Maybe we could use dummies to fill the seats?

Monday morning rolled around and T'Wanderers get almost universal praise for their performance against the Spuds yesterday. However, quite a lot of print has been used to wonder why the ground was only half full yesterday, with some people using this as an another excuse to beat Bolton with the stick that we do not belong in the Premiership.
One writer on 606 actually got it back from his fellow Tottenham fans, but call after call to the 606 programme last night focused not really on Bolton's performance but the 13,000 crowd, and, surprise surbloodyprise, the majority of them came from our North London friends who should really have been weeping into their lager tops all the way down the M6 long before their buck toothed, short arsed, striker scored.

Well, while it is true that average attendances at T'Reebok are down from the early days in the Reebok, this is true for most of the Premiership. And while those from the Seven Sisters Road have a large fanbase, due to being in a city with a population of eight million, plus a residual overflow into Middlesex and a large contingent of visiting fans from Tel Aviv every week (no, it's true), when it comes to fellow London teams they only have to contend with Arsenal and Chelsea when it comes to those that are near the top of the league, while, in a conurbation roughly the same size, Bolton have to put up with Stretford, The Tenants and Liverpool. The only other London teams in the Premiership are The Hammers and Fulham, while Bolton have had to regularly put up with Everton and Blackburn, and now we have The Dingles for good measure. Add that to a depressed economy, affecting the north west worse than the south east, the fact the game was at 1:30, on the TV, on Valentine's Day and that most Spurs fans are single with one hand continually down their trousers, and you will see why they managed to bring nearly half the crowd.

Plus, I don't see anyone mentioning Fulham's 16,000 crowd, a large part of who were Notts County fans, and their ground is, very picturesquely, stuck right in the middle of London, not at the arse end of the M61. Case closed, muppets.

And while I am on my continual high horse, while working overnight I noticed the news reports on BBC, ITN and Sky Sports News all said Huddlestone missed. No, he didn't. Jussi saved. You could tell that by the fact the shot was on target and he got his hands to it.

Anyway, to the performance. It is really very difficut to fault anyone at all in the game, even Stefan who, barring his miscue onto the bar, managed to stand up Bentley rather than leave his leg dangling. Jussi, the penalty save notwithstanding, pulled off a couple of great saves, the defence were solid when called on, except for the goal. Chung had a quiet game and was being dealt a torrid time by Bale by the time he came off but played effectively when attacking. Muamba and Ricky nullified any threat Spurs' central midfield had and if I was Ledley King I would still be looking round wondering where the hell SuperKev and the misfiring Swede are.

Naturally the performance was going to suffer as the second half went on, simply because there is only so much chasing and harrying you can do and this allowed Spurs to get a foothold in the game. The fact that they got a foothold is only because of our inability to put the chances we had into the net. However if we can get into these positions, it augurs well for when our only natural goalscorer returns to the team. However I dont think we can wait for Cahill, ho ho.

Good news on The Other Davis, you know, the one that played four games before injuring himself walking off the pitch after getting sent off. Or something. Well, he will be able to start running by March he tells thecrapwebsite. Out of all the summer signings, Davis was the one that I was most looking forward to and it was a shame that we didn't see him play to full effect. It would be good to see him play before the end of the season and then come 2010-2011, when we fully expect to still be in the Premier League, it will be like signing a new player, blah blah blah.

In the news over the weeked, it is reported that both Stretford and The Pool are scouting Little Davies. Stretford see him as a replacement for Paul Scholes, Liverpool as a replacement for no one in particular and probably just an opportunity to piss us off. As much as I think we need Wilshere and Weiss this season, we have to be keeping players like Little Davies at the club. Our inability to keep Guthrie a couple of years ago caused us problems, although not as many as to Guthrie himself (how's the Fizzy Pop League Danny?) and, while I believe that Mark is good enough for one of the big four and it is only a matter of time, like Cahill, before he gets snapped up, a couple more seasons at the Reebok would serve both him and us well. Besides, Stretford have enough midfielders and Liverpool will probably pay £10million for him and then stick him on the bench while another Spaniard gets a game.

Elsewhere on the net, sport.co.uk choose Bolton's best and worst kits of our Premier League stay. The best, they say, was the 2001-2003 home top. Hard to disagree with this, although I preferred the one that immediately followed it, which just had a hint of red in it. The worst though has been chosen to be the away kit 2004-06. Have they not seen our last two home tops, the apron and the dish cloth? Ooh, look at me, getting all fashionista. Well, UK design does need a new Enfant Terrible. What? Too soon?

Until tomorrow, consider that a divorce.