"In full flow, Spurs have that look of a vintage Man United about them..."

[sloth]

"In full flow, Spurs have that look of a vintage Man United about them, don’t they? It’s a fairly simplistic style of play (regularly utilizing width, crosses, fast interplay, etc) but with the right players it’s darn effective."

AshburtonGhost - Arsenal Mania (http://arsenal-mania.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=99781&start=690)

Is he right?

 

[worcestersauce]

Not sure but it's certainly more Man utd than it is arsenal.

 

[Mr Pink]

I saw that statement last night...an element of truth to it, but I actually think that we have great interplay - pass and move on show too.

I actually think we tick a lot of boxes and arn't that easy to label as such. Its a real strength and demonstrates the variety in quality we actually have. We can mix it up...but with Lennon and Bale we can be devestating in terms of direct running, particularly with the latter who has serious technique. But we also can pass and move very well as a side. Modric and VDV have the ability to produce real moments of quality and Huddlestone offers a great base to launch quick attacks from and helps us retain good possession. If up against it we have the option to go long to Crouch but obviously we dont want to see too much of that - but its an option if needed.

Its what you do with the ball when you have it is what really counts, and on our day we use it brillantly. If we had that CF we all crave I am convinced we would be in a title challenge.

 

[RJ1882]

how many times have you used the word actually?

 

[Zimmy]

how many times have you used the word actually?

lol

I actually prefer our quick attacking style to the Scum's self indulgent fifty sideways passes before they decide to shoot style.

Actually.

 

[Mr Pink]

how many times have you used the word actually?

Actually why don't you do the maths and tell me

To be fair I have had a few quite a few beers lol...

 

[Mr Pink]

but I do actually like the word actually so I see no reason in using it actually!!!

Actually I'll grab my coat!

and my beer!

I am still buzzing though...

 

[mattwilson]

how many times have you used the word actually?

nearly as many times as ledley king uses Y'KNOW

 

[Mr Pink]

nearly as many times as ledley king uses Y'KNOW

God Love our Ledley, he does use that turn of phrase constantly!!!

 

[MattyP]

Unusually, really enjoyed reading the following article in today's standard.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/stand...e-bares-his-teeth---unlike-one-unlucky-fan.do

The Tubes may have been on strike but the Spurs fans weren't last night.

The sight of Samuel Eto'o, Wesley Sneijder, Maicon, and all the rest walking out of the tunnel at White Hart Lane was what this whole first quarter of the season has been building up to: hello dear champions of Italy, champions of Europe and treble winners! Hello, citizens of historic Milan! Welcome to the Seven Sisters Road.

Not that Inter got a fond welcome. Things just got serious, as they say in the movies. Even though most of the crowd came hoping for a point at least, they began the match almost as raucously as they finished it.

The noise that billowed up from every stand at every critical point of the 90 minutes had a rich, round quality, swelling around and up into the tinny roof of the Lane like the plainsong of 10,000 bawdy brethren.

There was a percentage ratchet in the volume every time Gareth Bale touched the ball. How they now adore the leggy, brilliant Welshman, who endears like none other with his willingness to hare furiously up and down the left wing. With his bustle and his concentrated gangle, he bears an agreeable resemblance to Lanky Kong, the spritely orangutan from Nintendo's Donkey Kong franchise.

The more that Bale tortured Maicon, the more the Spurs fans hollered.

Taxi for Maicon', they chortled by the end. But it wasn't just Spurs' wonderful, simian No3 that sent the Lane bananas. (Sorry). There was also the buy of the season, Rafael van der Vaart.

Harry Redknapp has a reputation as a wily mover in the transfer market but this may have been his finest, smartest acquisition yet. Spurs took a considered financial gamble on Real Madrid's unwanted Dutchman and his assured Champions League performances are vindicating every dime they spent.

Even though niggling injury restricted him to a half last night, he opened the scoring and set the tone of the game. He gives Spurs fans hope and poise every time they step out into one of these midweek European games.

No wonder the Lane is going round the bend. Lanky Kong, Van der Vaart and another, even limb-ier Spurs acquisition, Peter Crouch: these three have been the manic triumverate in Spurs' wildly brilliant style of play at home in Europe this season.

I use wildly' quite deliberately. There is something mad-eyed about the way Redknapp's team has been going about their business. The same raving genius that one always imagined to be glittering in the eye of Abraham Van Helsing as he rampaged between west London and the gypsy trails of central Europe; or that shimmered in the lens of J Robert Oppenheimer as the original big one went off in New Mexico, back in 1945.

The idea that there is a fine line between genius and madness, you see, is a fallacy. Sometimes there's no line at all.

The genius in what Spurs did last night — throwing everything they had at Inter, was completely potty. European wisdom would have forbidden it. To play a timid anything but a gritty 4-5-1 ought to have been kamikaze — as indeed it was in the San Siro.

Instead, as Spurs poured forward last night, it felt like a Fangio drive: so fast, so dangerous, so close to the edge, that magic was created in looking on in wonder that the bugger never killed himself. But Spurs, like Fangio, keep racing on: fast, and mad and furious. They top their group now, mad as it is. They are the idiots savants of north London — and I mean that as the highest compliment.

Oh, and here's a thing. I've been trying to capture here quite how pulsating, how compelling Spurs have been in the Champions League this season. But sometimes anecdote does the job better than hyperbole.

So here are two vignettes from last night that were just real illustrators.

At the end of an astonishingly entertaining first half, I slipped out of my seat in search of a paper cup of sweet, chalky norf London tea. As I came out, I encountered a lovely, terribly disturbed young stewardess tugging at her boss's sleeve. A Spurs fan, in the melee that followed Van der Vaart's opener, had spat out his dentures and lost them entirely.

Freeze that image. And then think on this. As I marched down the street after full time, the road alive with joyous choruses of Taxi for Maicon', a group of Somalian minicab drivers were dancing in the street, proclaiming themselves, against all likelihood, to be recruits to the Yid Army'.

Now if those two images don't somehow symbolise what Spurs' season is turning out to mean to the people round here, then I dunno what possibly could.

 

[Mr Pink]

Thats brillant!!!

 

[Zimmy]

Brilliant article, wonderfully written as well which is quite a novelty for a football report.

 

[hybridsoldier]

I think we have a very direct style of play which is where the similarity comes from. It's good cos I think Arsenal piss about with it too much and genuinely don't like watching them as its just too overworked and overplayed.

Darren Lewis though really got on my tits today, claiming Bale's wing peformance was the best since Beckham v Madrid for Man U or Beckham v Greece. WTF?!?!?! Completely different styles of player, I don't remember David Beckham ever "dominating" a game!

I think we are not too far from playing some of the stuff Madrid played today which at times was scarily intricate yet direct

 

[trevo]

I think the writer's a Yid (actually).

 

[spurdownunder]

Actually grin I didn't see anything in our performance that resembled a bunch of cheating, diving, ref provoking, whinging, arrogant ****s. So really, we're nothing like Utd!

We are Tottenham, Super Tottenham from the Lane.

 

[spurdownunder]

Harry Redknapp has a reputation as a wily mover in the transfer market but this may have been his finest, smartest acquisition yet.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Levy call Harry after the deadline and say "I got a start of season gift for you chum"?

Didn;t think Harry had anything to do with the VDV signing?

 

[jamesc0le]

''a group of Somalian minicab drivers were dancing in the street, proclaiming themselves, against all likelihood, to be recruits to the Yid Army'.

brilliant. say what you like about the moslomans but they know good footy when they see it..

 

[Zimmy]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Levy call Harry after the deadline and say "I got a start of season gift for you chum"?

Didn;t think Harry had anything to do with the VDV signing?

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

 

[Zimmy]

Also it's a very rare that our fans liberal usage of the word 'yid' is mentioned in any mainstream newspaper.

 

[camaj]

Beckham? When I picture him it's as someone slightly faster than David bentley who can put amazing balls into the box when he's got space.