Dispatches from the Relegation Zone: Mrs. Redknapp Edition

It may be time for a new strike partner for Jermain Defoe

Prose simply cannot do this justice. With apologies to Frank O'Hara:

Am I to become profligate as if I were Darren Bent? Or impracticable
as if I were Welsh?

Each time a Spurs player is knocked off the ball it makes me feel more contemptuous
(and how the same names keep recurring on that interminable
list!), but one of these days there’ll be no Premier League football left with
which to venture forth...

I am the least difficult of men. All I want is a striker who can stick home a header from A HALF-YARD OUT!!

Alas, Harry Redknapp is not one to confront emergency with a meditation. We'd say Harry is a bit more direct than that. He says things like, "My missus could have scored that one!"... and "I was out of my seat to celebrate and David James was waiting to pick the ball out of the net." He says, "I'd send Gareth Bale back to Southampton with a laverbread in return and call it a huge boost considering!" Actually, he didn't say that last part. We'd have liked it if he did.

What else would we like?
Big ups to Bigus on the photoshop


As Spurs supporters (not fans, the only thing I'm fanatical about this moment is never seeing Gareth Bale at left back ever again... let this Dark Night pass!) yes, yes, the supporters-- what we'd like is some competence.

The team is obviously flawed. There's more balance at Bellevue. More depth in my bathtub. But that doesn't excuse utter ineptitude. And that's why Bent's disaster cuts so deep. It's not that a more talented striker would have been more likely to score. It's that an even significantly lesser player would have been no less disappointed with the miss.

This is the story of the Tottenham team. It is a story of individuals failing to do their jobs. In New York, men are landing passenger jets on water. At White Hart Lane, they couldn't head a football into the Thames.

Incompetence.

At Wigan, one week before. This is the team our beloved Harry picked to take on the surging Latics:

Gomes

Corluka --- Dawson --- Woodgate --- Bale

King

Zokora --- O'Hara

Modric

Pavlyuchenko --- Defoe

Now, here is a verse from the Radiohead song, "Morning Bell."

The lights are on but nobody's home
Everybody wants to be a
The lights are on but nobody's home
Everybody wants to be a singer
Walking walking walking...

Please compare these two bits of poetry-- a teamsheet is a bit like poetry, no? Like ee Cummings maybe. Now tell me, of the above, which is more reasonable? I'd have to say honestly, truly, the Radiohead lyrics make more sense.***

Surely there is a fix. UF's resident Spurs supporter Phil and I bang on about it whenever the subject appears. The menu reads as such: defensive midfield player, new striker, cover in defense, and a backup keeper the manager will use if his starting keeper is crippled on the field of the play. If the Palacios deals goes down, and it's looking good, the midfield would be vastly improved. If he were a hockey player, they'd say of the Honduran, "He finishes his checks." (Not to be confused with the rest of the lot, who just endorse theirs...)

Palacios could be our new age Edgar Davids. Kinda. The Carrick void remains. And will. The left back spot is a gaping hole. I'd try Zokora there. He's a ferocious defender-- a center back in his French league days-- and he's never disappointed when called on to shut down a particular player. Lord knows he can make runs. Let Zokora have a go at left back. Shuffle the three centerbacks. If Bale plays, it's as a winger, though I and everyone else, manager included, prefer O'Hara. Jenas/Huddlestone and Palacios in the middle of the park. Lennon on the wing. Defoe and Mrs. Redknapp up top.

Solved!


***Though you might also say themes of disenchantment and futility run deep in both.