Watching the Tottenham game again in the cold light of day it was really clear that our performance was far better than in some previous games and that overall we were rather unlucky not to come away with at least a point. We controlled long periods of the first half and cut open Spurs several times, Gervinho and Walcott the most guilty of missing excellent clear cut chances. Spurs looked like the away side, struggling to get hold of the ball, completely outplayed in midfield and relying on the occasional counter attack.
One key moment that went against us was Van der Vaart's deliberate handball for their opener, it was overt cheating, he had no chance of controlling the ball without using his arm, he knew exactly what he was doing and his sly use of the arm enabled him to score. If we had technology, this would have been a second yellow card to Van der Vaart and no goal to Tottenham, surely it must be time for technology.
The sad thing was that after the deserved Ramsey equaliser came following some excellent work from Song down the left flank, we didn't go on to win the game, we fell away and lost it. The negative for me was how wasteful we were in the final third, Gervinho and Walcott were frequently the chief culprits, we found time and space in dangerous areas again and again, but too often the wrong option was taken or the final ball was simply not good enough. The lack of a defensive shield in front of the back four was rather evident for Walker's winner, Song made a great initial block, but Walker was afforded far too much time and space in a dangerous area, we need to protect our back four far better in the future.
The other major negative was our lack of quality attacking options to change the game from the bench. We have precious little striking backup to RVP and this is a major concern, personally I find it very strange that we didn't bring on Park, Chamakh didn't even make the bench. Arshavin came on but he hardly scares a mouse these days, let alone a defender, while Benayoun didn't really get into the game.
There were some significant positives, Francis Coquelin was superb, outshining Scott Parker by a country mile, repeatedly tackling the gravity prone Modric and looking a general class act in the centre of the midfield. It will be a great shame if Coquelin has to move to right back now as a result of Bacary Sagna's unfortunate injury that sees him out action for at least 2 months or so. Arteta look calm and assured throughout, running the game for the most part. Kieran Gibbs had a very solid game, his best of the season thus far in my opinion.
Overall Tottenham were rather fortunate to come away with a win and the way in which their management and players behaved after the game summed up the complete lack of class that the club has. Clive 'chav' Allen's behaviour after the game was more befitting of a hooligan that someone who works for a football club, while Harry Redknapp's rose tinted view of the chants from both sets of supporters took the piss. Given the disgusting violence and abuse that Tottenham fans have dished out in recent seasons it is thoroughly hypocritical of Redknapp to drone on about the abuse dished out to Adebayor.
Firstly Adebayor is a shit of an individual. He is a self-obsessed egotistial waste of space. He has repeatedly shown that he is a lazy arrogant individual and not worthy of much respect, his own rank unpopularity with his own team mates at several clubs prove his status as one of the biggest idiots around. The Daily Wail tried to turn Adebayor into some kind of saint, hardly wise journalism and utterly lacking in any kind of perspective, shadowing Redknapp's pathetic hypocritical comments from after the game. It is worth remembering that Spurs fans dished out just as bad to Adebayor when he didn't have a Spurs shirt on, strange how the media and Redknapp were so quiet when this occurred.
It is not the first time that the media have spun things in Tottenham's favour, it is well worth remembering that some rather disgraceful chants continue to be directed at our manager but he does not drone on about it after games, it is also worth remembering that Spurs fans have launched violent assaults on our team bus in the past with the media saying far less than they have done recently in trying to protect Adebayor's 'dignity'. Adebayor has very little dignity left, he epitomises the modern day football mercenary, a money grabbing whore who has sold his soul for hard cash.
Anyway moving onto AFC's financial results, I would suggest you all read this excellent summary by SwissRamble which points out just where we need to improve in the years ahead. This is a critical period for football with revenues generally dwindling, and for us it is even more key, we have some big commercial deals up for renegotiation in a couple of years time and it is vital that our footballing results don't drop off in the meantime as the combination could be quite catastrophic. In my opinion we have to do three key things, maximise our commercial revenues, keep achieving on the field and restructure our antiquated wage structure. The problem is that two of these things cannot be forced in terms of time, while turning around the current football results is going to take some doing.