IF Tottenham Hotspur achieve their aim of qualifying for the Champions League, it will have as much to do with players who have come in from the cold as their established stars.
Saturday’s defeat of a stubborn Blackburn Rovers side owed much to the goalscoring prowess of Roman Pavlyuchenko, who could not get a game for most of the season, and Gareth Bale, who was so jinxed that Alex Ferguson urged Harry Redknapp not to pick him.
Redknapp knew all about Bale when he took over at Spurs 18 months ago, for two reasons. Firstly he had been his manager at Southampton when the teenage Bale provided speed on the opposite flank to a young Theo Walcott. Then, when Redknapp arrived at Spurs almost 18 months ago, he inherited a player who had been signed by former manager Martin Jol with the pressure of being a £10m teenager, who had been hit by injuries and had the unfortunate run of not having started a league game that Spurs had won.
This run continued well into Redknapp’s reign, only ending shortly before Christmas when Bale had to come back into the side because of injury to regular left-back Benoit Assou-Ekotto.
But since coming back and getting his personal monkey off his back, Bale has thrived and won another man of the match award on Saturday after reducing former Real Madrid star Michel Salgado to a wreck, motoring past the Spaniard with ease time and time again. The Spaniard and referee Howard Webb were none too impressed with the way Bale went down in the penalty box, though most observers saw it as a penalty.
But Salgado also appreciated he was up against a real talent in the making.
"He’s a great player but I was really stupid because I changed my position to defend in the first half and it was very difficult," he said. "For me at my age I don’t have to change my things so it was a horrible first half for me. I changed everything in the second half but I think he’s a great footballer.
"He’s a great player with a good future and he’s playing for a top team so he has a chance to be a top player in the future. He has good pace and is good driving with the ball. He has quality with his crossing. He’s a complete player. But it was no penalty. There was slight contact but it was diving in my opinion. The referee was really close to the play and he did the right thing."
Webb could not do much right, however, in the eyes of both managers. Redknapp was convinced he should have had at least one penalty and complained that his keeper Heurelho Gomes was impeded when Christopher Samba scored for Blackburn in the 80th minute, heading home Morten Gamst Pedersen’s corner. But the goal did not count for much, as Pavlyuchenko scored his second goal five minutes later, having scored 10 minutes into the second half.
Combined with Jermain Defoe’s tap-in on the stroke of half-time, it meant Spurs secured another victory to safeguard fourth place, while Blackburn are still not safe from relegation, giving Allardyce stress that he does not need, having had a heart bypass not so long ago. That operation, before Christmas, meant he missed his side’s only away win of the season, and he joked: "Perhaps I better stay away more often. But we have tried staying at hotels overnight, travelling on the day, going for a walk before games – everything to break this run. I think less than 40 points will be safe but we’ve got some really tough games coming up so we have to pick up points where we can."
He argued that Blackburn’s chances would have been enhanced if Webb had spotted Vedran Corluka trip David Dunn in the first half with the game goalless, as well as turning down another penalty claim before Defoe scored.
"I am trying to be constructive in my criticism, but those decisions changed the game. I try to keep the anger bottled in now rather than rant and rage, but all you can do is make your points when the referee is assessed and hope it makes a difference."
Allardyce was just as scathing about his own side’s defending – "diabolical" – and acknowledged Tottenham have the sort of clinical finishers he lacks.
Redknapp is learning to love Pavlyuchenko after the Russian’s eighth goal in six games, and is also impressed with the improvement in Bale. "I knew about him at Southampton, but when I came here he was nothing like he is now. He has grown up, filled out and matured. He’s 6ft 2ins, quick as they come, heads, tackles, delivers the ball – he’s got it all really.
"He had this run of 20-odd games without a win hanging over him."
Did it bother him, he was asked? "It bothered me! Alex Ferguson said to me ‘How can you pick him?’ but now that is all in the past."
MATCH RATING: **** – Plenty of thrills and spills, even if Blackburn are not the finest exponents of free-flowing football. Spurs played some good stuff.
REFEREE: Howard Webb (S Yorkshire) 3 – Had a shocker, and you have to wonder if he will be as embarrassing in South Africa as Graham Poll was in Germany. Failed to spot two clear penalties and two marginal ones, and disallowed one goal harshly.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, March 15, 2010
