Man City, Jermain Defoe and the England managers job

A few thoughts:

- David Silva going to Manchester City. Yikes. And Yaya Toure's supposed to be joining him. How thankful are we for that 4th spot now!? As if we needed further telling, City are only going to get stronger this season and replicating last year's success already looks a tall order.

- England. When Heskey came on for Defoe, it was almost funny. Said strictly with a Spurs hat on, it should have been Crouch coming on, not Defoe coming off and King should have played instead of Upson. No Spurs players really covered themselves in glory. In fact, no-one really comes out of this affair with an enhanced reputation but Defoe's goal is at least a reward for his improvement last season. Long may it continue.

- England, again. If Fabio goes, and Hodgson goes to Liverpool as expected, there's a real chance we could lose Harry. You wouldn't begrudge him the opportunity to take the England job but it'd still be a kick in the teeth and would doubtless leave a few question marks over the side going into the new season. That's IF he gets the job. Hopefully, Capello will continue and, even if he doesn't, the FA may not want a manager with the baggage that Redknapp brings - his impending court case, etc. Intriguing times.

That's all. July shall hopefully be a month awash with transfer deals and positive friendly results. Forget the World Cup. The countdown to the new season begins now.

Nicely done JD

Jermain Defoe. England hero. Never thought you'd be able to say it, did you? O ye, of little faith.

JD's goal and all round dynamic performance has single-handedly (kind of) transformed England's otherwise pitiful World Cup and has ensured that the ignominy of a first round exit has been avoided. When the goal went in, you almost felt like screaming 'That's what a striker does, Heskey, you clown, he scores goals' but the quiet satisfaction of a Tottenham goalscorer was reward enough.

Would have been nice to see Don Fabio bring on Crouch as well. The decision to replace Rooney with a midfielder (Joe Cole) was strange-ish. Yet, even when replacing Defoe, the boss chose Heskey. Crouch would have been perfect at holding the ball up and retaining possession. But alas it wasn't to be. Perhaps his moment in the sun awaits in the coming round(s).

Otherwise, Defoe had a good all round game. He was responsible for a tigerish, determined tackle early on which got a roar from the fans and set the tone for England's slightly more passionate display. 5 minutes later, Mark Lawrenson then chose to claim that Defoe 'hadn't touched the ball yet'. Quite. A couple of passages of play later and Defoe's controlled finish from Milner's magnificent cross ensured humble pie would be on Lawrenson's half time lunch menu, though it's doubtful he'd ever choose it.

Germany in the next round then. A piece of cake, you're all doubtless proclaiming. Is it? Isn't it? Who knows. They were good against Australia (who wouldn't be), good but unlucky against Serbia and downright plain against Ghana. We could probably beat them, depending on which England turns up. Hopefully, a less profligate version of the one that showed up today. Anything like the dross served up to the US and Algeria and we'll be bidding Auf Wiedersehn to the Rainbow Nation sooner than we'd like.

Anyway. Well done, Jermain. We at Spurs are all super proud of you.

The Boys From White Hart Lane meets tehTrunk

Tottenham Hotspur. So often, over the last decade or so, the butt of football jokes. Even, it appears, from our own fans. Nothing like a bit of self deprecation to make oneself feel better, especially when it’s in sparkling good humour. Those in the know will be aware of the tehTrunk videos on YouTube. You haven’t heard of them? For shame. The five minute, animated pieces are nothing short of hilarious and no-one escapes a royal piss-taking.

The Boys From White Hart Lane caught up with creator Jack Hussey to talk about the ‘Redknapp Rap’, Ledley King in a wheelchair and Sepp Blatter’s left testicle.

Afternoon Jack. What inspired you to begin producing the tehTrunk video series?

Well there, old chap, an interesting question to begin proceedings. I put to you that to ask an artist what inspires him to create is like asking a bird why he chirps, the sun why she sets or a Gooner why he does not sing. First and foremost, I'm a writer/film-maker so I suppose writing and making short films is something I should do.

The process for tehTrunk started with my first animated short film called Spaghetti and Chips. I was stuck for money to allow a budget to make any live action films so started experimenting with the photo 'cut out' style animation that Terry Gilliam used for the old Monty Python sketches. I liked the freedom that animation allowed, as it made making bigger, more complex ideas feasible.

Given that I'm a Spurs fan it was probably a matter of time before I tried to make something Spurs related. It never really appealed to me to make YouTube goal compilations and when the news broke that Harry decided to bring in the booze ban in the wake of Ledley's, erm, 'extra curricular' activities with nightclub doormen, Sham 69's ‘Hurry Up Harry’ came to mind.

I took the initiative and over the course of about a week, came up with this. From there, tehTrunk was born, as it were. Giving birth to an elephant isn't a particularly pleasant experience either I can tell you.

So how do you do it? Could you describe the process of making a single episode?

As anyone that's ever tried animating anything before will tell you, it's certainly not a quick process. tehTrunk episodes were put out on a fortnightly basis as that's generally how long it would take to create each episode.

I'd have different ideas for gags all the time so the writing process wasn't that long, it was more a case of adding a little narrative and structure to a string of gags - hardly War and Peace.

Once the script is all sorted, the voices are recorded. I do the majority of them myself but will, at times, get people I know in to help me record certain ones. Doing female voices for example could prove somewhat tricky and I didn't much fancy giving the family jewels a hard squeeze - I know pretentious, creative types will talk about 'giving their all to their art' but I was not willing to put that much into my material.

Once the voices and concept are sorted, I scour Google image search to find all the pictures I need and start the process of trimming and cutting out all the components from each picture using Adobe Photoshop. These can then all be moved into an application called 'After Effects' where the magic then happens. I say magic, like I’m the new Paul Daniels. Aside for the fact I don't resemble Sepp Blatter's left testicle. I hope, anyway.

We hope so too. Have you ever faced a backlash from a group of supporters for a particular episode? What kind of feedback do you receive in general?

I wouldn't say a 'backlash' really. Many people didn't like the joke I made about Wilson in the original 'Hurry Up Harry' video and I suppose when I look back to it, it was a bit of a low blow. However, I'm very much of the opinion that comedy is far too neutered nowadays.

There is of course always a line that shouldn't be crossed unless it can be justified. But part of what makes comedy what it is, is seeing how close you can get to that line (or how you can try and talk yourself out of making distasteful jokes with bullshit like this).

Any comedy is going to be offensive to a certain minority, dependant on the joke, but anyone that tells me they honestly haven't laughed at someone else's misfortune is a liar. That or a painfully boring tosser.

I'd probably say that the majority of the criticism is levelled towards the depiction of Ledley King in the series but this is just from a minority and it's to be expected to be honest. However, it seems that the majority of people who watch tehTrunk are switched on enough to know that it's more a parody of Ledley's frequent injury problems as opposed to me harbouring a deep rooted prejudice toward Stephen Hawking.

So that aside, the feedback I get is amazing. It genuinely surprises me (still to this day) and fills me with a lot of pride to know that I've been able to make something that a lot of people can watch and enjoy. I'm very appreciative to all those who have forwarded kind wishes my way over the course of the season and even to those who have taken the time to criticize, as that can be just as important as praise.

What's your personal favourite episode?

I really enjoyed making the Halloween episode. Tim Burton is one of my big inspirations so it was fun trying to steal his style and apply it to tehTrunk. Overall however, I'd say it'd have to be the Arsenal episode.

Yes, that was a particular favourite on this blog. Obviously, no-one ever really escapes the piss takings that you give out but do you find it difficult to mock the Spurs players, especially when they've just had a great season?

Not really, no. I think when you're in the public eye, you've got to expect such things. I always try to keep it reasonably friendly and wouldn't want to cause any genuine offence to the players. I think, with the exception of the Palacios joke, I've managed to do that really.

Besides, if a group of millionaires that play football for a job are bothered about a few YouTube videos made by a random troll doing silly voices in his bedroom, then it'd be a sorry state of affairs.

Plus, what better way to show your love for someone than to take the piss? Although maybe this could be the reason I have no friends and a family that never speaks to me.

Quite. Do you have any plans to continue the series for the new season?

There is a certain part of me, it must be said, that feels like tehTrunk isn't 'finished'. I've got Liverpool, Chelsea and United episodes written but switching jobs halfway through the season meant that I had a lot less time to be able to devote to making them.

It also felt, to me, that the Portsmouth Christmas song was a nice way to wrap things up. I know I made the Newcastlol episode a couple of months ago but a lot of that was to show off the 'Redknapp Rap' that a friend of mine had made. I only intended to do the rap itself really but got carried away and ended up turning it into a whole episode.

I've been working on a new series over the duration of the world cup called 'IN-GER-LUND' which has seen me produce a number of 30-40 second sketch type animations and I think if I am going to carry on making tehTrunk next year that it'll probably take shape more in that sort of format as opposed to the longer 'episodes'.

I suppose I should probably come clean at this point as I can imagine it's abundantly clear from my answers what a boring man I am really, utterly incapable of writing something like tehTrunk. I confess, I had a team of comedy writing midgets that I kept in my chest of drawers. I would poke them with a stick and howl 'write, write, write' and write they would.

Alas, said group of midget jokers, tired of stick poking, escaped to Hollywood with the promise of women and riches. They’ve now sold out. In turn, they have lost their artistic integrity to appear in hilarious capers written by the Wayans Brothers.

Indeed. Well, folks... make of that what you will. Thanks for your time, Jack.

As he mentioned, Jack is currently working on a new series for the World Cup entitled IN-GER-LUND, where the England ‘stars’ are comedically cross-examined – and we all thought their on-field performances were the only funny thing. The IN-GER-LUND blog is located at http://www.in-ger-lund.com with the full list of videos found at http://www.youtube.com/ingerlund2010. Give it a watch. NOW.

Time to do it all again

Fixtures? The new season? Already? Didn't we only just come fourth last month?

Any hopes you may have had of clinging on to last season's success and revelling in its top four goodness have surely now been put to bed with the announcement of next season's fixture list. The reality that we're going to have to go through it all again will start to set in extremely soon. It was this time last year that many were lamenting an opening day tie with Liverpool or cursing our luck at being landed with an Arsenal-Chelsea-Man Utd run in. Little did we know then that those games would ultimately be the scenes of some of our greatest achievements in recent years.

What can we make of this years list? Manchester City visit the Lane on the opening weekend which, in the eyes of this blog, is a fabulous outcome. City will pose a threat, enough of a threat to make us play, and if the game goes anything like the corresponding fixture last season, we'll be laughing. It's not an easy start by any stretch of the imagination but it's one that we should be confident of winning.

After that, it's a sedate start and one that we should approach with lofty ambitions. Stoke (away, admittedly), Wigan, West Brom, Wolves, West Ham. Basically all the Ws. Someone should maybe look into that. If all goes to plan, and after last season there's every reason to hope and expect that it should, we could be looking at a lightning start. Big points, big league placing. There. We've gone and put the mockers on things already.

We visit the enemy in the middle of November, which could end in either calamitous and inevitable defeat or be the perfect opportunity to consolidate on a good start. The smart money's on the former, what with our record at The Emirates. They visit us for the return leg in February, where we'll hopefully be in a position to inflict more White Hart Lane misery on them following last season's epic midweek win.

The Traditionally-Tough-Christmas-Period TM could go a number of ways. Blackpool away is a banana-skin but a winnable game. Villa away on Boxing Day has the potential to ruin a lot of people's Christmases. However, before we all go doom and gloom, Newcastle and Fulham at home could see us into the New Year on a much happier note. And it's a tricky but not world-ending finale to the season with annoying trips to Chelsea and Liverpool interspersed with a smattering of comfortable home games against the likes of West Brom, Blackpool and Birmingham (on the last day of the season).

So there it is. The path to glory has been laid out in front of us. Only this time, it's to be punctured by a potential litter of Champions League games, with a cup run or two thrown in. If we're lucky. Should we be expecting another run at fourth spot or better? Too early to say, really. Let's wait until the start of the season.

As soon as this pesky World Cup business is over, planning for next year can begin.

Run, Joey, Run

Chelsea are removing their deadwood. And we should be keen as hell to give them another chance.

Joe Cole. Michael Ballack. Either/or. Cole is a sometimes magician with a ball at his feet and we've long been admirers of the lad. The Cole-to-Spurs rumour is one that had passed through many summers but may well come to fruition this time around. Reasons? Well, Harry's in charge and him and Cole go way back. Back when he was a bleach-blond child, winning the FA Youth Cup with Michael Carrick, Cole was under the tutelage of Redknapp down the road at West Ham and the pair have a great deal of respect for one and other.

Throw into the mix our new found status as top four gatecrashers and Champions League elect and you've got a hell of a lure for the England wizard. Though with Man Utd apparently lurking, the lure could see him favour a move north. But the point is that we'll attract a higher calibre of player now that we've got a shot at making the Champs League group stages. And Cole, regardless of the fact that he may not necessarily fit in to our side right now (who does he replace? Bale? Modric? Lennon? Jenas!), is the type of player that would do nicely in N17.

So too is Ballack. He may be getting on a bit and has a propensity for injuries not unlike one Ledley King but he's class and has got bags of experience, that much cannot be doubted. What's he done in his career? The Premier League, the Bundesliga, the Champions League, a couple of major international tournaments. He'd be Eidur Gudjohnsen but with more quality. Again, he may not necessarily slot straight into our team - the ever-improving Tom Huddlestone will take a lot of shifting (both metaphorically AND physically) - but he'd be a fine player to have lying around. Plus, he takes a mean penalty.

And, they're both on a free! Get talking Harry. Your club needs your world famous wheeler-dealer skills.

World in motion

Missing Tottenham? Not getting your regular weekend's fix of Spurs glory? Longing for the days when Bentley tipped a barrel of water over Harry Redknapp?

Fear not, dear reader, because the World Cup, the greatest footballing show in the whole world, is finally upon us. In a matter of days, the greatest talents on this planet and Nicklas Bentdner will begin to strut their stuff in South Africa in a bid to become crowned the best team in the world. Sound exciting? It's no Blackpool away on a cold October afternoon, granted. But, to pass the time between the last glorious season and the next, it'll certainly do.

And to make things even more bearable, there'll be a host of Lilywhite players representing their respective nations. Spurs are responsible for five players in Fabio Capello's England squad alone, comfortably beating Arsenal's tally of zero (sorry, Theo). Cheers for helping to develop a bit of homegrown talent, Gooners. If we're lucky, we could have a few Tottenham boys in the starting XI: Aaron Lennon, even though he spent the second half of the season injured, is still far and away the optimum choice on the right of England's midfield. Rivals? Schmivals. Walcott didn't even make the squad. Wright-Phillips isn't fit to lace Lennon's boots. Milner hasn't really looked convincing. Joe Cole could conceivably take his place but his operation on the left in warm-up games bodes well for Lennon's chances of a start.

The story of Ledley King is surely destined for a motion picture release in the near future. With a whole dossier of injury reports, King has managed to defy logic by helping us into the Champions League and now earning himself an England call up. Injury to Rio Ferdinand means that King is likely to partner John Terry in defence, despite only two months ago wondering if he'd play again this season. It's a remarkable turnaround for Ledders, a thoroughly likeable guy - that nightclub business aside. A successful tournament could very well be the swansong for King's injury plagued but no less impressive career.

Ferdinand's injury has also allowed the outstanding Michael Dawson to step up to the squad after the initial disappointment of missing out. Dawson was consistent with a capital C this season and deserved a spot in the squad ahead of Capello-favourite Matthew Upson. Whilst, he'll likely have to be content with a spell of bench warming, it's still a fantastic achievement for everyone's favourite centre half. Jermain Defoe and Peter Crouch make up 50% of England's strikeforce, two thirds if you exclude Emile Heskey as a striker. Which most people do. They'll both doubtless have the opportunity to get some serious playing time throughout the tournament, especially when Heskey blazes over from his 17th open goal opportunity on the bounce.

So that's England covered but where else will Harry's charges be spreading their talents? Giovani dos Santos excelled for Mexico against England in the warm-up friendly at Wembley and, despite being a forgotten talent in N17, he's very much an integral part of their attacking machine. A decent showing could add a couple of figures to the transfer fee we'd accept for him. Wilson Palacios was set to run the Honduras midfield with the terrier-like authority he's demonstrated for us but an injury has cast a doubt over his participation. We should hope he recovers in time - seeing him come up against Spain and Cesc Fabregas could be fun.

Cameroon possess one of the most revered and lethal players on the continent. What? Samuel Eto'o? Who's he? Surely you mean Benoit Assou Ekotto? Well if not him, then it has to be Sebastien Bassong. Tottenham's rocks at the back (honestly) will be attempting to transfer some of the defensive stability they learned at White Hart Lane (honestly) to their national side's campaign to get out of a potentially do-able group, featuring Holland, Denmark and Japan. And, of course, the biggest shout out must go to Heurelho Gomes who could be in line to be his country's first choice keeper after injury to regular incumbent Julio Cesar. Gomes' turnaround from laughing stock to world class keeper is one of the many success stories at Tottenham and there wouldn't be a fan out there who didn't have nothing but unconditional love for the big Brazilian.

It all kicks off on Friday, with Geovani's Mexico taking on the hosts South Africa. It remains to be seen whether Capello will put his faith in Lennon on the right. Or how long his patience with Heskey will last. Can Ledley get himself through a rigorous schedule of games? Will Dawson get the chance to make his debut at last? Pull up a chair, sit back and find out.

And if you don't like it, the Premier League fixtures come out next week. So there.