- Jan 23, 2006
- 26,894
- 45,042
I have been laid up for a few weeks following a bit of major surgery and so have been a little out of the SC loop which has left me time to sit back and ponder, to muse a little on our club and our season.
After 10 games it has become clear that this is not the season anyone thought it would be, some of us were more optimistic than others but nobody and I mean nobody would have predicted that we would be in a relegation place at this time.
Forget the Juande Ramos episode, we had already lost to Sunderland and Everton by that stage and a win against Derby doesn’t, on reflection, appear to be the event it did at the time so there must be more to it than that.
We have the same players as last year plus Bale, Kaboul and Bent all of whom will prove to be great signings over the next decade so even if their contribution didn’t count thus far we shouldn’t be worse than last year.
Have we been found out? Have other teams now worked out our weaknesses or have we done it to ourselves? I think it’s a bit of both but one thing I am sure of is that currently we cannot control a game or kill a game which gives the opposition a chance and this year they seem to know it, added to which we don’t seem to have a great variation in our play to change things enough during a game.
Possibly all of these things count but I can’t help thinking that there is one thing that stands out above all others and that is that with the exception of Gareth Bale I can point to no other player who is playing well and to their potential and Robbie Keane has been our only player offering any creativity.
Now I am not offering up just another opportunity to slag off our players here I am serious, they are not playing well this season so what’s to do, sell them? Kick them out? Buy ten new players?
Cobblers is it and we should know it by now, we should also know that Robbo is deservedly England’s number 1, Chimbo is a terrific right back, Dawson is a brick at the back, Lennon can leave the best defenders for dead, Berbatov is different class, Bent is a 20 goal a year striker and Huddlestone can drop a ball on a bottle top from 30 yards however this season you wouldn’t know it.
So what’s my point? Well just that we need a reappraisal of our hopes and expectations; what is it realistic to hope for this year?
League success of any kind is no longer an option to us this season as these players are not going to put it right next week, it will take time, but that in itself is cause for optimism, time is all it will take, eventually they will come good and if they are all out of sorts at the same time it’s reasonable to expect that they will come good together.
We are not shit, our players are not shit and we won’t be shit or near the bottom three at the end of January, however we won’t be challenging for CL or Uefa places and so this year has to be a cup year for us starting with the Uefa and League cups and then the FA cup by which time we ought to have got ourselves back on stream.
My point therefore is stop beating ourselves up about our league position, it will improve but it won’t be good so let it go and look forward to our other opportunities which are pretty damn good, my prediction is that Chimbo will settle down again along with Dawson, Robbo will be a giant between the posts again, Lennon will in the course of this season find his booster boots and start to rip teams to shreds again, Berbs will again be different class, Bent will turn it on and when they do this Hudd will have the bottle tops to drop the ball on, Keano will start banging them in and Jenas will again have the various options to link together with his endless running.
Add to this the return of Mr King and our diminutive other twenty goal a year man Jermain Defoe and my heart begins to soar, faith is restored and hope springs eternal.
But we can’t go on picking over the bones of every league result that doesn’t go our way, navel gazing diverts your eyes from the future which, by the way, is bright, it is still, in fact, Lily White.