Not fine
Spurs News 24/7General musings from this past week.
UEFA, Serbian FA and the 80k Euro 'fine'. Not sure it's even worth bothering with fines as they are so insignificant in comparison to the money that exists in football and it doesn't serve more than an administrative afterthought. It doesn't resolve anything or truly punish anyone. It doesn't have a tangible impact aside from a slap on the wrist which is forgotten about soon after the next racist incident rears its head to blow kisses at the limp authorities that turn the other way. Not even sure how the England players charged are accountable but then why am I surprised? Not sure the point of all this is to understand what the **** is going on. Kick racism out, right? So ban guilty clubs/national sides from competitions.
Advertisers. Revenue.
Oh. Okay. Keep it as it is then. It's obviously working out nicely for some.
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Jan Vertonghen and Arsenal once more in the papers. Did someone ask a loaded question to perhaps aid with the current 'crisis' narrative humping Wenger's leg? We've heard this story twice before already but now with a new twist. Apparently they wanted him in a midfield role akin to Emmanuel Petit. I guess we should be grateful he didn't jump in a cab and drive up the Seven Sisters.
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AVB. Even if it turns out he's just full of hot air, what utterly breathable hot air it is compared to dead end vanity driven soundbites.
1) "The players we are trying to bring in and have here also embrace that philosophy which we want to carry into the future. Being at Spurs is great because of the philosophy of the club want to implement, what I think about football and the way we should play. I think we should have a go, play well and be open." - via Twitter Q&A
2) "I have encountered a tremendous group of people, staff & players. (It was) important to get (a) positive response, which we have had since we arrived. It has been an exciting five months and we hope we can keep doing well in order to repay the confidence given to us from the beginning." - Twitter again
3) On conceding late: "I went through a similar situation before and it goes away through time, through practice, through experience...We don't want to carry this further and I think we all recognise that...In these last moments of a game a lot of things are happening to us, and we want to shut it out. We have to incentivise the players on the positives, recognising there is things we can do better...but trying to revert what is a negative statistic."
Theoretically, if he joined us when we were a mid-table side you'd welcome it. If he leaves us in mid-table it will mean that any future managerial quotes should forever be dismissed as...er...soundbites.
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We could have signed Michu according to Tim Sherwood. Can we wait until the end of the season to see if this turns out to be regretful? Signing players of the moment using hindsight is never a good thing.
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Paul Marriner visited our training centre for the clubs twice annual 'talk' with a Prem League ref. So the opportunity was taken for Bale, AVB and Marriner to discuss Bale and diving.
'It generated a useful conversation where Gareth explained his points of views and the referee explained theirs. Referees have to judge in the end as per what they see. And it is not easy for them, bearing in mind Gareth's characteristics. That's the nature of the game. It's a difficult situation for them to judge and Gareth was very complimentary of them as it's not easy to assess what they will do when this situation happens.' - Villas-Boas
So basically, players and refs see things differently. A player sees himself falling to the ground as as a consequence of one action and the ref also sees said player falling to the ground but has two options in terms of the responsible action. All Bale has to concern himself with is only falling when he's been knocked off balance or trying to get out of the way. The latter has to have a decisive 'get up from the ground and dust off' approach rather than a sneaky look over to the ref and collapsing swan finish. Forget about the refs, just make sure you don't add to the ambiguity.
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Swansea have never won a match at White Hart Lane in 14 attempts. Via @SpursStatMan.
Jinxed it, haven't I?
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Adel Taarabt. Sold by Spurs and Redknapp scores twice to give QPR their first win this season in the league. Redknapp claims he never wanted to sell him whilst at Spurs. I honestly thought long and hard about writing in a clever punchline here but I don't think it's necessary.
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Liverpool lose 3-1 at Anfield against Aston Villa. I expect the English media and Sky Sports to 'come down on him like a ton of bricks'.
Sorry, I meant lay him on a satin bed and serenade him whilst handing him feather pillows.
