Looking Forward

Grimsby Town  (Away)

League Cup - Second Round

Tuesday 20th September 2005

Must admit, I don't know too much about Grimsby Town's players, despite the fact that they top League Two.

Ciaran Toner used to feature in our reserves a couple or three seasons back and is an industrious midfielder, but with the wealth of talent in that department now, he might think he was right to leave to find first team football elsewhere.  Michael Reddy was a talented youngster at Sunderland, but he didn't fulfill his potential and left to get back his hunger for the game, which he seems to have found in attack with Gary Jones.  Reddy got two and Jones the other goal on Saturday in their win over bottom of the table Torquay United.

At the other end Steve Mildenhall has been around for a while and his back up is John Lukic ... no, not the old Gooner keeper, but his son !!  Defenders John McDermott and Gary Croft are familiar names.  McDermott has been with the Mariners for years and has come good again even though he is now 36, while Gary Croft has played at a higher level for Blackburn, Ipswich and Cardiff and is mostly remembered for having to wear a Police ankle tag after being convicted of drunk driving.  

Former Tranmere striker Andy Parkinson is a dogged little character, who will snap at the ankles of the Spurs defenders and Martin Gritton has also been around the lower reaches of the League for a while and knows what is required at that level.

More is what will Spurs do.  No Mido (suspended), El Hamdaoui (on loan) or Rasiak (cup-tied) leaves Jol with little option other than to pair Keane and Defoe up front to see if it can work.  Bearing in mind last season's League cup tie at Bolton when the two of them seemed on a mission to outscore the other, it might not be the sublime link-up everyone is hoping.  If they can find it in their hearts to pass to the player in the best position, this might end up a cricket score.

Jol will take the opportunity to give some on pitch time to some fringe players and like the game at Oldham last season, it will give the squad a run-out and give some players a taste of first team action, when they might not have had it for a while. 

Having beaten Derby County (with Rasiak in the side) in the last round and on the back of three straight wins (and six wins out of nine matches in the league), Grimsby will give a good account of themselves, but Spurs will be too strong and with the Defoe/Keane personal goal tally competition going on, we might be restricted to a repeat of our previous League Cup tie at Blundell Park ...

PREDICTION : -   Grimsby Town  1   Tottenham Hotspur  3

For more information on the opponents and their history, including full result history of matches between the two teams, click here.

Coverage

TV :
For coverage in all parts of the world, check here and here.
Live on Sky Sports 1

Radio :  
BBC Radio London Digital Radio - Live commentary

If available on BBC radio, it can be heard in these countries on these stations ...
Australia (Melbourne) SEN  -  116 AM  Live Transmissions: TWI, Saturday. 12.45 & 1500 matches
Australia (Syndey)  Radio 2  -  1611AM  Live Transmission: TWI, Saturday, 12.45 Match
Singapore Media Corp Radio  -  93.8 FM  Live Transmission: TWI, Saturday, 15.00 Match
South Africa  SABC (Radio 2000)  Live Transmission: TWI, Saturday, 15.00 Match
Uganda  Radio 1 (English) 90.0 FM, Radio 2 (Lugandan) 87.9 FM  Live Transmission: TWI, Saturday, 15.00 Match
North America (USA, Canada, Mexico, Carribean)  Sirius Satellite Radio  Live transmission: Saturday - 12.45, 15.00 (TWI) & 17.15 (BBC) Sunday - 14.00 & 16.05 (BBC) Mon, Tue, Wed - Various times (BBC)

Internet :
www.spurs.co.uk   Live webcast  - subscribers only
Planet football - http://play.www.planetfootball.servecast.net/downloads/sky/spurs-pl04-kean0.ram (free - only available when match is on)

Mildenhall

McDermott (c)
R Jones
Whittle
Croft

Kalala
Bolland
Cohen (Barwick 81) 
Parkinson

G Jones (Gritton 46) 
Reddy

Unused subs: 
Ramsden
Newey
Toner

Robinson

Stalteri
Naybet
King (c)
Lee

Brown
Jenas
Carrick (Davis 66)
Reid (Lennon 61)

Keane
Defoe

Unused subs: 
Cerny
Kelly
Bunjevcevic

Kalala 89

Tottenham Hotspur

None

Not a lot.

But then there's not a lot to say about this game anyway.

Suffice to say that Spurs played like a team who thought they only had to turn up to win and didn't.  When will they learn ?  Perhaps they want to concentrate on the league ?

Whatever the reason, it was a poor performance from Spurs and a good one from Grimsby Town.  The few chances Spurs had were nothing to write home about.  A weak Keane bobbling effort was pushed around the post by Mildenhall in the seventh minute, with the corner being played back to Andy Reid outside the area and his net touch was a saving one in our own penalty area as the Mariners broke away after he mis-controlled the ball.  But it was Reid who had Tottenham's best effort on the night.  Defoe played a clever pass behind the full back and Reid got to it, but the keeper had closed him down and saved his shot.

When Spurs did earn free-kicks on the edge of the Grimsby box, they failed to show any imagination and curled them harmlessly wide.  Spurs had to suffer a shout for a penalty, but it looked like an accidental coming together and not a foul, but they were thankful for Robinson's sharpness when he dived and had to change his save as Parkinson's shot dipped on him at the last moment.  Luckily, Naybet was using his experience to keep the home strikers at bay, with Ledley seemingly troubled by the physical presence of Reddy and Jones.  Stalteri and Lee both stuttered to get up the line and when they did had nobody to cross it to. 

Reddy latched onto a ball from Gritton over the top and popped the ball up over Robinson, but also lifted it wide of the goal to miss a great chance.  Spurs made nothing like this in the whole match.   The closest we came was when Carrick slid a pass through to Defoe in the left side of the area and his finish was poor, dragging the ball across the face of the keeper and wide.  It was only when Aaron Lennon came on that things livened up.

His running at veteran John McDermott caused problems for the home defence, but also for himself in that he could only play low balls into the box.  The same happened when Defoe made a dart into the area and hit a ball that flew across the six-yard box with nobody there to finish it off.  Jenas also came to life a bit more when Lennon arrived on the pitch, as the England midfielder moved back inside instead of being out on the right.

However, it was all for nothing, as a corner was needlessly conceded and when it came out to Kalala, he hit it first time, with great power and it bulged the net with Robinson stranded.  There was not enough time left to mount much of a response and King went forward to at last add some height to the attack.  However, his flick on to Keane was met on the volley, but without aim or power.

Grimsby have their moment of glory and the effort they put in outdid Tottenham.  They might not have had the skill or experience, but they did enough to go through to Round Three.

For Spurs, it is now a crunch match against Fulham on Monday.  But they could all be crunch matches from now on.

MEHSTG TOP MAN : - PAUL ROBINSON

Well, shocks happen.  They shouldn't, but they do.  The longer Tottenham went without scoring, the more you had the feeling that something would break Grimsby's way and it did.  Not a great performance by either side to tell the truth, but the home side looked more capable of getting something, as the little and little partnership of Keane and Defoe must now surely be consigned to the bin.  For all their skill on the ball and running off it, they can't get the service from the midfield and they cannot gel to create terror in the heart of opposing defences.  Too often, the high ball was played in and it was all too easy for the giant Mariners defenders to head it away.

The midfield tried to over-pass the ball and often ended up passing it over to Grimsby, leaving the defence to be put under pressure by players keen to make a name for themselves.  Shame ours didn't take a leaf out of Villa's book and stick eight away past their opponents.  That might have made a bit of a name for the players, but then they didn't look like they could score if they played all night.  But then it's been like that since the Boro match.  

I'm not sure what has gone wrong with the side since then.  Maybe it is too many new players being introduced which has unbalanced the team ?  Maybe there is a lack of crispness because of the hectic pre-season programme in energy sapping Korea ?  Perhaps the fluency has gone from the Spurs game, with a little of the edge removed from a time when they topped the table ... thinking it has all come right.

Well, this should bring them back to earth with a bump.  I am sure Jol will get stuck into them, as he looked less than happy after the match in his TV interview.

He is right .. teams from the Premiership like Tottenham should win matches like this.  The fact that there were few direct efforts on the Grimsby goal means that the incisive nature of our play around their box was missing.  Keane and Defoe should have been good enough to make chances for themselves out there against two players who not many people outside of Lincolnshire would have heard of. 

The goal came from a cleared corner and Kalala's shot was rifling into the bottom corner before Brown got a touch on it to divert it in, but even Robbo couldn't have got near it.  Reddy should have put Grimsby one up anyway before that when he went through, lobbed Robinson and missed.

Spurs had a few half chances but nothing more and the wasted free-kicks we had were a disgrace.

Back to the training ground ... back to the drawing board ... back to basics.  Don't give the ball away and when you get near goal shoot !!

Purcell Cole (from a TV view)

If the Spurs team will play in Wimbledon kit, that is what we get !!

Sparky Marky

The person I feel really sorry for in all this is the boss.

He scouts round Europe gets the best talent in and he must tell them of the sucess that will come this season.  The player must believe Jol and signs the dotted line.

What a wake up call for them all this morning.

See, us mere fans are used to the endless torments and we are hardened to the Monday Morning Blues, but this is a whole new experience for those who proudly, sorry typo, wear the white of Tottenham.

Good job we weren't playing Wycombe.

Steve White

What gets me about this is that Spurs looked at it like it was a training match.  There was no urgency and that is very worrying.  The old adage that you have to fight for the right to play (and then party !!) means that the side thought the win would come oh so easily.  Not so.  

With the passing ability of Carrick, Jenas and Reid, they should have sliced open the Grimsby defence rather than playing into their hands.

With Russell Slade having been in charge when we lost out in this competition to Notts County (earning Ossie the sack) in one of the most appalling performances I have seen from a Spurs side, this was not a lot better.  So, perhaps, rather than Slade being a tactical genius, he has the knack of managing teams who Spurs take beating for granted ... and end up being shocked.

I find the lack of ingenuity in the side a major drawback if this squad want to progress.  Perhaps Davids frightens the life out of them and that is why they play better with him in the side, although we need to rediscover our scoring ability and quickly.  Five goals in six games is not good and we will not win many games if we keep that ratio up.

Looking forward to a much improved showing on Monday against Fulham, but nto holding my breath.

East Stan