though.
They're knackered for strikers though.
Football 365
[article]Andros Townsend: Forever Flattering To Deceive
To let you behind the luxurious velvet purple curtain of high-class journalism (leave it), this week's Profile365 was going to be about something else. Nine hundred words had been carefully crafted like the most skilful sculptor would chisel out a statue (almost certainly a nude), all ready to be submitted to the evil Football365 overlords for them to raise either their thumb or their middle finger.
Then your fearless correspondent discovered Andros Townsend had been voted man of the match in Tottenham's 3-1 League Cup win over Nottingham Forest, and everything changed. The world stopped spinning. The entire focus of the universe became concentrated on courageously righting this heinous wrong.
Well, obviously the wrong can't actually be righted, because while Profile365 obviously has huge influence (according to the F365 number-crunchers it's read by upwards of seven people), there's no way of rescinding said award, presumably decided by co-commentator Alan Smith, a pleasant enough man but who could not possibly have been paying attention if he thought Townsend was anything but 5 ft 11 of frustration on Wednesday night.
Or any other night. Or day. Or morning if Spurs ever start a game at 10am. Townsend is the ultimate player who looks dangerous, threatening and quite good, but is in reality none of those things. He's basically an English Ryan Babel, a professional at little more than flattering to deceive. Most people who have ever watched him play will know how every Townsend performance plays out: he gets the ball on the wing, cuts inside and yahoos what is theoretically a shot miles away from where it might be useful to anyone apart from the opposition defence. Repeat to fade.
Townsend is like a writer who uses dozens of adjectives but forgets about verbs, who'll fill a page with purple prose without actually telling you anything. Insert your own 'glass houses' gag here. Those quick runs allow him to do a decent impression of a dangerous attacking threat, before disproving that by doing two-fifths of sod all once his pace has put him in a position to be useful. Nick Hornby once said of Thierry Henry's early days at Arsenal, when he struggled to be anything like the gliding genius he turned out to be, that his pace was a curse, that it simply put him in more situations in which he could demonstrate his incompetence.
It's similar with Townsend; without his pace, he would barely be a professional footballer, never mind one who has international caps. Admittedly, that statement is mildly daft and writing off pace, a legitimate footballing attribute, is not especially helpful (it's a bit like saying if Robin van Persie couldn't shoot he'd be rubbish). However, it feels a legitimate statement in this case because that's more or less all Townsend seems to have.
Townsend delivered a masterclass in Townsend, a self-parody cartoon Townsend performance against Forest, running very quickly at defenders, occasionally beating them then shanking a shot high into the Park Lane End. He went close with one free-kick, twanging it off the bar, but even stopped clocks nearly tell the right time occasionally. If you consult the stats you may notice that he registered an assist against Forest, which perfectly displays the problem with placing too much faith in such numbers, given this 'assist' was a dreadfully-dragged shot that was heading a good five yards wide, but was smartly turned home by Roberto Soldado.
He plays football a bit like a drunk toddler with a nerf gun, barrelling around the place, knocking a few things over then firing harmlessly into the ceiling. Again and again and again. You know exactly what you're going to get from Townsend, the problem being that 'what' isn't anything particularly useful. The old Shane Warne line about Monty Panesar not playing 17 Test matches, but playing one Test 17 times, rings true here.
About a year ago you might call Townsend overrated, but that's not really the case anymore (apart from by Alan Smith, apparently) as his presence in the Spurs side on Wednesday, along with assorted other stiffs and back-ups, might suggest. He hasn't been a first-teamer at White Hart Lane for a while now (he last started a league game in March, left on the bench for the remainder) and, although that is partly down to injury, it's also partly down to him not being very good at football, as a couple of managers seem to have now worked out. If Tim Sherwood can spot that you're a fraud, then it's probably time to pause and think about where your career is going.
Townsend has essentially enjoyed two spells of decent form in his career: on loan at QPR the season before last, when Harry Redknapp was roundly patted on the back for getting the best from this enigmatic tyro while the rest of the side were quietly being relegated, and the start of last term after his return to Spurs. During this time he appeared to have recalibrated those errant shooting boots and a few of those shots went into the goal rather than row Z, notably an excellent strike for England against Montenegro.
It was this goal that convinced many that he was the great wide hope of English football, a man who would run at defenders and cause havoc, but these goals were outliers, almost statistical freaks, and he would revert to type soon enough. Townsend is a bit like the archetypal old-fashioned big man that gets touted for an England cap every couple of years (Michael Ricketts, Kevin Davies, Grant Holt etc), in that he'll hustle and he'll bustle and look dangerous for a while, but will ultimately be found out. He's the man who'll 'put it about a bit', but not really achieve anything of note. He'll achieve this nothing at some pace, but it'll still be nothing.
Quite what Daniel Levy, a man never shy of robbing opposing chairmen blind (he should have 'turned a profit on Mido' tattooed on his chest then written on his headstone), was thinking when he turned down a reported £12m bid from Southampton this summer, isn't clear. Bullet dodged by the wily Saints, there.
Not for Spurs, though. They're stuck with him for the foreseeable, a banjaxed Eric Lamela hamstring or popped Nacer Chadli Achilles away from seeing Townsend in their first team every week. He's no good, everyone, and it's important that as many people as possible know this.
Now, anyone got Alan Smith's phone number?[/article]
[article]Andros Townsend: Forever Flattering To Deceive
To let you behind the luxurious velvet purple curtain of high-class journalism (leave it), this week's Profile365 was going to be about something else. Nine hundred words had been carefully crafted like the most skilful sculptor would chisel out a statue (almost certainly a nude), all ready to be submitted to the evil Football365 overlords for them to raise either their thumb or their middle finger.
Then your fearless correspondent discovered Andros Townsend had been voted man of the match in Tottenham's 3-1 League Cup win over Nottingham Forest, and everything changed. The world stopped spinning. The entire focus of the universe became concentrated on courageously righting this heinous wrong.
Well, obviously the wrong can't actually be righted, because while Profile365 obviously has huge influence (according to the F365 number-crunchers it's read by upwards of seven people), there's no way of rescinding said award, presumably decided by co-commentator Alan Smith, a pleasant enough man but who could not possibly have been paying attention if he thought Townsend was anything but 5 ft 11 of frustration on Wednesday night.
Or any other night. Or day. Or morning if Spurs ever start a game at 10am. Townsend is the ultimate player who looks dangerous, threatening and quite good, but is in reality none of those things. He's basically an English Ryan Babel, a professional at little more than flattering to deceive. Most people who have ever watched him play will know how every Townsend performance plays out: he gets the ball on the wing, cuts inside and yahoos what is theoretically a shot miles away from where it might be useful to anyone apart from the opposition defence. Repeat to fade.
Townsend is like a writer who uses dozens of adjectives but forgets about verbs, who'll fill a page with purple prose without actually telling you anything. Insert your own 'glass houses' gag here. Those quick runs allow him to do a decent impression of a dangerous attacking threat, before disproving that by doing two-fifths of sod all once his pace has put him in a position to be useful. Nick Hornby once said of Thierry Henry's early days at Arsenal, when he struggled to be anything like the gliding genius he turned out to be, that his pace was a curse, that it simply put him in more situations in which he could demonstrate his incompetence.
It's similar with Townsend; without his pace, he would barely be a professional footballer, never mind one who has international caps. Admittedly, that statement is mildly daft and writing off pace, a legitimate footballing attribute, is not especially helpful (it's a bit like saying if Robin van Persie couldn't shoot he'd be rubbish). However, it feels a legitimate statement in this case because that's more or less all Townsend seems to have.
Townsend delivered a masterclass in Townsend, a self-parody cartoon Townsend performance against Forest, running very quickly at defenders, occasionally beating them then shanking a shot high into the Park Lane End. He went close with one free-kick, twanging it off the bar, but even stopped clocks nearly tell the right time occasionally. If you consult the stats you may notice that he registered an assist against Forest, which perfectly displays the problem with placing too much faith in such numbers, given this 'assist' was a dreadfully-dragged shot that was heading a good five yards wide, but was smartly turned home by Roberto Soldado.
He plays football a bit like a drunk toddler with a nerf gun, barrelling around the place, knocking a few things over then firing harmlessly into the ceiling. Again and again and again. You know exactly what you're going to get from Townsend, the problem being that 'what' isn't anything particularly useful. The old Shane Warne line about Monty Panesar not playing 17 Test matches, but playing one Test 17 times, rings true here.
About a year ago you might call Townsend overrated, but that's not really the case anymore (apart from by Alan Smith, apparently) as his presence in the Spurs side on Wednesday, along with assorted other stiffs and back-ups, might suggest. He hasn't been a first-teamer at White Hart Lane for a while now (he last started a league game in March, left on the bench for the remainder) and, although that is partly down to injury, it's also partly down to him not being very good at football, as a couple of managers seem to have now worked out. If Tim Sherwood can spot that you're a fraud, then it's probably time to pause and think about where your career is going.
Townsend has essentially enjoyed two spells of decent form in his career: on loan at QPR the season before last, when Harry Redknapp was roundly patted on the back for getting the best from this enigmatic tyro while the rest of the side were quietly being relegated, and the start of last term after his return to Spurs. During this time he appeared to have recalibrated those errant shooting boots and a few of those shots went into the goal rather than row Z, notably an excellent strike for England against Montenegro.
It was this goal that convinced many that he was the great wide hope of English football, a man who would run at defenders and cause havoc, but these goals were outliers, almost statistical freaks, and he would revert to type soon enough. Townsend is a bit like the archetypal old-fashioned big man that gets touted for an England cap every couple of years (Michael Ricketts, Kevin Davies, Grant Holt etc), in that he'll hustle and he'll bustle and look dangerous for a while, but will ultimately be found out. He's the man who'll 'put it about a bit', but not really achieve anything of note. He'll achieve this nothing at some pace, but it'll still be nothing.
Quite what Daniel Levy, a man never shy of robbing opposing chairmen blind (he should have 'turned a profit on Mido' tattooed on his chest then written on his headstone), was thinking when he turned down a reported £12m bid from Southampton this summer, isn't clear. Bullet dodged by the wily Saints, there.
Not for Spurs, though. They're stuck with him for the foreseeable, a banjaxed Eric Lamela hamstring or popped Nacer Chadli Achilles away from seeing Townsend in their first team every week. He's no good, everyone, and it's important that as many people as possible know this.
Now, anyone got Alan Smith's phone number?[/article]
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