The travails of our fantasy football team of capital-born players. Read previous entries here.
As the good ship Spurs sinks and every subeditor stretches for the inevitable naval metaphor, one wonders about the last time both North London teams were humbled at home in the same week. We've no Statto on the books, so anybody with an answer please leave us a comment, but it's rare that both should lose in quick succession against Premier League newcomers.
Having beaten Tottenham 1-0 at the Lane, Hull are up to third, and the Londoners are simply bereft of ideas at the moment. Boss Juande Ramos' job looks ever more precarious, with only the Spurs board's disinclination to search for yet another manager likely to keep him in employment. After all, the Spaniard was their own "Chosen One", anointed to take them into the unknown territory of the Champions League after Martin Jol was deemed surplus to requirements having merely guided the team into two fifth-placed finishes. They can only dream of such nosebleed-inducing heights now.
Intriguingly, a rumour doing the rounds this morning suggested that Avram Grant, a man who, like Jol, knows a thing or two about being defenestrated after doing a fairly decent job, is being considered for the White Hart Lane job. Note to the Spurs board: maybe letting your staff operate without the sword of Damocles hanging above them could help them turn things around.
On Sunday, despite creating numerous chances, Spurs simply never looked like they had the belief necessary to break a scoring duck now over 200 minutes long. A late-minute decision to drop Ledley King meant that, once again, he was denied an appearance for Londonist United, but the defender's appearance wouldn't have helped stop Geovanni's spectacularly placed free kick. Still, it doesn't look a wise decision to retain a player from the league's bottom side in our back four, and we'll be transferring King out this week. Suggestions for London-born defenders from less porous teams are welcome - ditto Jimmy Bullard, whose Fulham team are looking none too clever at present.
Our other defenders stood up well this week - 'Boro's Justin Hoyte, United's Rio Ferdinand, and Chelsea's John Terry each collected clean sheet bonuses, while the latter's teammates Cole and Lampard helped themselves to a goal and an assist respectively as the Blues beat Aston Villa. Formerly-fat Frank even made it to the Prem's Team of the Week, alongside Jermain Defoe, who grabbed yet another goal as Portsmouth beat Stoke. The only real sour note was Robert Green performing the proverbial comedy of errors, shipping three goals as Gianfranco Zola suffered a first defeat as West Ham boss, though that match had the silver lining of a Carlton Cole goal.
Overall, a decent week's point haulage has bumped us up a few notches in the Londonist league to 26th (out of 30), though Livercool 2.0 still head the table.
Image from Andy Wilkes' Flickrstream via the Londonist pool
