SATURDAY 14TH OCTOBER, 2000                                FA CARLING PREMIERSHIP

COVENTRY CITY   2 – 1   TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR

Aloisi, 12                                       Rebrov, 53
Eustace, 26

Referee: P Jones (Loughborough).

Attendance 21,435

Coventry (4-4-2) Kirkland; Telfer, Shaw, Breen, Edworthy; Chippo, Palmer, Eustace, Hadji; Aloisi (Roussel 73,), Bellamy (Hendry 81).     

Sent-off: Palmer.                                                                                   Subs not used:- Zuniga, Quinn, Montgomery

Tottenham (4-4-2) Walker; Carr, Perry, Vega, Thatcher; Anderton, Freund (Iversen 76,), Sherwood, Leonhardsen (Dominguez 83); Ferdinand, Rebrov. Booked: Carr, Vega, Perry, Anderton, Thatcher.            Subs not used:- Segers; Thelwell, Clemence

The “demo” was pretty quiet - with a few anti Graham chants early on met with some resistance. although there was much more anti GG stuff at half time. When it was obvious that the protest was organised by TAG it was only ever going to be a publicity stunt without any substance. George will be out pretty soon because he is making us shite, Francis style and this inept performance will be another does of bad medicine that eventually cures the patient of the Goon disease.

Coventry scored out of the blue after 12 minutes when, Aloisi cut inside and as Roberto Carlos Thatcher declined to make a challenge, Aloisi smashed a great shot passed Walker. Spurs again attacked without any width and only down the right. Spurs possession consisted of ooooofs from Thatcher in the vicinity of Ferdinand who to give him credit won one of the 25 or so aerial challenges, hospital balls from Sherwood, any number of backward or square passes, with only Anderton and an increasingly deep Rebrov getting anywhere. Coventry scored again after 25 minutes thro a bloke called Useless

 After the second goal Coventry conceded much of the ball to Tottenham and resorted to counter attacks. This cruelly exposed Spurs lack of ideas and the young keeper replacing Hedman dealt with most things pretty easily

Spurs managed to pull one back with another 37 minutes left on the clock. Leo found Rebrov in space on the left hand side of the box and the little fella belted the ball home. With this amount of time remaining, we should have managed to at least get level against a shite team like Coventry. On a rare Coventry counter attack, Walker saved well and Perry cleared the danger from the rebound. At the other end, Perry had a good near post flick from a corner and we created a few other half chances before Sherwood got the ball in the net, but probably fouled the keeper in doing so. Ferdinand for all his general ineptness was presented with a simple opportunity to equalize but virtually missed his header and the ball rolled wide from about 6 yards.

Iversen replaced Freund and Little Jo came on for a late cameo. Palmer got sent off for kicking out at Perry, who tussled as they chased back after a Spurs attack. There was still time for Sherwood to hit the bar with a late header from a Carr cross, but like the game at Leeds Spurs did not get the equalizer they probably deserved.  I was dismayed at the end of the match that only Perry and Carr gave half hearted thanks to the 4000 or so of us who travelled up and sung our hearts out for 90minutes. They might not like our “fickle - not putting up with second rate shite” attitude but its up to them to prove us wrong like Armo did to great effect last season.

Things are going from bad to worse and Graham has no idea how to reverse this - press statements have gone from “trying to get a top 6 team” to “when I took over it was relegation threat season after season so be happy with this crap”. A good start would be to never pick Ferdinand, Vega or Fatcha ever again - all £15m of talent that they undoubtedly are

Walker 6/10 - In what could prove to be his last game for the club, Walker played fairly well, notably with a good save in the second half from Bellamy and had no chance with either goal

Carr  6/10 - Played well and was the only width we had on the pitch in attack, setting up Sherwood with a header that hit the top of the bar at the end Thatcher 1/10 - Useless - I heard all the “he’s nervous & give him time crap”, but this geezer is just shit. When Graham continues to slag premiership defending, look no further than this twat. He has bad positional sense, easily turned and cannot do anything other than ooof the ball to somewhere near Ferdinand. In the Opta stats published in the Times passing success rate was 54% compared to everybody else in the mid 70%’s (apart from Mad Ramon at 65%). This man should never represent Tottenham again, steel or no steel Perry 6/10 another decent display from Perry with Mad Ramon and Shite Thatcher alongside. nearly scored from a near post flick in the second half Vega 5/10 - not a good match for Ramon and the injured pair of Luke Young and Ledley King, along with Alton Thelwell must be going up the wall at missing out at this opportunity for first team experience. Surely Graham could give Thelwell a run out, cos he could n’t any worse than Vega

Anderton 7/10 - not as effective as at Elland Road but still had a good match and was involved in all the few good things we managed as an attacking force Freund 5/10 - not the best match for the Space Invader but still managed a shot that cleared the bar by at least 15ft in the second half Sherwood 5/10 has not played well for a while (since coming back from that injury he was carrying for most of last season)and continues to disappoint with bad passing and not being able to dominate a poor midfield. Did he really score 10 goals from midfield last season? Nearly redeemed himself with a late header that hit the bar and a disallowed goal but the main question with Sherwood revolves around Davies. Is Davies ready ? Leonhardsen 5/10 - Leo worked hard and made some good runs into the box - as ever but is much better on the right - as ever

Ferdinand 0.5/10 - absolute disgrace. He failed to win any headers throughout the game, was lazy in not getting back from offside positions and missed a sitter at the end. A big fat arsed useless twat. Even GG must have seen that Spurs were a much better team when Ferdinand was off the pitch at Leeds and he did not have the nous to drop the great useless puddin for this game. Rebrov  7/10 along with Shaggy was the only player to show any class and took his goals tally to a very respectable 5 from 9. Would benefit from having Clive Allen rather than humpty dumpty as his striking partner and being given non hospital balls by Sherwood

Just to update Gooner George’s shameful away record - P39 W7 D12 L20 F37 A53. Points per game 0.8462 and a win ratio 17.95%