Friday, July 18, 2008

Are We Tottenham In Disguise?

I read a comment on CaughtOffside the other day that was quite disturbing. We're taking pride in the way we play, rather than the results. It's a bit complacent. We're a big club in England, and we should be aiming for trophies, not appeasing armchair asthetes.

It's Tottenham-esque.

I admit I'm falling into this trap as well. Our thin, callow squad is so frustrating that it's easy to think that results don't matter, and that beautiful tiki-taka football is an ends to itself. It's a lot easier on my heart than to lose 0-1 to a Middlesborough because we're rubbish at set pieces.

However, the object of professional football is to win things. That should be the primary objective. Asethetics and style should be secondary. I remember Rijkaard saying that Barcelona plays the way they play because they think it's the most effective winning strategy. That should be our mindset as well.

Kudos to Wenger for having a vision and sticking with it. It takes a lot of guts to dismantle a side that's been very successful and rebuild based on youth. And he's pulled it off before, and shown that he CAN perform minor miracles. But it's a bit frustrating when he's sticking to his vision at the expense of the primary objective - to win stuff.

To an outsider, we were so close last year. We ran out of steam because of our thin squad and lack of inexperience. And if we'd done something in January, we could've been champions. And now, we're back where we were last year - thin squad, good players leaving, and shitting ourselves because there's no light at the end of the tunnel.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Wenger should pull his finger out and buy an experienced, monstrous centre-half.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I totally agree, what we have had in the past is a strong ENGLISH backbone. Adams was a great leader from the back and controlled the defence. Then big Sol was there to keep it tight, i know we have Kolo who is a rock but still i think we are lacking, expecially when Wenger put him at right back. Its all very wellplaying attacking football but when we concede silly goals it is so frustrating for teh fans and the players. I know there is more chance of Wenger seeing our bad tackles but if we signed Barry it would give us a bit English strength in a defensive position. What really really need is a John Terry or Rio at the heart of our defense and as our leader.

WEG said...

Jim, I'm not sure that he necessarily has to be English. He just needs to be brutish and a bit of a jerk. We all thought Gallas would be that, but... he wasn't enough of a thug.

Anonymous said...

Tottenham in disguise... Shudder. I know what you mean but we're a long way off that. I'm keeping the faith for a little longer.

Mind you, if a complete hulking bastard suddenly appeared in the back four with one of Ronaldo's testicles under each boot I wouldn't complain too hard either.