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 Tickle Tackle - A Lesson LearntTue 21st Aug 2007 12:39 by Steve Tickle The rather dismal performance at White Hart Lane has the wrist-slashers out in force but I'm not joining them. After a couple of good performances (even though we only managed to accrue one point) Saturdays' 4-0 reverse at White Hart Lane came as something of a shock to us all. Martin Jol was under pressure for starting the season with two losses and was it just possible we might sneak a point or three or were we going to be on the end of a backlash? Well it seems like it was nearer the latter. I saw Spurs home loss to Everton on TV and to be honest, Spurs looked much more dangerous than Everton for most of the game but it was in front of goal where Everton made it pay. With that in mind, Spurs hadn't suddenly become a bunch of no-hopers overnight. Unfortunately, it seems like more than a few of our players needed to be reminded that teams like the Rams need to play at 100% for 100% of the game and by the time we'd learnt that lesson, the game was already out of our reach. We have plenty of players who have Premier League experience and they should know what it takes at this level. Maybe having not played in the Premiership for a season or so the lessons have become a little misty in their memories. Saturday's game would have brought them back into sharp focus. We've all been there... we say we're prepared for something and we honestly think we are, but when the reality strikes us firmly between the eyes maybe we realise we weren't quite as prepared as we thought. That doesn't make us any less able to cope though and the bloodied nose we got on Saturday should serve as a painful reminder of the intensity we need to play with. Saturday's loss came nice and early in the season and I can't see Billy Davies letting it be anything other than a lesson he'll refer to regularly if he think's it's necessary. He's still building the squad and we have ten days or so for him to bring more quality in. Let's also not forget there's another transfer window in December where we can build still further. What we need to do in between now and then is ensure that we're in a league position where the signings he brings in in December do take the club on and aren't short-term signings required to keep us up. So at 5o'clock on Saturday I was pretty gutted that we'd got tonked. I thought we could well be in for a point and might just have kept the pressure on Jol by sneaking all three. You won't hear me talking about the possibility of a new all-time low points total though. That's just completely preposterous at this stage and anyone who thinks that really should be on medication. After all, at the beginning of the season would you have taken it if you'd been told we'd only be one point behind Man Utd after three games? © Steve Tickle 2007 Talk about it on the message board
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