Kicking the wrong end of the donkey…

Sunderland is reputedly to be from the Anglo Saxon “to part,” the only thing you want to do when you get there. Spurs will be happy to see the back of the place for another year, probably more if Sunderland continue to play looking for draws at home and riding their luck.

Jol has decided the blame for the opening match loss at Sunderland was with the strikers. If the defence had, first, earned what should have been an easy clean sheet for the Lilywhites I might have agreed with the man but, under the circumstances, I don’t. Lucky goals scored in the referee’s added on optional time- 93m05s found the goal in the back of the net, are all well and good and part of the excitement of the game. Haplessly conceded goals against unimaginative opponents barely willing to cross their laid out Maginot line across midfield while playing at home is entirely another.

Spurs were without their first choice defence of King and Dawson. YP-Lee, Ekotto and Bale were all unavailable on the left. That meant the only first choice defensive person on the field for Tottenham was Chimbonda leaving Kaboul alongside Gardner and Stalteri on the left.

It was, then, ironic that it was Chimbonda that was caught ball- watching while the man he was meant to be marking planted the ball in the back of the net. The less- than- brilliant Stalteri had played above himself all match, making him a passable left back, but had been unable to stop a cross coming in from Tottenham’s left. Gardner, having made his one horrendous cock- up for the match and gotten away with it, stuck to his man as the ball sailed overhead. The one bright point was Kaboul who had been all but outstanding and will be a great alongside Dawson on his return.

The strikers who Jol jumped on were swamped by a 10-man defence. Without any natural wide players to stretch the northerner’s defence it was like trying to play your way through an old- fashioned London phone booth. With dodgier accents and a coal mine next door.

In the end fourth- choice defenders are fourth- choice for a reason. Hopefully Dawson will return for the visit of Everton.

 midnightjester