This is what he wrote on the BBC Football website, when predicting the score of our game against Stoke today:- "Tottenham's football has been outstanding and they deserve to be where they are right now - if they win their game in hand they're second in the table. But eventually you lose a game or two and you get a few injuries - and that's the test. It's how you deal with that that counts. Yes, they won at West Brom the other week without Rafael van der Vaart and Luka Modric and you think maybe they have changed and are more resilient, but we will have to wait and see." You can almost feel him squirming as he writes, being forced to admit that we're playing great football, and that we have proven our depth of quality by winning even without Moddy AND VDV. Yet, even as the apparent platitudes drip from his pen he cannot help himself from having a pop at us. He predicts a 1-1 draw. But that is hardly relevant. Had we been Chelsea or United or 'Pool, or even Arsenal, Lawro would waxed lyrical about our current form, and there would have been no "buts" in his comments. I have tried my best, over the years, to like Lawro, but I simply cannot. To me, he always has been and always will be a consummate tool.
He's echoing the sentiments of many people, but that's not really what he's there to do, is it? A bit of insight or controversy would've been nice. He's pretty predictable all round, though he does appear to have finally lost a little faith in his beloved Liverpool. Not a fan, but he's too boring to really get that worked up about, for me. He used to annoy me, but he's become something akin to beige wallpaper now. Dull and you'd probably prefer something else, but relatively harmless and easily ignored.
Indeed, PNP. I am more amused at his comments and bias, than angry. As you say, he's too dull to be overly offensive. Plus, he takes on the appearance of a smelly old tramp more and more, as the weeks go by. If he turned up at my local pub, I'm sure the door-staff would turn him out into the gutter.
Lawro has never bothered me, he goes for safety-first predictions, a bit like I do. Though he's more daring than me, as I don't go all dramatic by offering scorelines. Yes his analysis of us is often less than good, but that goes for most pundits. I suspect it goes for most clubs too. A clued up Spurs fan, who isn't smitten by bias will know more about his own team than the vast majority of media pundits/analysts, etc. Just for the record, I'm with Lawro that it'll be a draw, though I need to see teamsheets before confirming that prediction. Safety first for me you see
I'm going for an away win. That's not to say that I do not recognise that Stoke are a very dangerous team, and I have no doubts that Crouch will be motivated to put one past us in a two-fingered salute to Harry's lack of faith in him. However, if we are doing more than paying lip-service to the outrageous talents of our midfield and defence, then we've got to believe that we can beat Stoke. What annoys me about Lawro's comments is that he appears to sneer at our midfield and defence. It's as though he's saying, "well, you say you have a great midfield and a good defence, but do you actually?" Yes, we do, you bell-end!
Hi HIAG, you see I don't think we have got an outrageously talented defence, especially if King isn't there, which he may not be today. I think we are vulnerable at set pieces and to high crosses in general. I think we will creak like crazy under Stoke's onslaught today, and concede at least once. Our mid and attack is indeed highly talented, and in VDV and Bale we have two outrageous talents, and Parker and Modric are brilliant as well. Lennon is currently outstanding to add to the joy of it all, topped off by the awesome Ade man, perhaps our most indispensable player ATM.
I think out defence has looked a lot more solid since Parker's arrival. He seems to give our back-four more time to adjust their positional play, particularly Benny. That's where I see the greatest threat - crosses and throw-ins into the box from our left. We've got to hope that the lads can keep their discipline and not give away too many free-kicks today. We know that we are going to get at least 10-15 shots on their goal. What matters is that we don't let them have too much of the ball in order to restrict them lumping the ball up to Crouchie. It's odds on that Stoke's long-ball tactics will pay-off against us, when it failed miserably for us when we had Crouchie!
Our long ball tactics often worked with Crouch, he and VDV were a real force last season. I think lots of Spurs fans massively underrate Crouch, he is a good Prem player, with a very good record at European and international level. I think it will be impossible to stop Stoke getting plenty of crosses and throws into our box, how many is of course difficult to quantify, but it will be well over a dozen. I think we will struggle against them and concede at least one.
Cheers PNP, I think a lot of our fans were/are very harsh on Crouch. Yes Ade is an upgrade on him, but he is also an upgrade on Pav and the Defoe of last season as well.
That's a fair assessment, Little Luke. If only Lawro was as fair-minded. He isn't. One can tell that he is positively praying for us to screw things up, because that will be the only chance that 'Pool will ever have of breaking back into the top 4.
The way to deal with Crouch is either to have one tall defender man-mark him for the entire game (as Chelsea used to do, in the days when they had Huth playing for them), or have him man-marked by two smaller players, as the likes of United and Arsenal used to do. It completely neutralises his threat.
