Webb plays a blinder

Correct, it is sarcasm. Ok, we had our moments, we looked sharp and looked to be 'well up for it'. I thought the first half was a positive one despite going a goal behind at the Bridge. So things WERE looking bright. It was a poor goal to conceded but in truth old 'Cashley,' in the gooners terms, did tuck away a smart header at the back post.

Then Howard Webb remembered it was Spurs he was refereeing, away, once again. The memory of the whole United blunder clearly fresh out of his memory, of course. A new season, a fresh start. Somehow I got the impression that most of us still had the incident at Old Trafford fairly fresh in our minds. It wouldn't surprise me.

So 1-0 and Keanos away. Carvalho brings down the Pointy Shouty Bloke without the ball changing direction, either a penalty or a booking for 'simulation'. Neither were given. Now, I'm not a referee, oh wait yes I am and once more a-highly-expected-blunder from Webb; if referees were marked with points, he'd be level with Pompey right now. That's where he deserves to be.

An absolute shocker from Webb. but are we suprised? We shouldn't be by now should we; he was poor all over the park. I thought we knocked the ball about well, made space and the effort was clearly there. Then we lose King and Bass and end up losing 3-0.. I'm feeling a sense of deja vu from last season.

Let's hope this isn't a regular thing.

Regards.

Are we really surprised?

ONCE AGAIN the scoreline told what many other fans expected to see, a Spurs loss at United; to be fair we haven't won up there for 17 odd years or so. Although, I still believed my beloved Spurs would play fine football without the pressure that hung on us for much of this season, we'd beaten the drop- in my opinion a place in the Europa league and a 7th finishing spot would be pushing it a bit. But still I watched the game with the same rush of optimism that had hit me ever since i returned from Villa Park not to long ago.

After Darren Bent had become the top English scorer in the premiership and then our little croatian had put us two ahead I still felt as though, as I'm sure many of us did, that United would score and 'normal service' would be resumed. Although at half time i felt we'd played like winners against the best team in Europe. We'd passed the ball around calmly, played our own game and looked ever so dangerous when attacking the Stretford end, I'm sure many of the United 'fans' had regretted their long trip up from London and i'm sure many had turned to City, after getting their first away win yesterday. I felt proud to be a Spurs fan, 2-0 up at Old Trafford adding to our unbeaten run against the teams in the top four and having done the double over the hammers, that's bragging rights for us this season!Then reality hit us, it felt worse than being kicked in the bollocks by the powerful boot of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink back in the day..

The premiership's 'top' referee buckles under the pressure of 70,000 moaning fans as their team has looked to bottle it again against a Spurs team that had taken just 2 points from their first 8 games as-once our very own- Micheal Carrick goes down like his legs have been cut off. Now, as a referee myself I can understand that if Webb had felt the ball wasn't played and the linesman agreed with the decision, fair enough, penalty. The fact that Webb had a clear view of the brilliant goalkeeping by our very own Heurelho Gomes- who, despite conceding five goals, had one of his better games- plus the fact that the linesman also shared the view of Spurs fans across the country, shows that Webb has plain and simply bottled it, 'crumbled' under the pressure AGAIN and since that point, with the referee showing his true colours (the red of united) we didn't stand a chance of gaining anything at the 'Theatre of dreams'. We were then rapidly brought down to Earth as united scored their first, the 2nd, the 3rd and so on.. you know how the rest goes. I could also mention the foul on our little croatian left winger during the build up to the second United goal and the fact that Lennon was kicked by Ronaldo who was later booked for removing his shirt, but I could go on forever.

The fact is that once again we were robbed at Old Trafford; but are we really surprised? I seem to remember a certain Pedro Mendes scoring from Half way a few seasons back, but that's seems to all have been forgiven and forgotten, each season we talk about introducing technology but how long do we have to wait until the FA actually help the nation recover some pride and introduce video technology; but then again I can't imagine the FA acting upon this, I mean they thought Steve McClaren was best suited for the England job.. that's got to say something!

I read some suggestions such as bans for poor refereeing and this and that but this is always going to happen to the 'smaller' clubs in England, on the 58th minute the title was kept in Manchester and with referees giving the benefit of the doubt to the 'bigger' clubs in the country can we really be surprised that it is the same teams challenging the same top four places every season?

N.B Regards to all the 3000 die hard Spurs fans that travelled up to the theatre of dreams to see a nightmare of refereeing.

Regards, Ben