Monday, October 03, 2005


CHARLTON ATHLETIC 2-3 TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR Last season around this time in fact our breaths were held tightly in another clash with the white side of North London, we had taken a three goal lead courtesy of two fine finishes from Shaun Bartlett and a deflected and first league goal for emerging youngster Jerome Thomas. But then, boom, it all turned on it's head, for a start our top scorer suddenly became our number one on the goal line and after Robbie Keane had fired home the resulting penalty our fingers went to our mouths. Defoe struck a quick second but we held on for a dramatic win that after Jacques Santini's resignation the previous night left Spurs looking down the barrel. Now a year on the side we played last season has changed very much. New manager. New director of football. A hatful of new players. New Dreams. New Start. Shame we can't say the same for the scorelines as on Saturday we experienced what the White Hart Lane faithful experienced in October last year. With Sven watching and another three points up for grab, things were looking more than just up when Darren Bent put us 2-0 ahead with two cool finishes which can surely leave the England boss with no questions for this coming saturday. Danny Murphy was playing like Ronaldinho, Smertin's middle-man ability was better than ever and Rommedahl and Thomas were eating up the space on the wings but Spurs never looked down and out and with Lennon's pace, David's passing and Mido's finishing things still looked far from comfortable. After Bent's second, a lovely curling effort from 15 yards after he had evaded two Spurs defenders, Ledley King reacted quickly touching home a deflected free-kick that completely wrong-footed a surprisingly poor Stephan Andersen. It wasn't long before our North London visitors were level, again Lennon linked up well with Davids and Mido managed to get in a shooting position even though it was from a tight angle and he fired a low drive through Andersen's legs into the far corner. We held our nerve though and began to fight back but a big blow came when Darren Bent received a knock and Shaun Bartlett came on to replace him. Suddenly for all the creativity we felt we lacked a finisher and the game was turned on it's head, Spurs broke quickly after Chris Powell was caught in posession and Robbie Keane drove past the flapping Andersen from just inside the box for a stunning winner. CHARLTON: Andersen, Young, Perry, El Karkouri, Spector, Rommedahl, Kishishev (Spector 85), Murphy, Smertin, Thomas (Hughes 79), Bent (Bartlett 71) Goals: Bent 25, 48 TOTTENHAM: Robinson, Stalteri, Naybet, King, Kelly, Lennon, Jenas (Keane 64), Pedro Mendes (Tainio 58), Davids, Defoe, Mido (Dawson 82) Goals: King 51, Mido 64, Keane 80 PLAYER RATINGS: Andersen 5, Young 5, Perry 6, El Karkouri 6, Powell 5, Rommedahl 6, Kishishev 5, Murphy 8, Smertin 8, Thomas 7, BENT 9 Subs: Spector 6, Hughes 5, Bartlett 5  Posted by Picasa