Two out of three ain't bad

Spurs' Christmas round-up.

Spurs 5 Fulham 1 (Boxing Day)

Had guests for the day so only caught up with this game on teletext and highlights on Match of the Day. Didn't look a very exciting game but what the heck when we score five goals courtesy of two from Keane, two from Huddlestone and one from Defoe. The good news was that club captain Ledley King made his long-awaited return from injury and played out the 90 minutes.


Spurs 6 Reading 4 (29 Dec)

I was at the Lane for this one and what a thriller it turned out to be. I think you can safely say we got our money's worth! However, if I don't get a pacemaker fitted soon, I fear the worst because the emotional rollercoaster that the Spurs put you through is hard to take. Spurs have the highest aggregate of goals scored per game in the entire Premiership, followed by Reading so it was hardly going to be 0-0.

At 1-0 up after 7 minutes courtesy of Berbatov, it looked as if Spurs were going to cruise it. Hehe, how wrong you can be! Defensively, our lads were all over the place again and the equaliser hardly surprisingly came from a set piece. Robbo came to punch but didn't get enough on the ball; it landed at the feet of Cisse and Robbo couldn't recover. Keane should've put Spurs in the lead just before half time when he missed Berba's cross by centimetres. That's the way it stayed until half time and the game was not exactly a spectacle at that point.

The second half was probably the best you'll see all season from an entertainment point of view. No doubt Ramos et al won't see it that way as conceding that many goals at home is not good.
After both teams had a chance, Reading took the lead from a corner when again no-one managed to defend the header. Spurs then had a very bad spell and looked all over the place - a complete mess in fact. If Reading had taken one of their chances, it may have been game over but against the run of play, Berbatov got got his second, blasting it into the net from a lucky rebound. Game on. This is when it started to look like a game of ping-pong - every time there was an attack, it seemed to end up with a goal. 3-2 Reading, 3-3 Berbatov hatrick - his first for the club. This was a cheeky goal, letting the ball fall to his feel before swivelling and almost 'passing' the ball into the net. 4-3 Reading, 4-4 Malbranque, 5-4 Spurs - Keano missed another penalty but Defoe headed in the rebound. However, he clearly encroached into the area and the penalty should have been retaken. The referee missed it - never mind eh?! Finally, 6-4 to Spurs and Berba gets his fourth with another walloping shot! Hooray!
By this time, my heart was racing, my head was spinning and I felt completely drained, partly because of my cold. I don't think anybody could believe what they were seeing. England won't need it for a while so I really think we should adopt the 'Great Escape' theme tune.












Aston Villa 2 Spurs 1 (1 Jan)

This one was live on Sky. King was rested and Chimbonda was out which meant Zokora covering at right back. A drab game, nothing much to report really. No Spurs player stood out as having a great game. Keano was dropped in favour of Defoe, who did absolutely nothing all match except when he popped up to score an amazing equaliser. Spurs let themselves down yet again by poor defending from set pieces (jeez, I'm sounding like a cracked record) but whoever the manager is, it doesn't seem to make an iota of difference because the players just can't get to grip with marking and jumping to defend headers. Every time there's a corner or free kick, you can almost put money on the fact that Spurs will concede a goal. However, I think our lads at least deserved one point. :(