The Iceman Cometh

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It seems we’ve got ourselves a squad. A colony, even. It’s been spread pretty thin over the past thirty games- numbers have been falling since day one- but the cogs have kept chugging and stand-ins found at almost every turn. The colony remains: sturdy, functional and hoovering up points like a god damn Dyson Powerball. We lost Modric in September but found Kranjcar; Lennon’s groin twanged over Christmas so Bentley pulled his socks up and charged headlong into our good books; BAE went to Africa, so Bale, without too much fuss, turned into Franck Ribery. We lost Bob Keane to the North but Pavlyuchenko made us forget all about him. And now, with Gudjohnsen, even the understudies have understudies. And they’re just as marvellous. The system works. The squad is pulling its weight.

More gritty away points for Tottenham this weekend. As gritty as they come, in fact. We’ve done what all our fourth place rivals have failed to do thus far and take a maximum haul from the Britannia. All this without Defoe, Lennon, Pavly….well, you get the idea. We were fairly short to say the least. As such, the initial signs were ominous. Plenty of brows furrowed when Redknapp divulged a team sheet missing Palacios’ name; even more so when the replacement was revealed to be Younes Kaboul. We’d been informed that the young Frenchman was a virtual renaissance man these days- a master of all positions- but up until Saturday, the only glimpse we’d seen of him away from his usual spot was a cameo at right-back, under the grim lights of the Molinuex. Which, as we know, didn’t go terribly well. But what could we expect from him as a combative midfielder? Truth be told, he did rather well. Nothing extravagant or anything likely to get you off your seat; but disciplined and solid enough all the same. Everything, in fact, you’d expect of the man he replaced.

Which is encouraging.

The most luminous stars, though, were the two whose names were burnt onto the score-sheet. Gudjohnsen and Kranjcar. The Icelander, slinking off the bench to replace Pav, was terrific. Oodles of clever running and link-up work from deep; as well as a thunderous effort just after the break, which looked straight out of the year 1999. His dummy for the second was the cat’s pyjamas. As was Krank’s winning thud at the end of it.

Heart-warming stuff.

For now, then, the wheels are still firmly on their axle; fourth spot is very much in our hands. The question remains whether we have what it takes to tighten our grip on it, or let slip through our clumsy fingers.

F.A Cup quarter final tomorrow. Sandro’s on his way.

I’m not sure my nerves can take it.

COYS!


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