From: bruce@tcom.stc.co.uk (Bruce Munro)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.soccer
Subject: Spurs Nes & Match Reports ( v Coventry and Crystal Palace)
Date: 26 Aug 92 17:18:11 GMT
Organization: BNR Europe, New Southgate, London.

Well, the new season in the much hyped Premier League has begun. Spurs
have had a pretty indifferent start, but more of that later. I'll start
with a quick round up of personnel changes at the Lane, then get on to
match reports of the season so far.

Spurs had a pretty active time with transfers this summer. Going were
Paul Gascoigne(Lazio, 5.5M), Gary Lineker(Grampus Eight, 1M),
Paul Stewart(Liverpool, 2.3M) and Paul Walsh(Portsmouth, 400,000).
The new players were Darren Anderton(Portsmouth, 1.7M),
Neil Ruddock(Southampton), Gerard McMahon(Glenavon), Dean Austin(Southend),
Peter Beadle(Gillingham). Apologies if I missed any!

Darren Anderton is a winger who bears a slight physical resemblance to
Chris Waddle. Whether he comes up to the same standard as Waddle only time
will tell.  He goes by the nickname of Shaggy, as he also looks a bit like
the character from Scooby Doo.

Neil Ruddock is a central defender who has previously played for Spurs
in the mid 80's. His disciplinary record at Southampton was poor and he's
already been sent off this season at Spurs! Unjustly, I might add!

Gerard McMahon is supposedly a highly talented midfield player from
Glenavon in Northern Ireland. He's only 18 and has started out in the
Spurs reserve side, though I hope we'll see him in the first team before
too long.

Dean Austin is a young right-back from Southend, the same team Spurs
bought Justin Edinburgh from. Peter Beadle is a centre-forward.


The first game of the season was away to Southampton on Aug. 15th. I
was unable to attend due to sailing commitments, so not much of a
report. The team, if I remember correctly was:

Walker, Fenwick(Oh no!), Edinburgh, Howells, Cundy, Ruddock(capt.),
Turner (Andy, from Spurs youth squad last season), Durie, Samways,
Anderton, Allen.

The match was apparently a pretty dire 0-0 draw with Southampton having
the best chance when Allen headed off the Spurs goal line and Ian Walker
making a good reaction save from the resulting shot. Good news from the
first day was that the Arse chucked away a 2-0 lead at home to Norwich
getting dumped 4-2 in the end.

On to the first real report.

Wednesday 19th August
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 0 - 2 COVENTRY CITY
			  Williams (4,29)
Spurs: Walker(Thorstvedt, 45), Fenwick, Edinburgh, Howells, Cundy (Gray, 4),
Ruddock, Turner, Durie, Samways, Anderton, Allen. Subs not used: Hendrie.
Coventry: Ogrizovic, Fleming, Sansom, Robson, Pearce, Atherton, Glynn,
Hurst, Rosario, William (Ndlovu, 70), Smith. Subs not used: McGrath, Gould.

The less said about this disaster the better really! First of all due to
new ticketing arrangements in the members terrace at WHL, there were still
several hundred people (including me) outside the ground when the game
kicked off. No sooner had I arrived on the terrace a few minutes after kick-off
than ball appeared in the back of the Spurs goal. A corner kick from
Coventry had been sent toward the goal but blocked by David Howells on the
line, unfortunately the ball got tangled in his feet and the ex-Swansea
centre-forward John Williams dived in to bang it into the back of the net.
Next thing I noticed was that Andy Gray was on the pitch wearing number 14.
Interrogation of others on the terrace revealed that just prior to the
corner award he'd got a knock in the face and received a nasty cut by the
eye. The first half progressed with Spurs keeping a fair bit of posession,
but with only Durie playing right up front finding no ideas to get the ball
through to him. Coventry were playing pretty well though and twenty-five
minutes after the first goal John Williams was sent clear by a through
ball. His devastating pace (he won the Rumbelows Sprint Challenge last
year) left the Spurs defence floundering and he was able to plant the ball
wide of Walker in the Spurs net. The remainder of the first half saw Spurs
doing much the same thing, ie. passing it around and going nowhere.

The second half saw Spurs play with a bit more purpose, and they managed
to create a couple of chances, Ogrizovic saving well from Fenwick of all
people. Coventry came closest to scoring in the second half though when
awarded a penalty for Thorstvedt's (subbed at half-time because Walker had
injured his back) bringing down of (I think) Williams. Micky Gynn stepped
up to take the penalty and shot too close to Thorstvedt who saved it easily.
Not much else of note happened with Spurs displaying an alarming lack
of penetration up front, endless attacks fizzling out in the Coventry half.

There was a nasty incident in the first half when Durie was hacked down
by Coventry's Pearce. Durie jumped up angrily and then appeared to be
butted or struck by Pearce. The referee booked Pearce for the challenge
and Durie for apparently faking the effect of the headbutt. The referee
has reported Durie to the FA and they are to hold a hearing about it.
Durie maintains that he was struck and that video evidence will clear his
name. If he was to found guilty of ungentlemanly conduct it would mean
a large fine and possibly a lengthy ban.

As far as the Spurs players went it varied a great deal. New-boy
Anderton was nowhere to be seen and hardly touched the ball in the
game. He'll need time to settle in and hopefully better things are to
come. Andy Turner had promising moments, and Durie played his heart out
as usual.  The problem with Spurs seemed to be the lack of a good
playmaker in midfield, and a disturbing amount of misunderstanding
between the players.  Repeat this form throughout the season and we'll
be calling for the return of Peter Shreeves! Not to mention, back in
the First Division! :-(

Saturday 22nd August
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 2 - 2 CRYSTAL PALACE
 Durie (16)              McGoldrick (21)
 Sedgley (89)            Young (80)

Spurs: Thorstvedt, Fenwick (Austin, 63), Edinburgh, Sedgley, Tuttle,
Ruddock, Hendry (Gray, 63), Durie, Samways, Anderton, Allen. Sub not
used: Day.
Palace: Martyn, Humphrey, Shaw, Southgate, Young, Thorn, Coleman, Thomas,
Sinnott, McGoldrick. Subs not used: Osborne, Barnes, Heald.

A hell of a game this one, with four goals and two sendings off! Palace
started off as the better of the two sides, putting the Spurs defence
under a lot of pressure, though they coped pretty well early on. However,
it was Spurs that opened the scoring when Vinny Samways played a great
ball through the Palace defence to put Paul Allen clear to the right of
the goal. His cross found Gordon Durie running in unmarked for a simple
header past Martyn. Five minutes later Justin Edinburgh conceded a free-kick
to the right of the Spurs area and Palace scored when McGoldrick got round
the back of Ruddock and had a free header as the ball was crossed in.
Not long afterwards Terry Fenwick conceded a penalty by pushing a Palace
player in the box, but for the second time in two games Thorstvedt saved
from the spot with McGoldrick hitting the ball to virtually the same spot
as Gynn did for Coventry. Toward the end of the half there was a bizarre
incident when Martyn was penalized for taking too many steps with the ball
resulting in an indirect free-kick in the Palace area. The Palace players
were reluctant to retreat the full ten yards and constantly encroached on
the ball. Samways taking the kick for Spurs dummied a couple of times to
show the encroachment to the ref. Eventually Thorn for Palace was booked,
as was Samways as his dummying of the kick was regarded as ungentlemanly
conduct!

In the second half Spurs began playing somewhat better, with Anderton
beginning to look promising down the left flank, also the attacking
pair of Durie and Hendry up front looked a lot more dangerous than Durie
had on his own against Coventry. Things began to get a bit though and
reached a head when Spurs made a double substitution of Gray and Austin
for Hendry and Fenwick. Gray had hardly been on the pitch thirty seconds
before Geoff Thomas (looking more like 300,000 than 3M) clattered into
him from behind and then swung a kick at Gray while he was on the floor.
This prompted something of a scuffle, though it was quickly sorted out.
Amazingly, Thomas escaped with a booking. Five minutes later both Ruddock
(booked earlier for a challenge) and Thorn of Palace were sent off for a
ridiculous incident. Thorn had made a good challenge on Ruddock who had
been upfield for a corner, both players ending up on the ground. Ruddock
got up and brushed against Thorn as he headed back to his defensive
position, Thorn over-reacted and swung at the Spurs player. Both were
sent off for their second bookable offence, a very harsh decision,
especially in the case of Ruddock. Ten minutes later Palace took the lead
when Tuttle conceded a free kick in an almost identical place to that from
which Palace scored their first. Eric Young rose above the Spurs defence
to give them a 2-1 lead. Spurs really pushed forward hard in the final
tem minutes and it paid off when Paul Allen's 89th minute cross beat Durie
in the area only to find Steve Sedgley charging in. He took it on his knee
then managed to flick to the left of Martyn in the Palace goal. Spurs very
nearly pulled off a victory in the dying moments when Spurs defender
David Tuttle (had an excellent game) played a perfect long ball out of
defence to the feet of Darren Anderton, he made a freat run down the
wing cutting inside one defender and then shooting just wide from outside
the area.

This match gave some hope to Spurs fans with several players, including
Samways and Anderton improving markedly on their performances against
Coventry. Dean Austin showed up well after coming on for Fenwick and
David Tuttle looked superb. The defensive lapses from the two free-kicks
still give cause for concern though.

Last night however, whatever cause for optimism had been gleaned from
the Palace game was swept away when Spurs were gubbed 5-0 by Leeds at
Elland Road. It was always going to be a tough game, but with Leeds
having been on the end of a stuffing at Middlesbrough on Saturday it was
obvious that they'd be out set things straight. Listening on the radio
it seemed that Spurs defended well under heavy Leeds pressure for the first
15 minutes, but then screwed up when a back-pass to Thorstvedt was taken
off his feet and put in the net by Wallace. This opened the floodgates
and within 10 minutes Leeds went 3-0 up thanks to two goals from
French genius Eric Cantona. It was 4-0 almost straight away in the second
half when Cantona got his hat-trick, and Chapman hammered the last nail
home later on. It sounded like a very poor performance by the Spurs
midfield that seemed unable to counter the Leeds aggression at all.
Spurs managed to get a couple of chances from Durie and Samways on target,
but both were well saved. Looks like there's a lot of work to be done
on the training pitch and maybe in the transfer market if this season
isn't to end in disaster.

Games coming up are Ipswich on Sunday and Sheffield United the following
Wednesday. Both look like tough games with Ipswich playing well at the
moment and Sheffield United are never a pushover these days.

-- 
Bruce Munro.  <bruce@tcom.stc.co.uk> || ...!mcsun!uknet!stc!bruce
BNR Europe Ltd, Oakleigh Rd South, London N11 1HB. 
Phone : +44 81 945 2174 or +44 81 945 4000 x2174
"There are no strangers, only friends we don't recognise" - Hank Wangford