Tue 17 April 2007, 12:00
Tottenham HotspurMartin Jol takes a look back at Sunday's 3-3 draw at Wigan and ahead to the big one - Arsenal at the Lane in the Premiership this Saturday.
Martin Jol takes a look back at Sunday's 3-3 draw at Wigan and ahead to the big one - Arsenal at the Lane in the Premiership this Saturday.AFTER so many games in the last couple of weeks - Wigan was our fifth in 15 days - we wanted to go to the JJB, keep it tight and then punish them. We wanted to nick possession, break and score our goals. I thought they would be pretty nervous because they are near the bottom of the league.
What we didn't want to do was concede a goal after 53 seconds. We had to fight back, we had to show resilience and that's what we did but if you see the goals we conceded, you could almost say it's typical of us this season. I feel we have good players but we have to do better to get on the end of a cross or reach a second ball. It's about concentration and being tough.
We have good characters though. Pascal Chimbonda came out of the game well, kept his composure and we didn't want to let him down. It would have been marvellous if he'd scored the winning goal with his chance at the end, but it wasn't to be.
Afterwards, it wasn't a case of being pleased with a draw because we wanted the three points, but okay, it was the final game of a testing sequence of matches and now we have the full week to concentrate on our next game against Arsenal. We want to do well in that one - we feel we owe that much to the supporters.
We announced yesterday that Lee Young-Pyo has suffered a knee injury and it's a shame for him and us. He will be out for the rest of the season and a big part of May and June as well. Hopefully he'll be back in July for our pre-season preparations but as it stands, he'll be out for two-and-a-half to three months.
I feel every time he's not playing we miss him because he stretches teams and is so comfortable on the ball. He's played all the games since Benoit Assou-Ekotto was injured and he's a great lad, he loves Spurs, but he's out now and we have to find a solution.
Phil Ifil came in at left-back at Wigan and did well. He first played against Liverpool and Newcastle when he was only 17 a couple of years ago and everyone thought he would have a career straight away, but he had to work on one or two things in his game and he's done that. He's a real Spurs player, a home-grown player with a great mentality and a very good career ahead of him. I said to him at Wigan 'you'll have to do a job for us on the left', can you imagine, his first game back, out of position? He didn't blink an eyelid.
Charlie Lee is another youngster who was on the bench. Everyone at Spurs knows him, especially the fans who watch the reserves. He's a lad with a big personality and I wouldn't be worried about putting him on either.
But back to Arsenal. If I think back to the last game against them here in the Carling Cup when we led 2-0 - it still hurts. Dimitar Berbatov was playing so well but had to come off after about 25 minutes, we had a great first half, were 2-0 up but we couldn't get out of our half in the second period, when we didn't put enough pressure on the ball. That is something we have to do. If you let them settle they are so capable with the likes of Fabregas, Gilberto, Hleb and Rosicky.
They can play very good football but we're at White Hart Lane, we're in front of our fans, the atmosphere will be electric, we need the points and I don't care who we are playing - Arsenal, United, Chelsea, Liverpool, it doesn't matter, we shall be planning to win.
|
Mobile Ringtone - Martin Jol's Blue & White Army
Click here to view full Mobile range |
