From today's Fiver:
High lines. When the Fiver slips into its Meiji era silk kimono later this evening and settles down on its chaise longue to watch top pundit Gary Neville expertly pick apart Woolwich's shortcomings during yesterday's Big Match, we fully expect much of the talk to be about high lines. "Look Ed," the Sky pundit will say to his straight man Sky Sports Ed. "Those lines are very high. When you're defending that high up the pitch you need to have your goalkeeper coming out to clean up as a sweeper like Hugo Lloris did, because that was the difference between the sides. That and the fact that when pacy Spurs players are running at you at speed, it helps if your central defenders don't react like soldiers who've just heard a loud 'click' underfoot as they tip-toe through a minefield." Yep, that's what the Fiver confidently predicts Gary will say, because he's always copying our incisive razor-sharp analysis and passing it off as his own.
Asked for his take on Woolwich's failings in yesterday's game, Arsène Wenger could only find two minor areas in which his team failed to function cohesively: defence and attack. "We were not efficient in those decisive zones, not at the back or up front," he mused, having apparently been so preoccupied by the ineptitude of defenders who can't defend and strikers who can't strike that he failed to notice the non-contribution of midfielder Jack Wilshere, whose negligible impact yesterday has been virtually ignored by many pundits and commentators, not least those who have spent recent months bigging him up as the greatest thing since Otto Frederick Rohwedder invented the bread slicer in 1928.
Of course it should go without saying that many of those pundits and commentators were also quick to portray Tottenham manager André Villas-Boas as some sort of collapsible car-driving clown when he first pitched up at White Hart Lane, in a state of affairs that was of course in no way related to the fact that he'd been hired to replace their "mate" 'Arry, who has long been a master of making certain media folk feel all gooey inside through the simple expedient of addressing them by their names.
"There is still so much to go," said AVB to the gentlemen of the Fourth Estate after his side's win. "This time last year Woolwich [faced] the difference of seven points and we know how it finished." Wise and cautious words indeed, from a man who this time last year – this very day in fact – was being handed his P45 by Roman Abramovich. From getting a severance cheque for £8m or thereabouts, to having to actually do some work for your money – nobody knows how quickly fortunes can change than Mr Villas-Boas.
:vert::baelol:
