The unbeaten run contiues for Spurs

By Dave P
December 29 2004

The unbeaten run continues; Or at least that is one way of remaining upbeat after what was not one of our best performances. Palace started the game looking sharper.....

The unbeaten run continues;

Or at least that is one way of remaining upbeat after what was not one of our best performances. Palace started the game looking sharper and more 'up for it' than we did and indeed were on the attack in the first minute forcing a corner. Two minutes later the ever troubling Johnson had a weak effort. A few minutes later the Palace fans thought they had taken the lead but the linesman had corectly flagged four palace players offside so it did not count but it was only two more minutes before Ledley had to make a brilliant tackle to deny Soares.

In recent seasons we have performed well for 15 minutes or so to fade as the match went on but these days it seems as thought we need half an hour or so to warm up and this was the case today as we started to create chances but a combination of Kiraly saves and weak efforts kept us out but Palace with their five man midfield still looked the more dangerous side with chances for lakis, Riihilahti (twice) Johnson and Routledge all failing to give Palace a lead they would have deserved.

Half time and the inneffective Ricketts was replaced by Mendes and we took the ascendency. Brown looking to shoot on sight and Defoe doing what Defoe does and scring the Palace defence everytime he got a sniff of the ball scoring shortly after hitting the post. It could have been a two goal lead but for a correct offside decision against Kanoute ruling out his 'goal'. Further chances from Defoe and Kanoute had they gone in at this stage would probably have wrapped up the points but there was a sense of nervousness starting to creep in. Routledge was replaced by Torghell (to shouts from the homefans of 'Who' and whilst this seemed a surprising change it proved effective as Palace started to get themselves back into the match. After a couple of Penalty claims from Palace (both of which should have been greeted with simulation yellows from the useless as ever Uriah Rennie) we needed the likes of Crrick to get more involved and put their foot on the game and sure enough the equaliser came. It seemed to not be the greatest of shots that bobbled along the ground and maybe robinson was poorly positioned and unsighted but credit to Johnson who shot very early from distance in a defoeesqu manner catching everyone out.

Keane came on late for the tiring kanoute and a couple of chances came our way but it would have been an injustice to Palace had we scored a late winner.

Overall not a great performance but we will have learnt more from that than from an easy victory and that may in itself be a good thing with harder fixtures now approaching. A few weeks agos we were looking at a run of games thinking ten points would be a good return and we have ended up with 16 so it's not all bad.