Tottenham Hotspur 2-1 Manchester City

[funster]

Right, well, those of you unfortunate enough to have come here for the match report this morning and early afternoon will know that my laptop decided to stop working as I was more than halfway through the original one. Technology - s'great, innit? When it works. When it doesn't it can be about the most frustrating thing going!

So, here we go again, fingers crossed.....

I had almost forgotten what it felt like to win a game! The relief at beating Manchester City yesterday was immense. It really was. We repeated the scoreline from the corresponding fixture in May, but if anything, this result was even more important.

I'd set out thinking we were going to have atrocious weather. It wasn't. Hats off to the Beeb. Reliable as ever with the old weather forecasts! To be fair, its probably as much to do with the Met Office. The relatively easy drive into London meant we were at the ground in plenty of time so hung around to watch some of the 'Boro game. Incredibly the Arsehole were losing 1-0. I had mixed emotions. Never complain about seeing the Gooners lose, but frankly, a 'Boro win wasn't really what we needed! At times like these, needs must. Less focus on what the Gooners are doing, more on ourselves and those around us would be a sensible idea.

Kaboul had been restored to the starting line-up and Keano started his suspension. All-in-all I thought I'd take a draw. OK, City are horrible away from home, but under Eriksson they are a very different proposition. We could analyse long and hard the reasons why he appears to have so much success as a club manager when allowed to pick and choose his players rather than having them thrust upon him as was the case in the England job. But we won't! I dare say City will be a much better side under Eriksson than at any time in recent years, although getting out of the shadow of ManUre is either beyond them, or will take a good few years. Sounds familiar doesn't it? Getting out of the shadow of your local rivals.....

As we kicked off the bloke sat next to me asked whether I thought we'd be a goal down inside five. I said I didn't know, but I was pretty sure we wouldn't be keeping a clean sheet! In that first five minutes our defending, while not the shambles we've witnessed of late, once again gave reason for concern. One passage of play exemplified the problem. Dawson went wide right to cover for Chimbonda. Kaboul followed to cover for Dawson and won the header, but instead of heading out of play as far away as possible, he directed his header into play and straight to a City player! Now, I'm by no means an expert on the art of defending in the centre, but it strikes me that if your partner goes right to cover and you follow, you get the ball out of play as far away as posisble. The gaping hole that was left in the centre of defence was - thankfully - not exploited.

Incredibly, after that first five minute spell, we actually began to defend to a reasonable level. There was one other mishap when a City player broke clear only to shoot into the side netting, and Vassell seemed to win too many balls in the air, but this was not the rubbish that's been served up so frequently before. I'm not saying it was by any means high quality, but it was passable. Admittedly, the fact that we didn't concede probably had as much to do with how sluggish City seemed up front. No doubt Eriksson will work to fix that in January - who knows? Maybe Defoe will head that way. With more potency up front they will pose a far greater threat away from home.

The better chances, as if to demonstrate, this fell to us. Bent twice could have given us the lead. A superb Berbatov through ball found him one-on-one with the keeper but, in hindsight, he should've lifted the ball. As it was, it was a reasonable save. The other found him slashing across and wide of goal.

From about twenty minutes in City began to gain more possession and look very comfortable with it. Fairly slick and fast passing saw them progress well up the pitch, but fail to deliver up front. Just as well for us. Petrov and the lad playing right wing for them both looked good, although to be fair, we were doing OK down the wings ourselves with Lennon and Malbranque. Lennon posed a decent threat down the right and was crudely fouled, with a booking for the offending City player.

That, however, didn't hide the poor decision making from the referee - Mark Hallsey? He seemed to get a lot of decision wrong. One in particular, an apparent trip on Bent when through down the right, provoked Ramos (who seems generally a placid man) to rise from the bench followed by Poyet. It looked a bad decision. A number of bad fouls also went unpunished and really the ref was just storing trouble up for later. Had he booked the offenders earlier in the game he'd have sent out a clear message that it wasn't going to be tolerated, but the ill effects would be felt more by City in the second half.

As half time approached it was - incredibly - nil-nil. We won a free-kick, Jenas drove it in, Berbatov flicked it with superb touch goalward and Chimbonda diverted it in. Now, sat at the other end of the ground I was just happy to have taken the lead. But the one replay that was shown did - clearly - show that it was both handball and offside. I wasn't going to complain. In our predicament, you take any goal, any which way it comes!

A one-nil lead at half time. Probably been a while since we had that. And it meant no substitutions at the beginning of the second half. With that I wondered whether we'd be as fired-up at the restart as we have been in recent times (Anderlecht aside) given we'd trailed at the interval. Actually we started off OK. Decent attacking movement, but with City still finding it easier on the ball.

Not too long in, City threw on Bianchi, which gave the travelling support a new song to sing rather than "There's only one Ricky Hatton". This time it was "Bianchi, whoa, Bianchi, whoa, he comes from Italy, he plays for Man City". Very original.

Sadly not long afterwards he rose and headed the equaliser from a corner. It all looked too easy. The goal gave City fresh impetus and for a period they looked like they'd go for it. They still couldn't convert their possession into real opportunities though and as we went forward on both wings, the quality of challenges from City became more agricultural.

Chimbonda - I think - was sliced down on the right touchline. Unpunished. Not long afterwards Lee was crunched by Ireland and the ref produced a straight red. Now, as I said earlier, he really didn't help himself by leaving so many earlier tackles unpunished and while I didn't see the full contact that Ireland made, given Keane's dismissal last week, it was probably very easy to justify.

A few minutes earlier Defoe had been thrown on. Just before that the bloke sat next to me had bemoaned the fact that even as we progressed up the pitch we seemed either incapable, or unwilling to shoot from range. Yet opposition sides have profited greatly from doing so against us. I commented that with Defoe on at least we had that as an option, and if not, when he did receive the ball on the edge of the box, he would still be willing to try to squirm his way through.

The winner (as it turned out to be) was indeed scored by Defoe. Malbranque hit a hard low ball into a crowded box in the 82nd minute that evaded all touches. It richocheted back out off the base of the post, fell to Defoe, he steadied himself, hit it hard and low and into the back of the net - probably courtesy of a deflection. I haven't celebrated a home goal like that since the equaliser against Villa! It was incredible. After so many late goals conceded, to score one ourselves was just fantastic.

Of course, with eight minutes plus time left, and given our shocking record at conceding late, this game was far from won! Sure enough we invited pressure onto ourselves and although Defoe could've added to the tally - a long range shot (as if to prove what can happen if you take a pop) was fairly feebly palmed out by Isaksson and City got away with it - the board that read four minutes of added time meant we'd have plenty more defending still to do.

Dawson was imperious in the air through the second half, and every ball pumped forward towards him late on was well dealt with. Don't get me wrong, imperious doesn't in any way mean he played brilliantly, or that the defence was at the standard we should expect. No. Just that he won everything that came his way and averted any danger from the long ball.

We held out - unbelievably! Only our third win in the Premier League all season. Perhaps we're already three points better off before Christmas than I'd expected us to be. Let's not get carried away though. Portsmouth and Arsenal away are very much tougher games and could still see us in the drop zone come Boxing Day. Three points though, will be taken with glee, however they're earned right now.

We shouldn't be fooled into a false sense of security. The lofty position of 13th doesn't mask the fact that we still only two points off the drop zone. If we can pick up points in the next two games I will go into Christmas a much happier person!

[llanellispur]

good report cheers.

[Beats]

Good report as usual.

I would recommend writing your reports in Word or some word processor (saving frequently) then copy and paste into the forum when complete. I've lost long posts too many times and it could easily be avoided by doing the above.

Sorry if it sounds patronising but I know the frustration of losing a lot of work and I hate seeing technology take all the blame :2:

[SPURSRULE4LIFE]

funster i love your match reports they are so good and describe the match very well indeed

as for losing the long posts i`d do what beats says if you have a long post do it in word that way you can save it and just copy and paste it over with no problems at all as if you lost it in word then it can usually be recovered quite easy really

[RiverWire]

great as always mate, know how you feel on the laptop deal, only last week i was wrtting some code for another website of mine got to within 3 lines of finishing after sitting there for 4 hours and the bloody thing died i nearly picked the laptop up and chucked it at the wall and if i wasnt sitting around a mates house i prob would have. I know we should all back up but i always forget ive lost loads of stuff because of it :19:

[Beats]

Usually one catastrophic data loss will make people start to save more frequently and backup.

I see it happen in the school I work at, all the time people are bringing me USB memory sticks being held together with sticky tape and telling me there only copy of coursework is on it.

I only really lost important data once and it was 3/4 of a years diary for university which I only had on a floppy disc. Another engineer came in and used the disc, I've been more careful since then...