Kane is able
Not for the first time, Tim Sherwood totally misjudged the prevailing opinion of Tottenham Hotspur supporters.
In a typically compelling midweek punditry stint on beIN Sports, the loose-lipped former manager said last week that Spurs fans prefer an import to a home-grown hero.
Doubtful. So what if they have been patient with the likes of Roberto Soldado and Erik Lamela, whose contributions have not been commensurate with their price tags?
More than anything else, the Tottenham faithful have been impatient over seeing Harry Kane land a starting place.
“He’s one of our own,” they sung when the academy graduate came on as substitute against Aston Villa, scored the winning goal and won the man of the match award. Kane may not look too much like Ledley King, the Spurs idol, but he does have the same faint lisp when he speaks and he is home-grown. Perhaps he is club legend material, too.
Voice of the middle class
The middle class apparently do not have a voice. It seems you cannot sing and eat prawn sandwiches at the same time.
Jose Mourinho is not the first person to complain about dwindling atmospheres at Premier League football grounds.
The prohibitive price of attending a game is usually taken to be the reason football grounds are no longer the bearpits of yesteryear. “Chelsea fans show us their passion for this club every day, but there is a certain line of living at matches at Stamford Bridge,” Mourinho was quoted as saying after Chelsea’s win over Queens Park Rangers. “I can clearly say we are the team to get less support in home matches.”
St Mary’s football factory
Mauricio Pochettino was lavished with all sorts of praise for the job he did as the manager at Southampton, before he departed for Tottenham.
Now Ronald Koeman is overseeing a broadly altered Saints side that is the closest challengers to Chelsea at the top of the Premier League.
Every time Koeman speaks you get the sense he cannot believe how lucky he is to have been put in charge of such a slick bunch of self-starters.
OK, so he brought in Graziano Pelle, whose goals have underpinned their rise, but is there a better run club?
“Must be the Hampshire air,” Martin Hunter, Southampton’s technical director, told the Daily Telegraph last week. Something like that, anyway.
United’s absent defence
It is going to take at least two more transfer windows until Manchester United are title-challenging material again.
So said Phil Neville, the former United player and recent member of the coaching staff, on beIN Sports this weekend.
That timescale takes us up to the start of next season. Ergo, only the current season is written off and most people could probably judge that United have accrued too few points so far to challenge this term.
By next season, a few defenders might have arrived at Old Trafford, but many more injuries or suspensions now and United will have Wayne Rooney and Juan Mata at centre-half.
pradley@thenational.ae
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