Tottenham vs Birmingham City and the relegation battle

Lest We forget

?Happy Friday, unfortunately for moi personal and work commitments have meant I have had to drop out of the Lilywhite Cup but for any teams that may be competing I wish you the best of luck and for any Spurs fans in the vicinity of the Beckham Academy, try and go along and have a gander. It promises to be a great occasion.

Thoughts and attention move towards Sunday’s season climax where Sky have suddenly realised that the vast majority of supporters don’t actually follow the “Sky Four” or “Sky Five” or “Sky Six” or whatever it is now and with United winning the title last week and “The Battle for Fourth” (still doesn’t sound right) sown up, attention moves to the relegation battle, where we arguably play a big part by hosting Birmingham City one of a trio of clubs on 39 points and avoiding the relegation places on virtue of goal difference, whilst Blackburn and Wolves lie just above them, and of course the Canning Town Bingo and Social Club (also referred to as West Ham United) already down and most definitely out, not that I’m gloating of course. Our guests Birmingham are a club I find difficult to warm to if I’m completely honest. Firstly lets face it they are from Birmingham, quite possibly the ugliest and dullest place known to mankind. I have a picture of one of Birmingham’s numerous ugly 1960s tower blocks that I took on an away trip up to Wolves a couple of years back. When I finally have children, after making sure they are Spurs, I will show them this picture and tell them:

“This is Birmingham, Don’t ever f**king go there or I’ll disown you”

If anyone ever asks you what there is to do if they have the misfortune of being stuck in Birmingham, just tell them to get a cab straight to New Street or Snow Hill and then get the train to Euston or Marylebone, because as every human being should know the only decent thing to ever come out of Birmingham was the train to London. The amazing thing about Birmingham City and believe me its truly amazing, is that they manage to out do their neighbours Aston “Bland, Drab and Boring” Villa in being well quite frankly bland, drab and boring. Their khazi of a ground is quite frankly a disgrace especially when the actually khazis for the away fans are portaloos, seriously this is the 21st Century lads, I know you lads in Brum still probably have issues with electricity and probably have a dump outside your house but when us Londoners pay a visit, bring out the red carpet at least!

The one saving grace about Birmingham City of course is that they did manage to beat the Scum in the Carling Cup Final, you remember the one, that “Mickey Mouse” competition that the Woolwich look down upon. “Its meaningless, its not a trophy” they cry whilst sipping on their frappucinos and wandering what time “The Sky at Night ” starts before quicker than you can say “Gus Caesar is an Arsenal legend” they change tack and embrace the competition before promptly getting beaten in the most hilarious of circumstances!

So Birmingham do have some uses, but in general they are a nasty niggly side and with the odious Lee Bowyer in their ranks, its hard to warm to them and I can’t say I’d be too disappointed if they disappeared from the Premiership this weekend. On paper given Birmingham’s form I’d say this should be a home banker, particularly when we have the seemingly unwanted carrot of fifth place and Europa League dangled in front of us. However this is Spurs, a team that was outplayed by Blackpool at home, who in my opinion are comfortably the worst side ever to come up to the Premiership (even though the points total doesn’t necessarily reflect that opinion) , so there’s no home bankers when it comes to us. Despite many pundits predicting a comfortable victory for us, I just don’t see it, I think Birmingham will come out fired up and well organised and we’ll struggle to break them down. I actually believe it will either be a 1-0 victory to them or at most a 1-1 draw, the former result probably guaranteeing they stay up. but with Liverpool in my opinion beating Villa, meaning we finish the season in sixth place.

Before I move onto the remaining relegation fixtures, a quick comment on Sebastien Bassong who yesterday came out claiming he wanted to leave Spurs. It was a refreshingly candid interview on a player who has been underused this season. There is no doubt Gallas has been an excellent acquisition but I feel Bassong is a far more talented defender than Dawson, he has had a few lapses in concentration but Dawson to me strikes me increasingly like a defender ion the mould of a Terry or a Carragher, whole hearted and passionate and always good at making last ditch interceptions. However the art to being a good defender is to follow the Ajax school of thought, with an organised defence you should mitigate the need to make those last ditch interceptions. It was that training that made Edwin van Der Saar the finest goalkeeper of his generation by realising that the art to good goalkeeping is to ensure your defence is organised enough for you not to make outstanding saves all the time, likewise Dawson whilst he is no doubt courageous doesn’t have the footballing nous to be a bit cuter in his positioning. Contrast him to Ledley King last week, and the difference in class is there for all to see. Sadly Ledley’s poor fitness record means he can’t be relied upon on a regular basis and for me Bassong seems his most natural replacement, naturally athletic and a footballing defender, it will be a shame if he leaves at the end of the season.

Back to the relegation battle, if you were to ask me at the start of the season which teams I’d want to go down, the answer would of course be obvious though unlikely; Arsenal, Chelsea and West Ham. Well at least one out of the three happened! Out of the five battling to stay up now, my preference would be for Birmingham as already stated and also more controversially perhaps Blackpool. The reasons being twofold, firstly Ian Holloway grates me, yeah mate you were funny at first but now you just talk gash, constant gash. You’re even worse than Harry so please just shut up….the man’s a buffoon. Added to that Blackpool’s performance when they came to the Lane, don’t get me wrong they played well and deserved to win but it was a dirty performance from the men in tangerine, cynical tackles that weren’t punished, culminating with that assault on Bale by Charlie Adam. I’d be happy not to see them again, even if it denies me the chance to go to Bloomfield Road. Of the remaining three sides, I’d like to see Wigan stay up, they play decent open attacking football and have a good manager and a thoroughly decent chap in Roberto Martinez. He comes across as dignified in his interviews and in my opinion with better resources at his disposal could do a very good job at a higher profile club. I really do hope Wigan stay up to justify their faith in their manager. Wolves have had some good results this season, they have beaten United, Chelsea and City, drew with us, beat Liverpool away, its strange they are still in trouble. I’m not a massive fan of McCarthy however they have a winnable home “six pointer” against Blackburn and it should see them safe.

That moves onto the final candidate in the relegation clash, Blackburn, it all seems to be going a bit Peter for them at precisely the wrong stage, their manager has been charged with drink driving, that Givet bloke has been accused of being paid a bung and in ordinary circumstances I have very little time for them as a football club. However given my Indian roots I’d like to see Blackburn stay up. I think there has been a fair bit of snobbery from the media over the Venky ownership issue, in general the overview has been that Venkys have made a bit of a pigs ear of things. To be fair I would agree with that assessment, whilst I’m no fan of Allardyce, for a club like Blackburn he was a perfect fit and getting rid of him for Steve Kean was pure folly, there was also the ill advised pursuit of Ronaldinho that was always going to end up with the club getting egg on their faces. However the reaction within the media has been rather OTT and in my opinion both patronising and condescending. Almost a reaction of “Silly Indian owners, what do they know about football, they should stick to selling chicken”. If you pardon the pun, maybe by their naive approach they have been Fair Game (get it Fair Game????) and they could have been guilty of counting their chickens before they were hatched when plucking Steven Keen from obscurity (ok I’ll stop now) but that’s really no excuse for the reaction in the media. Contrast that with the reaction to QPR’s Indian majority owners who’s nationality hasn’t been mentioned at all (and nor should it), despite bringing stability and sensibility to the club that had threatened to be undermined under Briatore. It strikes me as hypocritical in the extreme, the nationality of the ownership matters when things aren’t going well but isn’t given a mention when everything clicks. As I said it may be a tad biased given my allegiance to India, however I believe its a pertinent point. Whilst the people from Venkys have made some naive moves, they have also ploughed in investment into a club that desperately needed it, they are on a learning curve and I hope purely just to stick one into the media haters, Blackburn stay up and the owners get it right. From the interviews I have seen with the lady who is the CEO of Venkys, she seems like a thoroughly dignified individual and its a shameful indictment on the state of our media that she’s being ridiculed, because lets face it its not like every English owner of a football club has been a roaring success. Sadly however I see Wolves winning at Molineux, I also see Wigan beating a dispirited Stoke side and coupled with a Birmingham victory at our place, it will be enough to see Blackburn, sadly for Venkys, go down.

So here are my final predictions

Wolves 1 Blackburn 0Man Utd 3 Blackpool 0Stoke 1 Wigan 2Spurs 0 Birmingham 1

Therefore I predict Blackburn and Blackpool to follow West Ham through the trapdoor, with Wolves, Birmingham and Wigan ready to fight another season.

Please find the original post in my Spurs blog The Glory Game