| January 03rd 2000 |
| Spurs 1 Liverpool 0 - League. | ||
| Reds' pre-Millennium good run succumbs to Y2K bug. And without God and St Michael we look as penetrating and dangerous as a Jamie Redknapp through ball. JMac & JJP report.
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The
much-hyped and feared millennium bug eventually proved to be something of a damp squib.
But was it down to the estimated £28 billion we spent in the UK on Y2K bug-fixing or was
it because the issue had been massively over-hyped in the first place? (Answers please to
the cigar-puffing IT consultant lying on a Barbados beach). Following our recent fine run
of results there had been quiet talk that if we 'got a result' at White Hart Lane then we
could begin dreaming of a Champions League place ... or even ... Well, reality hit with almighty bang at Spurs when our over-hyped aspirations were sent packing by an ordinary Spurs side that just wanted the result more than we did. True - without Fowler and Owen up front we expected too much of Titi and were incapable of lending him any real support. Consequently after falling behind to a belter from the edge of the box, whacked home by Armstrong, we were always going to struggle to get back into the game. The issue of squad injuries was never better illustrated by our substitutions made during this game when, in a last-ditch attempt at snatching at least a point, we threw on the awesome attacking prowess of Steve Staunton. JJP says he heard Spurs fans laughing at that one. We have to realise it quickly - the squad (despite GH's assertion that we've strengthened it since 98-99) is threadbare. Three strikers and a midfielder are injured and this squad is unrecognisable from the one in late Autumn which goes to prove that we are a long, long way from being back on track. So that's one game in the year 2000 and no points - blame the millennium bug, Gerard, but for God's sake realise that we have real problems and fix them quick. (JMac) Got to be honest, this was a 1-0 pasting, a 1-0 drubbing. Call it what you want, we were lucky to get nil and all that. For the first time in a while I entered the ground with a sense of foreboding and I left it shaking my head in despair. Things didn't get better when I saw the line-up. For a change the papers where right - no Owen, no Fowler. So it was Titi as a one man band on his own up front, that I could understand because not only are God and the Saint 'injured' but so evidently is Meijer the trier. GH chose to leave Thommo and Danny on the bench, along with Song and I reckoned that would be a wrong move. So it proved because we were hopeless, almost hapless and it was only a combination of Westerveld performing well and Spurs missing chances that we came away losing by just the one goal. Had it been three or four we couldn't have grumbled. Titi ploughed the lone furrow up front and so lacking was he in support he must have wondered if someone had given him the wrong deodorant for Christmas. The midfield played like passing strangers whilst the defence struggled to cope and other than that things went quite well. I'm not jumping on ant bandwagons but at the moment Smicer is not doing himself justice and at times in this game he reminded me of the lost soul that was Leonhardsen a couple of seasons back. Titi went close and pulled a good save out of Walker but Steven Gerrard failed miserably with the follow up. It was one of our few chances but we deserved nothing and we got nothing. It didn't help in anyway to hear that of the teams above us who were bothering to play Leeds and Sunderland both lost whilst Arsenal drew. So the three points lost at White Hart Lane - or even the failure to get just one point - cost us the chance to close a few gaps. On the other hand, I suppose, we are not really any worse off than we were at the outset of the day. The injury situation is causing us problems because we just don't have a squad that is good enough to cope with the current crisis. We haven't got the strength in depth that others have and just a couple of days before this game I read somewhere that Gerard was going to adopt the current trend and "rotate the squad." First of all I would like to see a squad that we can pick from let alone rotate. We've had injury problems before but never quite like this. I also wondered why we didn't take a bit of a gamble and pick the likes of Newby and at least put him on the bench. Bringing Staunton on for Smicer ten minutes from time caused only mirth amongst the support and not a shred of concern amongst the Spurs contingent. We needed some options but had none whatsoever. So we start the new Millennium on a downbeat note but we can hopefully address the problems soon. The Cup is our best chance - only chance really - of success and hopefully by the time they wheel out our side for the game against Blackburn some of the sick and crippled will be on the mend and hopefully some will be on the pitch. Failing that Gerard will need his chequebook and pen to sort things out. (JJP).
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