Ok, so what happened? Basically, the Carling Cup Final happened. At the exact same time. Was anyone interested in a league game between Tottenham Hotspur and Bolton Wanderers? Well, five of us were. And the staff found a little telly in a corner for us, bless them. But there were still hundreds (you know, many) people there for the other game, which was shown on all the other screens and at a very high volume. It can be a bit surreal to watch a game with no volume at all. It can be even more surreal to hear the commentary of something else. But incredibly loud commentary, accompanied by the cheers and boos and general noise of hundreds (ok, a lot) of Chelsea and Arsenal supporters, of a game which apparently was very exciting is the most surrealest of all. At times even I, renowned for not taking my eyes off the screen, had to look over. For the goals, for John Terry's horrible injury, for the bizarre punch-up at the end. Needless to say, the five of us made some noise as well. Quite a lot, actually. There was so much to be happy about.
Despite the revival of last week I had been a little worried that Bolton might be too heavy a test too soon. Silly me. The first 20 minutes of this game were just amazing - reminiscent of the way we played against Newcastle at home, but with the difference that the lads scored three goals and never wavered for a second. The team play, the passing, the understanding between the players - a solid defence (any little slip-up Rocha, who will settle in given a few more games, might have made was covered by the magnificent Dawson), a steely yet elegant midfield, Aaron Lennon being Aaron Lennon, Keane spot on and Dimitar Berbatov playing like the god I am increasingly convinced he is. We'll get back to that. Anyway, if I had been able to make notes I could perhaps give more of a report than a giggling review, but as it is... I can't even remember Bolton - I think they were the dudes in red running around somewhere.
Bolton get a corner, Keane, positioned at the post gets the ball in the chest - it looks as though he handles the ball out of the goal. Honestly, I'm still not sure whether he did or not, I'm leaning towards not, but at the very least he was a bit clumsy to wave his hands about rather than let it go in. As it was he was sent off and Bolton got a penalty, which they put in the net. We of little faith actually got a bit nervous. What was going to happen? Would this invigorate Bolton and break the confidence of our lads? And this, of course, is where things got even more amazing - and interesting, with some kind of analytical perspective. The team, which in the depths of a "crisis" - two weeks ago - prompted journalists and experts to write long analyses of just what was so horribly wrong, which did lose confidence, which was lacking in leadership, which lost not only the ball but all initiative against Sheffield United, that team just continued as if nothing had happened. I still think that neither crisis nor invigoration were as bad or as spectacular as people with a very short memory suggest - but something has happened.
Spurs played the entire second half with ten men and, honestly, it was nearly impossible to remember that that was the case. No loss of either confidence or ball. I don't remember if Bolton had many chances, but I know we had a good few. And got another goal. Essentially the man who made the game, who created the goals, who made it look as though we had 12 men rather than 10, was Dimitar Berbatov. We all know he is good. We all love him. But his performance yesterday was out of this world. He collected, controlled, passed, distributed, created - he was everywhere, won everything and probably dazzled the Bolton defence into their apparent stupefaction. We were all flabbergasted; I, for one, nearly moved to tears of joy and movement at the beauty of it all. For a while I wondered if we were just a bit biased, wondered if people would fail to notice his effort - seeing as his name wasn't on the score sheet - but thankfully not. He was Man of the Match, after the game and in the papers and Martin Jol seemed to have to restrain himself from going on a praising rant. True to his nature Dimitar was sweetly modest about the whole thing and happy about the way the team had played beautiful football and as a team at that. Aren't we all.
Tottenham
Robinson, Chimbonda, Dawson, Rocha, Young-Pyo Lee, Lennon, Zokora (Stalteri 90), Jenas, Tainio (Malbranque 67), Berbatov, Keane.
Subs Not Used: Cerny, Mido, Defoe.
Sent Off: Keane (36).
Goals: Keane 11, Jenas 19, Keane 22, Lennon 90.
Bolton
Jaaskelainen, Hunt, Meite, Faye (Teymourian 25), Gardner (Pedersen 63), Giannakopoulos, Nolan (Vaz Te 76), Campo, Speed, Diouf, Anelka.
Subs Not Used: Walker, Tal.
Booked: Diouf, Meite, Gardner, Campo.
Goals: Speed 37 pen.
Attendance: 35,747
Referee: Graham Poll
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