The return of 'El Nino'

Fernando Torres, the man Chelsea paid 50 million pounds for, may finally be on his way back to the top.

What a day it has been for this man - 2 assists and a classic Torres goal to sum it all up.

You have to admit that he has deserved it following his great performances in the last few games.

His passing and vision, combined with his speed and ball skills make a threat to any team, and now with his finishing ability coming back, maybe we will get the see the old Torres again, the classic 'El Nino'.

Del Bosque must be delighted at the moment - Torres finding his form and Villa returning from injury, just in time for the EURO 2012.

Could Spain be the first team to win back-to-back EUROs? 

...

I reckon so.

Next Generation of Premier League attackers

Romelu Lukaku - Belgium and Chelsea 
At the age of 10, he was discovered by scouts of Lierse. In his 3 seasons at Lierse, he scored 121 goals in 68 games. In 2006 he signed for Anderlecht following Lierse's relegation from the Belgian Pro League. At first he played for their youth team, but moved up to the first team in 2009. Chelsea then signed him for a fee of around £18 million at the beginning of this season.

Federico Macheda - Italy and Manchester United
Lazio tried to sign him at the age of 15 but, due to Italian football regulations preventing u18s from signing professional contracts, they were unable to. Manchester United then signed him at the age of 16 and put him into their u18 side. In 2009, Macheda came on as a sub against Aston Villa and scored an amazing goal to give United the win (this goal is in the video). Last season he was loaned to Sampdoria, in the Serie A, and this season he is currently on loan at QPR.

Dani Pachecho - Spain and Liverpool
Dani spent most of his youth career in Spain where he played for Malaga and Barcelona. At Barcelona 'El Asesino' (The Assassin), because of his clinical finishing ability. He signed for Liverpool in 2007 and made his first team debut in 2009,  against Fiorentina in a champions league match. He has spent time on loan at Norwich City and at Rayo Vallecano. He has also represented Spain at youth level, playing for the   u16, u17, u18, u19, u20 and u21 teams.

Ryo Miyaichi - Japan and Arsenal
Ryo spent last season on loan at Feyenoord and is currently on loan at Bolton. He is one of the fastest footballers in the world and there's a reason people call him the 'Japanese Messi'. Watch this kid, he's special.

Raheem Sterling - England/Jamaica and Liverpool
Born in Jamaica, raised in England, you can understand where he this kid gets his speed and ability from. He signed for QPR at the age of 9 and spent 7 years in their youth academy. In 2010, Liverpool signed him for £600,000, though it could go up to £5 million depending on his first-team appearances. He has been a sensation in the Liverpool youth team and was one of the key players in Liverpool's NextGen Series campaign (where they reached the semi-finals). After much pressure from the Liverpool fans, Kenny Daglish finally gave Sterling a first-team appearance, bringing him on against Wigan last weekend.

Souleymane Coulibaly - Ivory Coast and Tottenham
This kid scored 9 goals in 4 games at the u17 World Cup, earning himself the Golden Boot. If you're a bit skeptical about this, I think you should know that 3 of those goals he scored against Brazil (not your average side). He tied with the previous record held by Sinama Pongolle, who scored 9 goals in 6 games. If that's not incredible, I don't know what is. If you want to see more of him, you should watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVStdbLoEYE

Premier League Fastest XI

(This team was picked based on a combination of speed and ability)

GK: Joe Hart*

LB: Gael Clichy
CB: David Luiz
CB: Micah Richards*
RB: Kyle Walker

LM: Gareth Bale
CM: Ramires
CM: Samir Nasri
RM: Aaron Lennon

ST: Darren Bent
ST: Sergio Aguero

Subs: Enrique, Sagna, Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Miyaichi, Agbonlahor, Hernandez

*If you don't agree with my decision to pick Joe Hart, then watch this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdXDP8btZd4
*I know Richards is usually a RB, but he is able to play CB

Best Fantasy League players (value for money)

GK: Michael Vorm
Because of Swansea's great defense, Vorm has kept 12 clean sheets this season.
He also regularly makes more than 3 saves per game.
This means that will give you about 3 points if Swansea concede any goals, or about 7 points if they keep a clean sheet. He also has a fairly low price - 5.3 (At the start of the season his price was only 4.0).

DEF: Benoit Assou-Ekotto
BAE is the best defender to have in you fantasy team, because of two reasons.
One, Tottenham have a relatively good defence and two, Tottenham utilize their full-backs in their attacking plays (Kyle Walker is also on of the best fantasy league defenders).
He has kept 11 clean sheets, made 5 assists and scored 2 goals this season - not something most defenders could say they have done.
At the beginning of the season his price was only 5.0, though it has now gone up to 6.3.

MID: Stephane Sessegnon
Sessegnon didn't start the season to well, only picking up 21 points from his first 8 games, but since then he has got 112 points from 22 games (averaging more than 5 points per game).
Throughout the season he has scored 7 goals, made 9 assists and kept 8 clean sheets.
He has certainly been one of the biggest surprises this year, if you look at how averagely the other Sunderland players have done this.
His price after the first 8 games was down to 6.1 (from 6.5), but has gone up to 7.1 following his good run of performances this season.

ATT: Demba Ba
This was a tough decision and I'm sure many of you will be wondering why RVP didn't make it.
The reason I picked Ba as the best player of the season, was because he has better value for money.
He costs just 7.7, compared to Van Persie who cost 13.5.
Ba has scored 16 goals this season and gets an average of 5 points per game.
RVP has scored 26 goals this season and gets and average of 7 points per game.
As you can see, RVP gets about 2 points more per game, but costs almost twice as much.

Honourable mentions: 
Tim Krul, Ali Al-Habsi
Kyle Walker, Ryan Taylor
Scott Sinclair, Jonathan Walters
Robin Van Persie, Edin Dzeko, Ayegbeni Yakubu, Danny Graham

Who do you want to win the title?

To put it quite simply, these are your options.

Do you want a team who plays great football, has little history and has just bought their talent to win the title.

Or do you want a team who plays boring football, has lots of history and often gets a little help from referees to win the league.

In the beginning of the season, I wanted the City to win the title, just so that United would get 'knocked off their f***ing perch' (the words of Sir Alex when asked about Liverpool in 2002).

I just couldn't stand the thought of United, once again, winning the title, because of all those last minute goals they are so famously known for. Imagine if, for once, a team that actually played exciting football could win the league.

As the season went on however, my views began to change. After all problems in the City camp, such as Tevez's fallout with Mancini, all of Balotelli's problem and just the fact that most the players have very little, if any, pride for the club, I thought that City didn't actually deserve to win the title.

At least United have built themselves up throughout more than a decade, compared to City's quick 4 season 'project' (as most the players refer to it as).

I'm not saying that I want United to win it - obviously it would be great if Tottenham could - but I'd rather have United win it than City, cause at least United deserve it.

As you know now, I'm a Spurs fan and I want United to win - but I would like to know who everyone else wants to win.

So if you want to, please leave a comment saying which team you support and which Manchester team you want to win the title.

e.g. (my comment would look like this) 

Tottenham, United

I will analyze all your comments and in about a week's time I will post my findings.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the last few games of the season.

Is wearing 'No.1' a fading tradition for goalkeepers?

Throughout the history of football, goalkeepers have worn the number 1 jersey.

Originally this was because players were given their numbers based on their position.

e.g. The goalkeeper wore 1, the defenders wore 2,3,4 and 5 (assuming there were 4 defenders).

Even after this rule was taken away, goalkeepers still tended to wear the no. 1, just because they saw no reason to change.

But recently, this has changed.

If we look at the top 10 teams in the premier league, Chelsea, Swansea, United and Sunderland are the only teams in which the first choice goalkeepers wear the number 1.

And even for United and Sunderland, you could argue that De Gea and Gordon are not 1st choice (especially Gordon, who has injury problems).

In the other 6 teams, the goalies wear:

13 (Szczesny), 24 (Friedel), 24 (Howard), 25 (Reina), 25 (Hart) and 26 (Krul).

In Szczesny, Friedel and Krul's cases, the no.1 jersey was already taken, but still, if they had wanted to, they could have requested that they take over that number.

But why did Howard, Reina and Hart choose the numbers they did?

...

If you think you know why, please tell me so that I (and everyone else reading this) can know.

Are footballers overpaid?

This is one of the most common debates in the sporting world and, naturally, everybody has different opinions about it. My view is that footballers are not overpaid, and I will tell you why.
In the Premier League, the top earners are Rooney, Torres, Lampard, Gerrard and pretty much all the Man City players. These players earn between £150,000 to £250,000 per week (which is about 10 million pounds per year). In the premier league the average salary is £22,000 per week.
In the Championship (2nd division), the average salary is £4,000/week, which is about £200,000/year (less than Rooney earns in a week).
Then in League 2 (4th division), the average salary is £750/week, which is fairly close the average salary in England.

What I'm trying to get across to you, is that only the best of the best (about the top 1000 players in the world) are payed huge amounts of money. The rest are payed normal salaries and are treated like normal people.
Sure you may say that £250,000 per week is an obscene amount of money and nobody could ever need that much, but that's not the point. The point is that in any profession, the best in the world do earn a huge amount of money. And that is a fact.
If you look at doctors, most of them earn about £300,000 per year, which is more than the Championship players earn - and there are many more doctors than there are footballers in the championship. Then you have the elite doctors, who can earn anywhere between 1 and 5 million pounds per year, which is more than most Premier League players earn. You also get entrepreneurs who, if they become successful can earn hundreds of millions of pounds every year.

But if you want to compare football to a more relative profession, you should compare it acting - since both are entertainment industries.
Leanadro DiCaprio earned $77 million last year, which is about £50 million. This is 5 times more than what Rooney earned last year, so how come nobody complains about him earning so much?
He provided you with about 6 hours of entertainment last year, whereas Rooney provided United fans with about 80 hours of entertainment last year.

Hopefully I've got my point across to you, that in almost any profession, the best of the best are always going to earn obscene amounts of money.
So rather than complaining about how much football players earn, rather just sit back, enjoy watching you team play and appreciate their talent which they are displaying for you.

Well at least we're still 5 points ahead

That was a rather interesting match. For about 80 minutes this match was possibly the dullest derby match this entire season, but in the other 10 minutes it was one of the most intense matches ever.
For the most part, Tottenham didn't look too hungry for a win, though there were some individual moments of brilliance throughout the match, such as Adebayor's shot/cross that went just over Walker, Modric's run which result in a poor shot from Van Der Vaart at the end of the first half. Then there was Adebayor's 1-on-1 with Cech, which was eventually saved by a great block from Cahill, Walker's shot which went into the side-netting, Bale's header which rebounded off the bar and also his powerful free kick in the 94th minute which was just pushed wide by Cech.
Chelsea also had a few decent chances, with Drogba continuously getting past Gallas, though failing to capitalize on any of them. Their best chance was of course Mata's free kick, which left Friedel standing still. Unfortunately for Mata (but fortunately for us Spurs fans) the shot rebounded off the post and was ironically cleared out of the box by David Luiz.
If we look at the stats, Tottenham had many more opportunities, with 20 shots (compared to Chelsea's 9) and 55% possession throughout the match. Unfortunately though, we just couldn't put any into the net and  once again suffered because of our lack of a clinical stiker.

There are 2 positives that we can take out of this game though.
One, we dominated Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in a game most people expected us to lose;
and two, at least we didn't lose and still have a 5 point lead on Chelsea, who still have to play Arsenal at the Emirates and Liverpool at Anfield (and they've got Champions League midweek games to deal with too).

It's a pity that Aston Villa couldn't take any points off Arsenal, but I feel that a draw was good enough this week, especially regarding our poor form lately.

5 years time - who will be playing for Spurs?

In 5 years time, Ledley King will be 36, BAE will 33, Dawson will be 33, Modric will be 31 and Defoe will be 34.
So who will replace those players when they start to retire?
Well if you look at players who are already in the 1st team, Walker, Bale and the only players who are under 25 years old.
Though we've also got Rose, Livermore and Caulker (on loan at Swansea) who have had 1st team experience and are all u22.
The Tottenham youth team is very talented as well. They made it to the semis of the NextGen Series (which is basically an u21 champions league), though were eliminated as they fielded an ineligible player. Luongo, Lancaster, Coulibaly and Carroll have been some of the stand-out players in these matches - many of them played in our Europa League campaign this year.
Of course Daniel Levy will also have bought some players by 2017, so we can't forget about this.

So back to the main point - who will be playing for Spurs in 5 years time?

My predictions would be:

Krul

Walker, Kaboul, Caulker, Rose

Lennon, Modric, Hazard, Bale

Damaio, Lancaster

Well that looks like a fairly decent team to me...

Who do you think will be playing for Spurs in 5 years time?

We still need a striker

The Stoke game clearly showed, once again, our main problem.

We need a proper striker.

I'm not saying Defoe, Saha and Van Der Vaart are bad - I think that they are all very talented individuals, but none of them are target men, which is what we need.
Adebayor has been fairly successful this season, but he still lacks that ability to put away shots from all different places (which strikers such as RVP, Gomez and Ibrahimovic are so good at).

Today (not sure if it is a fact or a rumour), Villareal have placed Giuseppe Rossi for sale.
If you have read my blog, you will know that he is one of my favorite players, so I would love it if he came to Spurs. But besides that, I think he would work really well at Tottenham, because he is a very good all round player - quite strong, quite quick and a good finisher.

He's available for around 15 million pounds, due to Villareal's financial problems.
The only problem is that he wants to move to the Serie A so that he can play in his home country, Italy.
Though he hasn't ruled out moving to the premier league yet.

Back to the Transfer Rumours

So, Napoli have just revealed that they would be willing to accept £100 million pounds for both Cavani and Lavezzi. 

Is this the solution to Tottenham's attacking problems?

With Man City prepared to pay around 50/60k for Bale, maybe it's better that we cash in and then use the money to buy two-thirds of the 'Holy Trinity'.

This would give us a clinical striker (Cavani) and a skillful winger (Lavezzi), who should be able to fill the gap left by Bale's departure. I think this would work very well for Spurs, as it would bring in 2 fresh players who are eager to impress in the greatest league in the world.

Of course there are other options, such as Drogba, Damaio or Rossi, but it would probably be more effective bringing in 2 players from the same club, so that they adapt much quicker and work well together.

So who would you like to see next season>

Bale 

or

Lavezzi

and

Cavani

Top 3 London clubs - wage comparison

An interesting graph - Daniel Levy is a true businessman

(It's funny how the table positions are opposite to the annual wage)

Original article

Answers

As promised, the answers to yesterday's quiz:

1. Kyle Walker and Assou-Ekotto

2. Jermain Defoe

3. 70

4. Burnley

5. Kyle Walker and Kyle Naughton

6. Peter Crouch

7. Bale, Van der Vaart and Kaboul

8. Inter Milan, Werder Bremen and FC Twente

Quiz time!

These questions will be from the last 3 season (09/10 - 10/11 - 11/12)

1. Which 2 players have had the most appearances this season? (in all competitions)

2. Who has the scored the most goals this season for Spurs? (in all competitions)

3. How many points did we get in the 09/10 season?

4. Who did we lose to in the final game of the 09/10 season?

5. Which 2 players did we sign from Sheffield United in 2009?

6. Who wore the no. 15 shirt for Tottenham during the 10/11 season?

7. Who were the goalscorers in our 3-2 win over Arsenal? (10/11)

8. Name the other 3 teams in our Champions League group? (10/11)

I'll post the answers to these questions tomorrow.

Through to the Quarter-Finals

Last night's game against Stevenage was much closer than any Spurs fan would've hoped for. But at least we got the win, which was actually quite a comfortable one in the end, and a home quarter-final against Bolton next weekend.

The other Quarter-final matches are:

Everton vs Sunderland

Chelsea vs Leicester

Liverpool vs Stoke

(just an interesting observation - our next 3 league games are against Everton, Stoke and Chelsea)

Watching the match last night, I was rather disappointed with Bale's lack of involvement in the first half - but then in the 2nd half he suddenly came alive and was a completely different player. Hopefully this wasn't just a once-off performance and he'll be able to carry it through into the Everton match this weekend.

It's a pity that about the 2 injuries on the night - especially Dawson, who is out for the rest of the season. Since this is the time of the season when you can easily catch up to/get caught by other teams, you really need as much depth as possible.

Hopefully Lennon will be fit again by next weekend for our match against Bolton, since the Stoke game has been moved to Wednesday and then the Chelsea game is that Saturday.

Let's just hope that luck is on our side in the next few games (fingers crossed that Stoke don't injure any of our players) and that we can restore our 10 point lead on Arsenal.

After that we've got a relatively easy end to the season (as you can see in my earlier post about my predictions for Tottenham's remaining fixtures).

Hopefully he can repeat this with Spurs this year

The battle for 3rd place (Conclusion)

Taking Arsenal's win over Liverpool and Spurs' loss to United into account, my predictions stand as follows (for the remaining 12 fixtures):

Spurs - 24 points

Arsenal - 27 points

Chelsea - 18 points

Come the end of the season, this will leave each team on:

Spurs - 77

Arsenal - 73

Chelsea - 66

What I see as the main thing about this conclusion is that it is highly unlikely Chelsea will catch us (unless something goes horribly wrong), meaning that a top 4 spot is almost guaranteed, though hopefully we can maintain our current position.

COME ON YOU SPURS

The battle for 3rd place (Part 3)

Chelsea's remaining fixtures:

West Brom (A) - lost 1-0 (0)

Stoke (H) - should win, unless Stoke keep a clean sheet (3)

City (A) - can't wait to watch Chelsea get humiliated (0)

Spurs (H) - will probably be a draw* (1)

Villa (A) - without Bent, this will probably end 0-0 (1)

Wigan (H) - any team could win this game (3)

Fulham (A) - anything can happen in derby matches, I'll give it to Fulham (0)

Newcastle (H) - depends on Chelsea's form, but they should win this (3)

Arsenal (A) - Could go either way. Should be a great game (1)

QPR (H) - QPR haven't been very impressive this season (3)

Liverpool (A) - end of season, at Anfield, Liverpool should win (0)

Blackburn (H) - I wish Spurs had such an easy last game (3)

According to my predictions, Chelsea will only get a mere 18 points out of a possible 36 in their last 12 games of the season. This will put them on 64 points.

*in my previous post, I said that Chelsea would win this, however with AVB just sacked,

I changed my mind about the result

Ok, so Arsenal beat Liverpool (though I predicted a loss), that gives Arsenal an extra 3 points to add to their total.

Though to be fair, Liverpool should've won that game.

Szczesny made a lucky double-save from Kuyt's penalty and follow up

The linesmen continually made incorrect decisions against Liverpool, of which many may have resulted in goal opportunities for Liverpool.

Kelly missed an open goal.

Van Persie's 93rd minute winner was actually offside.

The referee blew the game early, and Suarez had just been played clean through as the referee blew for full-time.

I guess Arsenal are just disgusting* and we're going to have to live with that.

Hopefully we can get a win tomorrow, putting us back to 7 points ahead of them.

*Again, my opinion, though I'm sure that those of you who watched the game will agree with me.

The Battle for 3rd place (Part 2)

Arsenal's remaining fixtures:

Liverpool (A) - Liverpool will be trying extremely hard in this game (0)

Newcastle (H) - Could be a draw, but i'll give them the win (3)

Everton (A) - Most likely a draw, though could go either way (1)

Villa (H) - Arsenal should take this one (3)

QPR (A) - Unpredictable, but i'll give Arsenal the benefit of the doubt (3)

City (H) - Will be decided by City's form, but i'll say a draw (1)

Wolves (A) - Away, but an easy opponent (3)

Wigan (H) - At home against one of the worst teams in the league (3)

Chelsea (H) - Could decide 4th place, will probably end in a stalemate (1)

Stoke (A) - Stoke are a tough team to play away (0)

Norwich (H) - Like Wolves, this game should be a cruise (3)

West Brom (A) - Big much for Arsenal, not so much for West Brom (3)

If my predictions are correct, then Arsenal will get 24 points in their last 12 games, putting them on a total of 70 points at the end of the season.

*Remember these are just my predictions, so obviously some of them could end up being wrong.

If you want to give your predictions, you can do so by leaving a comment below.

The battle for 3rd place (Part 1)

So the fight is on for 3rd place between the 3 London clubs.

Currently we're 7 points ahead, and hopefully it will stay like that.

I'm going to take a look at each clubs remaining fixtures and predict how many points they will get in each game - to see how the table will probably end up looking at the end of the season.

Tottenham remaining fixtures:

United (H) - Anything could happen, so i'll just say a draw (1)

Everton (A) - Again, anything could happen away, so another draw (1)

Stoke (H) - As long as we score we should win (3)

Chelsea (A) - A tough game, probably a loss here (0)

Swansea (H) - This should be a comfortable win (3)

Sunderland (A) - It's away, but we should be able to get all 3 points here (3)

Norwich (H) - Another easy 3 points (3)

Bolton (A) - Without Cahill, we should be able to get a win (3)

QPR (A) - Just to make up for any earlier mess-ups, i'll give this a draw (1)

Blackburn (H) - This isn't even a question surely? (3)

Villa (A) - End of season, away at Villa Park, a draw should be fine (1)

Fulham (H) - Last game, at White Hart Lane, nothing less than 3 points (3)

So if you add up all these, we'll end up getting about 25 more points, putting us on a total of 78 points at the end of the season.

Come back tomorrow to read about my predictions for Arsenal's remaining fixtures and on Sunday for my predictions for Chelsea's remaining fixtures.

The Old and the Young

Harry Redknapp is a very unique manager,

as he is possibly the only manager of a 'big' team in England who prefers

to buy old players rather than young players.

Look at Wenger, Dalglish, Ferguson and AVB - all of them have recently bought young star players and put them straight into the first team.

Arsenal bought Szczesny, Chamberlain, Mertesacker and Gervinho.

Liverpool bought Carroll, Henderson and Downing.

Chelsea bought Torres, Mata and Luiz

United bought De Gea, Jones and Young

But during all of this, Harry bought Friedel, Parker, Saha and Nelsen

(and got Adebayor on loan)

Besides for a few exceptions in the bunch above (Mata and Chamberlain), all of those young players have played far below what was expected of them. The problem is that you can't buy someone with maybe 2 0r 3 years experience and make them the star player of the team.

It takes time for players to adapt to their clubs (and the tactics) and to feel confident when all the pressure is piled on them.

If you look at the players Harry bought, all of them have played far better than anyone expected them to (except Nelsen who hasn't had much game time yet) - and the best thing about it all, is that we got those 5 players for less than what Carroll cost Liverpool.

Also, if you look at Liverpool, one of their best players this season has been Craig Bellamy - who they got on a free transfer.

So maybe it's better to buy old players and replace them every few seasons, than to buy young who may or may not become good sometime in the future.

So why take this risk of guessing a player's ability, when you can just buy a player like Parker, Adebayor, Friedel or Saha who have already proven themselves as great footballers.

Well at least Harry understands this - and hopefully the other clubs will continue wasting money on the De Gea's and Torres's of the world,

while we grab all the 'golden oldies'.

Carry on doing what you do best Harry.