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Top of Champions League Group A – an absolutely remarkable achievement. We’ve broken records for goals scored, we’ve surprised everyone, both at home and abroad, and we’ve surely been the most exciting team so far – partially due to our dreadful defensive record!

Once again, our defence wasn’t much cop on Tuesday, partially due to a flimsy central midfield – with Palacios frequently leaving his post to chase after the ball, and Kranjcar, a stand-in, with Jenas limping off. Assou-Ekotto also had a bit of a nightmare – his worst game for some time- gifting a penalty, and making a number of other poor decisions.

Landzaat’s goal.

The opening goal came from a spot, after a rather innocuous attack ended with Assou-Ekotto raising his arm to protect his face, much like Fabregas just a few weeks ago.

The ball is lifted rather aimlessly into the box.

Bassong heads clear, but only to Brama (I think), who nods back to Rosales.

It’s a sweet strike with his left foot, but Assou-Ekotto should be used to braving these kind of situations, and putting his body into the line of fire.

Yes, it’s a natural reaction to protect your face, but it’s very frustrating from a fan point of view to concede such a soft penalty.

The penalty is correctly ordered to be re-taken, due to the encroaching of a number of players.

Landzaat gets a little lucky second time around. He hits it straight down Gomes’ throat – Gomes gets something on the ball, but it goes straight through him. It’s harsh to expect a goalkeeper to save a penalty, but I can’t help but feel that he should have done better.

Rosales’ goal.

This header is a thing of beauty – I’ve not seen a better one for some time.

The ball is played wide for Chadli – Corluka comes out to him.

Corluka shows him down the line, knowing that there are very few players forward. Instead, Chadli stands a rather hopeful cross to the back post – it’s asking an awful lot from Rosales.

But Rosales comes up with an unbelievable header. He is a long way out, the cross is not ideal – he has to get up early (and he gets a long way above Assou-Ekotto), and use the muscles in his neck to put a lot of power on to the ball himself.

He not only gets sufficient power, but he plants it perfectly into the corner, and beyond Gomes. A brilliant finish.

Chadli’s goal.

Unfortunately I can’t find a decent video that includes the Lennon “foul” which leads to the awarding of this free kick. Suffice to say, the guy literally just falls over! Once the free kick was wrongly awarded, you are tempted to stand back and admire the quality of the strike. However, when you take a closer look, you can’t help but feel that another of our players should just take one for the team…

Gomes lines up the wall to protect the right side of his goal. Palacios, for some reason, jumps slightly to his left, and the ball goes right between him and Bale. If you watch the video, you can see Palacios’ strange jump more clearly. A solid wall, linked and jumping as one, and this ball doesn’t get near the goal.

 

Once through, this is only going to find the net – right in the corner, and well beyond the reach of Gomes, who had stood to the left.

Our defensive selection against Chelsea will be interesting. Michael Dawson got 90 minutes under his belt on Wednesday (in a Spurs XI game against MK Dons), and could now be in contention to come back into the side. With Kaboul also returning to fitness, we have four fit centre backs competing for the first time in a while. I can’t help but think that this has come slightly too soon for Dawson, and would expect that Gallas and Bassong will start again. Of course, one option would be to use Kaboul at right-back. Either way, we’ll need to keep things tight against Chelsea, and for me that means that Palacios needs to be much more disciplined in his play – he simply can’t go chasing the ball, and must learn to hold his position.

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Firstly, 1-1 was a reasonable result without King, Dawson, Kaboul, Huddlestone, Jenas, and van der Vaart. Birmingham have lost once at home in the league since September 09, which is a remarkable achievement, and testament to Alex McLeish’s ability to set up a team not to lose (that is genuinely not meant to be patronising).

However, it’s very disappointing to be ahead for so long, only to be pegged back by a relatively soft goal, and during the game I felt that Redknapp could have reacted more quickly. I personally wouldn’t have selected Defoe as I thought that he looked incredibly rusty against both Arsenal and Liverpool, and yesterday he again showed a lack of sharpness. For me, he should have come off between 55-60 minutes, when he was clearly flagging. His touch was poor, and the ball often bounced off him, meaning that we were immediately on the back-foot again.

Another option would have been to bring on Sandro to shore up the midfield, and offer some protection at the edge of the box. Sandro for Lennon, Modric to a narrow wide right starting position – easy to say in hindsight, I guess.

Gardner’s goal.

A throw on the Birmingham left is passed back and Spurs look to press out.

The ball is worked back out to Roger Johnson, who immediately looks for a long diagonal to Zigic – an obvious target. Zigic has pulled wide, and Assou-Ekotto is nowhere near close enough to him.

As a result, Zigic is able to head the ball into the danger area totally unchallenged. Gardner is on the edge of the box, and has anticipated Zigic’s header.

 

This picture shows Gardner’s run up quite nicely – however, we should have plenty of players in positions to be able to deal with the danger – Gallas and Palacios in particular.

Gardner easily gets ahead of Modric, who has nodded off, and it is now a straight battle between Gallas and Gardner. 

Gardner has the momentum from the run, but Gallas is not brave enough. In my opinion Gardner simply wants to win this challenge more and whilst he shows tremendous tenacity, Gallas should be getting his head on this.

A very soft goal to concede – you don’t want to see your main centre back losing out in this manner, but Assou-Ekotto leaving Zigic in so much space certainly didn’t help the situation. We actually lost a worrying number of aerial challenges in our own box – the red circles at the bottom of this Chalkboard are all aerial battles that we lost – the goal situation being the most central. Having Michael Dawson back will be a huge boost in this respect.

Birmingham deserved their goal – they had the momentum with them in the second half, whereas we were mainly restricted to occasional half-chances on the counter. But we simply should have killed them off sooner.

I tweeted in the first half that the game would have been over if we had a top-class striker – the sheer number of balls into the box from our wingers was impressive. Not all of great quality, but it’s worth a look at the Chalkboards for both Lennon and Bale’s passes:

If only we had a Drogba, Torres or Rooney…

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Yet another great result, and yet another comeback! An incredibly open game, in which both sides missed many chances (including a penalty). Liverpool created plenty of good chances – getting themselves into one-on-one situations on three occasions – but scored their only goal from a scruffy free-kick.

Martin Skrtel’s goal.

Raul Meireles chips a ball in towards the corner of the 6-yard box. Spurs have six defenders against four Liverpool attackers.Martin Skrtel is the obvious target, and so Crouch is given a man-to-man job on him. Crouch is the player furthest forward in this shot and, as you can see (and can see much more clearly in the video, linked above), Skrtel gets a run on him, which is the easiest way to lose Crouch in these situations.

Having made the run across Crouch, Skrtel easily gets to the flight of the ball first, and looks to head it back towards Kuyt, who is totally unmarked (left of the picture, having dropped off away from Bassong).

However, the ball hits David N’Gog on the back…

…and falls perfectly for Skrtel. Palacios is a little flat-footed in getting to it, but he does enough to make it difficult for Skrtel, as do Gallas and Bassong, who are in decent positions to make a block (more on them later).

Skrtel is quick to react and, despite the defenders closing on him, he gets his shot away.

It’s only a toe-poke, but it’s beyond Gomes before he can see it.

Liverpool got a bit lucky with the the rebound, but it was a decent ball from Meireles, and Skrtel will argue that he made his own luck with his run across Crouch. From a defensive point of view, Crouch should be staying goal-side – he’s normally great at defending similar situations, but is usually asked to clear from a standing start, and he is vulnerable when players are able to run off him. If Liverpool had noticed this and planned accordingly, then fair play to them.

One thing also worth mentioning is the way in which Torres gets away from Gallas. Watch the video again, and focus solely on the Torres/Gallas battle. Torres’ movement is excellent, but Gallas, strangely if you as me, just lets him run, and expects Bassong to pick him up (leaving Kuyt free). If the ball had fallen to Kuyt or Torres, I’d have been pointing the finger at Gallas.

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We truly are the comeback kings this season! In a rather bizarre match, in which neither team seemed to play to their true capabilities; in many ways it became a game of “who could make the least mistakes”. We got our first win away at a “big 4 club” (*spits*) in three thousand and forty five attempts. A wonderful result, and one which will hopefully be a load off the mind for players and fans alike.

I am incredibly jealous of all who were there, but must compliment you all on the wonderfully vocal support. Our away fans are second to none.

Nasri’s goal (50 secs in)

Fabregas has the ball in the centre circle – he decides to go uncharacteristically direct, seeing Nasri on Assou-Ekotto’s shoulder.

The run is what makes this goal – you can’t see it in this image, but he angles it superbly, and Assou-Ekotto has a tricky decision to make – step up and play offside, or drop off. He gets caught in two minds, and so when the ball does bounce, he’s not close enough to compete.

Nasri’s first touch is heavy, and Gomes should be coming out and taking this. He hesitates, and when he finally does decide to come, he’s not quite brave enough.

Nasri manages to touch it round him – Gomes seems to get something on the ball, but really needs to be taking the lot here – ball and man. It’s his hesitation that has cost him, and that is probably caused by a few shaky moments this season, including his sending off at Inter.

Nasri is left with an empty goal, but a difficult angle.

He stays composed and finishes it well.

Chamakh’s goal (1 min 45 in)

Two things to mention in regard to the second goal. Firstly, Hutton is smashed in the ribs by Clichy just prior to this, and goes down. Spurs have possession, so the advantage is played. We throw bodies forward – Bale, Pavlyuchenko, van der Vaart, but also Jenas, who ends up on the goal line as Lennon over hits his cross. Pavlyuchenko does well to keep it in, but it falls nicely for Nasri who has the opportunity to counter. Modric should have seen Jenas bombing on, and just held his ground. Instead, he decides to go after the ball.

When Arsenal win the ball back, Modric is now in no-man’s land (centre of image), and we have a gaping hole in the middle of our midfield.

Between Nasri and Denilson, they work it quite nicely to Fabrgas, and he’s now running unchallenged at our back four. Hutton is back up on his feet, but running gingerly.

Perhaps Hutton still has the whack he has just taken in the back of his mind, as he simply doesn’t mark Arshavin. Instead, he leaves enough room for Fabregas to easily find him…

…and then stands off and lets him put a cross in.

Chamakh has a lot to do – he has to get ahead of Kaboul, and steer the ball goalwards. He makes it look easy – a nice subtle finish, but could Kaboul have done better? Always tricky when you’re facing your own goal.

Full credit to our players for not giving up and, when you have top quality players in your side (as we do nowadays), you always have a chance to get a goal. When the chances came, we took them wonderfully – from Bale’s exquisite touch and finish, to van der Vaart’s clinical penalty, to Kaboul’s intelligent back header – great finishing.

But please, Spurs – stop giving us fans heart attacks, and start defending like we know you can!