The Strutting Cockerel - Will the real Spurs please stand-up

August 2024

Two games in and we're none the wiser as to which version of Spurs we're going to witness the most this season. Don't get me wrong, that first half, against a very ordinary and stoic Leicester, was full of vim and vigour - but, with the finishing skills of a lazy deb out of a posh Swiss School for 'gals. It produced enough to give one hope the second half would be different. Not so.....

What is it about our wondrous squad that makes panic the thing we revert to most when we go backwards? Our defending at times makes the Keystone Cops look organised and yet we had good 'ballers' all over the pitch. Leicester deserved nothing from that game but gained very nearly everything! Ol' man Vardy stuck the knife in and gave it a 90 degree turn, in the direction of Cuti, after he'd done sufficient damage and deservedly - aged 37 - left the field with a gloat and a farewell '**** Off' the cameraman could not have failed to pick up!

All in all, lovely football at times - shades of what might be coming down the track, but we were ring rusty everywhere on the pitch. Mr Solanke your supporters expect! OK, well it was the first game of the season.....and we were away.........meh! I just hate that meh feeling!

And so to the first game at our own gaffe - and still the most beguiling stadium in the UK!

Let's make no bones about it, if Leicester were stoic and ordinary, Everton were like a dying horse in need of a bullet. Another 5/6 games espousing that that sort of effort will be enough to keep them in the division and Mr Dyche won't be leading any Everton side out at Bramley Dock next year!

Again, we started brightly - pretty well in fact. The first 20 minutes made my 2a.m. tea taste sweet and Bovril on toast just as wondrous as it's always been!

'Biss' returned, slightly less light headed. Apparently having skulked like a teenage 'Kevin' all last week, he rewarded us less delirious supporters, with his first goal for the club (an ode to Laughing Gas - stay away from our Biss you hippy, cracky, sweet air drug disguised as a good time charlie - mate!). New boy Bertie out on the left wing, looked a good bet - plenty of go forward trickery and always in the play. The only factor we could be accused of was limp finishing again. Were Everton actually out there I thought at one stage? Surely our press would be enough to see the Toffees self implode from a lack of......anything really! And so it proved. Sonny steaming full pelt at Pickford was only going to end the way it did. The rest as they say was history.....or so you'd think post-reviewing a 4-0 scoreline. Except those Cops made another cameo appearance in the guise of head-tennis players in our 6 yard box. Nothing to worry about.....it was only Everton!

Cuti Romero makes this episode's gallery. Last season's highest scoring defender in the League he's started well this season too. Gave the ball away too much vs. Everton for my liking, but delivered a couple of telling intercepts to boot - so he's let off for good behaviour.... and of course he scored our third. Big 'ups' to Mickey VdV - who is fast becoming the CB everybody is talking about but can't catch (well, not my mum obviously!). Hands Off! - d'ya hear? Lovely 80yd run from the marauding Dutchman that....but it was only Everton.....

The Toon Army next - revenge for the Do or Die friendly in Melly back in May - Up'd norff it is as well! Lets hope the Cops are assigned a different shift, we finally see where Johnson is hiding his scoring boots, and pussy-footing in their penalty area is outlawed in favour of a good old fashioned 'welly'.

COYS!

Richard