Hunting High and Low

I don't know what it is with Tottenham, I really don't. Much as I'd like to leave them alone, they just keep bringing it on themselves. Fresh from their latest dvd release, 42 Minutes- commemorating their acheivement in those opening 42 minutes last Saturday-

we now have their Chief Executive, Paul Barber, talking up their new stadium. But not just talking it up, obviously I'd have no problem with that, he has to bring us into it. Apparently, their new stadium, being a generation beyond ours- as if 6 years is going to make such a huge difference- will be more advanced technologically and environmentally. I wonder about his environmental claims. As Patrick Barclay pointed out in Monday's Times, anyone who's ever been to White Hart Lane will know how difficult, due to woefully inadequate transport links, it is to get there. I don't see how an extra 16,000 knuckle draggers coming into the Tottenham area is going to help the immediate environment at all, the new stadium is going to have to be the Eden Projects of football stadia. Somehow, I don't think it will be, so Paul Barber, please try and  get over you and your club's unhealthy obsession with trying to outdo the neighbours.

Back in the real world..

I came from home work last night and the Tesco man had just arrived with Jo's shopping and a complimentary Dail Mail. Now, I'm not a Mail reader, but I am a man and the Daily Mail has sports pages. I know that 99.9% of men can never resist the back pages, regardless of which newspaper they belong to, I'm no different. I'm glad I checked them out because, as well as some very complimentary observations from Andy Townsend on Wednesday night's performance, there was an illuminating article on the nature of Arsenal's capture of the man we now call The Verminator.

It transpires that two months before the end of the season, Steve Rowley was tasked with finding a replacement for the outgoing Kolo Toure. Having hunted high and low, Rowley was tapped out. He had seen Vermaelen, but Vermaelen had not ticked all the boxes. Remembering how Vermaelen kept Thierry Henry quiet in a Champions League encounter with Ajax in 2005, Mr Wenger told him to go and look again. And so Rowley hid in the trees as Vermaelen trained with the Belgian national squad and his eyes were opened to the qualities of a player Tottenham, Manchester City and Aston Villa had all looked at. And now the man who prefers to study the game, not the London night life, is ours and I think we can all agree on being happy with that outcome.

One player who most definitely does agree is Alex Song. Of course, like Vermaelen and Steve Rowley, Alex is also a player who qualities were not immediately obvious to everyone, though in my first attempt at an OleOle blog, back in the days before Gillespie Road, I expressed my belief that he was the most suitable partner for Cesc. Of course, Cesc has two midfield buddies now. Anyway, come the winter we will be losing one of our most influential performers in the team to the ACN, but Alex thinks Denilson will be able to deputise for him. I wonder about that. He is the only one currently in the first team squad you would think capable of doing the job, but I wonder if he is physically suitable for playing that role effectively. I think he did a good enough job of it last year, but Song's emergence as the holding midfielder has probably put his efforts in the shade a touch.

That's a future question, though. Today we go to Wolverhampton and we do so with Manuel Almunia restored as number one in the manager's eyes. Citing the importance of having the experience to deal with pressure and need to have continuity in goal, the manager says that Almunia did suffer a crisis of confidence after we beat Portsmouth. He wouldn't have dropped him had he not been sick, though. I have well documented reservations about the Spaniard and his propensity for errors of judgement as well as a lack of conviction in dealing with crosses, but without Fabianski available, it's understandable that he has been restored to the team as Mannone was beginning to tread water. I hope the rest has done Almunia good, he hasn't had much to deal with since returning to the team, but has still let in one eminently saveable goal, but on the positive side, he did make a cracking save on Wednesday night. Let's hope it's that side of him we get to see this evening. Or even that we don't see him at all!

Unfortunately, I'm out with friends, so won't be able to see the game live, which is a shame because I would have been looking forward to using my new Twitter account for the first time. I will however be watching either late tonight, or tomorrow morning, before heading over to mum's house to see my sisters. Enjoy the game, wherever you are.