Impressive pre-season

It was nice to be back at the Lane today after the summer break, although I had pretty much cut myself off from football for the past couple of months. After meeting up with Debs & Mick at the Coach n' 'Horses, it was the final friendly before the new season, with the opponents being AS Roma. On paper this would be a test but it was far from it. Spurs were 2-0 up within four minutes and it was a stroll. Throughout the whole match Roma did nothing so resorted to playing dirty. After Mexes used the V sign on the ref, he then went on to gesture to the crowd (more fool him) because he then made a fatal error and Spurs scored. He was of course branded a wanker for the rest of the game. Next, a punch landed on Zokora who stupidly retaliated and it was our man who was yellow-carded with the opponent getting away with it scot free! Following this, Lennon got hacked down and this time a red was shown. Roma were truly shocking, whereas Spurs had some great spells with the new signings Bentley, Dos Santos, Gomes and Modric looking impressive. Darren Bent scored another two, Bentley also two and Lennon the other.

Line up: Gomes, Assou-Ekotto, Woodgate, Dawson, Zokora, Jenas, Dos Santos, Modric, Bentley, Berbatov, Bent

Subs used: Jansson, Bale, Gunter, King, Huddlestone, O'Hara, Gilberto, Lennon

The fans were successful getting waves from Gus, Gomes & eventually Juande Ramos, after someone on the bench must have translated for him! The usual chants were heard but I must say, I was very disappointed to hear a lot of jeers (to put it mildly) for Keano who left for Liverpool a couple of weeks previous. How a player can be a fans' favourite one minute and then hated the next is beyond me. Yes, I was really upset that he transferred but it's his career we're talking about - I say good luck to him and he will certainly get a good reception from me when he returns to the Lane with Liverpool.

Poor old John turned up in his Keane 10 shirt and had a few laughs directed his way. He's now talking about getting a black away shirt, the same as mine. All the Spurs shops had the longest queues I'd ever seen outside so it will have to wait until another day.

So the completed list of pre-season friendlies is as follows:

Norwich 1-5 Spurs
Leyton Orient 1-5 Spurs
Celtic 0-2 Spurs
Borussia Dortmund 0-3 Spurs
Spurs 5-0 AS Roma

The first game of the new season started with a trip to Boro. Let's hope the lads can keep up the good performances and not repeat what happened last time!