Victory with 10 men in Nagoya followed by a footballing lesson from Lippi's Evergrande

Yamashita got sent off but with both Forlan and Kakitani now looking increasingly dangerous in the J. League we left Nagoya with three points, excellent result. Later that day Spurs would lose to West Ham after Kaboul got sent off in an eerily similar fashion to Yamashita but Spurs showed no fight or confidence at all. I want the Premier League season to finish soon, which it will on Sunday, West Ham have beaten us three times this season.

A proper footballing lesson here. Everything Guangzhou Evergrande did was so much better than us. Amazing to see Marcelo Lippi in Yanmar Stadium but that was pretty depressing to watch. Particularly as I realised one of their best players on the night, Alessandro Diamanti, is ex-West Ham.

This is the AFC Champions League!

Incredible number of away fans

A big flag for a big occasion

Elkeson's penalty

Popovic and Lippi

Final Score

We should have known we were in trouble when a World Cup winning manager looks on!

Related articles

• Reds drop out of first place with scoreless draw against Ventforet (japantimes.co.jp)
• Guangzhou's Diamanti a World Cup certainty says ex-Italy boss Lippi (tribalfootball.com)
• Football: Guangzhou hit title form in five-goal romp (channelnewsasia.com)

Cerezo Osaka 1 - 1 Omiya Ardija

This was played on the public holiday now known as Showa day (my previous post was wrong, apologies, Greenery Day is now May 4th) which encourages reflection on Emperor Hirohito's reign while also giving those on the extreme right an excuse to blast anything they like from the loudspeakers in their usually black vans in various places around Japan. So Omiya Ardija, despite the poor showing in their last home game, could have left with three points were it not for an injury time equaliser from Kenyu Sugimoto. Takeda started in place of Jin-Hyeon and he was given no help from his defense for the goal we conceded from a corner. An odd game, but again the type we should be winning to live up to our (unwarranted in my opinion) hype. It should have been a nice game to try something different, aside from the keeper change, but at least we got a point which is better than the same fixture last season. The superb Toyota Stadium in Nagoya awaits next, no predictions from me, and I have to mention for those in Japan once again J Sports has a feast of Premier League football on Saturday with Spurs vs West Ham first, followed by a chance to see Ryan Giggs as Shinji Kagawa's manager, and then the highest paid sports team in the world AKA Man City. Until then please watch the goals from yesterday as many times as you can. I think you can get to at least double figures if you are committed. I should have known better to be confident about the game yesterday as the squirrels usually seem to enjoy playing against us. The fact that some of our fans booed (again) at the end was mentioned in the Japanese media. Cheer up and enjoy the ride! Unless we get relegated...

   

Spurs in action and a J1 update, COYS!

Spurs fans were in good voice but much like the last game I went to the away fans were significantly more vociferous. Van Der Vaart scored the first and set up the second from a corner. Swansea did well at the lane and danger man Gylfi Sigurdsson was...dangerous and scored for the visitors as well as forcing an exceptional save from Brad Friedel. Gareth Bale had another sublime game and when Aaron Lennon returned from injury in the second half and we immediately looked a lot more balanced so things are looking up for our last few games. Lennon crossed superbly for Adebayor's second.  My hope for this year is that Spurs can finish above Arsenal and Cerezo above Gamba and a cup win would be nice too! Back in Japan Cerezo picked up three points against Frontale thanks to a Kim Bo-Kyung goal in Kawasaki. We lost our first home game in Kincho Stadium 1-2 as Vegalta Sendai look like having consecutive flying starts in J1, Bando scoring our only goal. Gamba sacked their manager after a poor start to the season. Next up for Spurs is a trip to Sunderland while Cerezo travel to Omiya Ardija.
                                                                                        

The High Road but it could be spring in Japan!

The White Hart Lane cockerel 

Swansea fans celebrate Sigurdsson's goal

Adebayor scores his first from a Van Der Vaart corner

                                                                                      

Injury time equalisers

Well, Spurs did lose to Blackpool away earlier this season but still, we had a chance to close the gap on Man City and didn't take it. Gomes from great to goof in the space of a few minutes and we were behind despite playing pretty well from a penalty. Defoe earned us a point in the dying minutes but it's been a poor set of results for us recently despite patches of playing really well, quite simply more goals needed...also starting to lose patience with Gomes but Redknapp remains a big fan, 1-1 the final score.

What's this? It looks like Defoe's in Cerezo colours for some reason, why? Where did this come from? Very odd.

At home to Vegalta Sendai (click the name to find out where the name Vegalta comes from, interesting) and the same result 1-1. This time Komatsu Rui earned us a point in injury time. It was only in the last few minutes we looked urgent and went for it. Again some worrying signs, the ref got some stick but it was masking over another average performance. A fair result, Sendai fans were great as usual with a fine repertoire of songs. It looks like Pimpao will score at least one amazingly spectacular goal this season, he seems to try for something special but at the moment all Cerezo need is 3 points please! Crunch time in the ACL next with the visit of Shandong Luneng on Tuesday, a draw or a win will do, back to Nagai Stadium for this one.

Komatsu, not wearing a Spurs kit, but he's our Peter Crouch, give him a chance Culpi!

Weekend roundup and Tuesday's Champions League double!

Spurs ruthlessly drew 0-0 at Wigan to remain in 5th and out of contention for a Champions League spot for now. Lots of live Premier League games this weekend on J-Sports, here's hoping Man City slip up tonight. Here's an interesting interview with Sandro one of our star Champions League performers. Spurs play Real Madrid away on Tuesday with Bale likely to be fit but our usual injury problems at centre back.. Real lost at the Bernabeu this weekend which was, amazingly, Jose Mourinho's first home loss for 9 years! Higuain also returned after a four month absence in this game. Elsewhere in Europe an important result in Italy's Serie A with the Milan derby finishing 3-0 in AC Milan's favour.

Our Korean opponents

Japan were scheduled to make their second appearance since 1999 in the Copa America this July but the JFA are now considering what do after the disaster. Cerezo take on Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors in Nagai Stadium this Tuesday. Jeonbuk are previous winners of the ACL in 2006 and scored four without reply in their last ACL game in Indonesia against Arema. They look like the toughest team we will face in this group. In world football news the Asian football boss Bin Hammam will challenge Sepp Blatter for the FIFA presidency.

ACL away in China: Shandong 2-0 Cerezo

Shandong Luneng were good, well done to our fans who made the trip, it was emotional after the earthquake/tsunami and I think most people at the stadium felt that. So we lost, but our first away game in the ACL was action packed and we had some good chances, it's all very new for Cerezo and the group itself is still obviously wide open. We can qualify but need to concentrate a whole lot more for 90 minutes. Jin-Hyeon also made a penalty save at the second attempt. Renato and Wang Yongpo scored for Shandong.

Shandong Sports Centre

...and the army were waiting inside.

A warm welcome...

In other news Spurs drew with West Ham which was shown live on J-Sports 2,featuring a MOM performance from their keeper Robert Green and an "I still love West Ham" performance from Jermain Defoe missing some good chances, and Wayne Bridge played really well for the Hammers. Plus we have Real Madrid to look forward to in the Champions League quarter finals. The main worry at the moment though is whether we (Spurs and/or Cerezo) can clinch another Champions League spot for next season.

Strikers scoring for Spurs but just the one point

A great weekend in the Premier League with loads of entertaining games and refereeing as usual. Our game against Wolves was a highlight, a nice tribute to Dean Richards (RIP) before the match followed by two goals for Defoe and one for Pavlyuchenko, all great goals. Despite that, fairplay to Wolves they certainly deserved something, they had a perfectly good goal ruled out too. We still need to do more to get back in the Champions League qualifying spots. Shame Aston Villa have Kyle Walker on loan from us as he may well have done better than Alan Hutton in that game. The game was played at a really high tempo which is something I guess AC Milan won't be able to do at White Hart Lane.

Dean Richards (1974 - 2011)

Cerezo 2 - 1 Arema - Pimpao bags a brace on his debut!

Pimpao celebrates his second 

The I4 section of Nagai Stadium

Special guest appearance

We didn't play well. Inui set up Pimpao's header for the first goal and Pimpao also finished well from a fortunate free kick. We conceded a penalty for handball but Arema didn't play well either. Bo-Kyung Kim showed some nice touches and hit the crossbar. Perhaps I've been watching too much Premier League recently but I think we'll struggle against Gamba this Saturday if we don't improve our performance. I'm a little scared to be honest. Inui did little to remind people why he is capped at full international level despite his assist. At least Pimpao couldn't have done more, he only had two good chances and he finished them. Limping ex-Cerezo star Kagawa Shinji, now of Borussia Dortmund, gave an interview at half-time which was a nice distraction from a pretty poor game attended by just over 10000 people which was a disappointing number for our first game of the season.

Arema fans adding to the numbers while the stewards make sure there's no trouble

Of course we lost to Blackpool!

Standard stuff from Spurs, an great win followed by a missed opportunity in the league. We need a striker who can score. Still it's much better than any number of seasons I can remember as a Spurs fan. But the failure to land a goalscorer in January despite some desperate attempts could prove costly. We missed lots of chances and it still seems strange to see a formerly pointless QPR midfielder turn into an entertaining manager for the Seasiders.

"I for one would love to see him in that chair"

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1359214/Harry-Redknapp-England-says-Blackpool-boss-Ian-Holloway.html#ixzz1En4Y9Cvk

Premier league magic

Everyone has been talking about the Rooney goal although the man himself wasn't that good in the derby apart from his goal. So here instead is Trevor Sinclair's overhead kick for QPR, this from a player who also managed to play well for England in a World Cup! For Spurs Nico did the business again ensuring we stay in the top 4 and look, dare I say it, comfortable there. The Croat outscoring Torres recently...

                                                                               

Capello's Latest England Squad...International news

The current squad includes Jermain Defoe, Michael Dawson and Kyle Walker from Spurs, no room for the recently playing decently Lennon though which is odd. Fair play to Kyle Walker for his call up at right back, a position Harry has tried three players so far in the league for us... Walker has also scored more Premier League goals (1) than Defoe (0) as of today, here is his effort against Fulham.

 

One of our right backs...playing for Villa

Good luck to him if he gets his first cap against Denmark later today. Lampard has been named captain as the other conteders are out. It might not be the pick the pick of the friendly internationals, France vs Brazil could be interesting, but there's enough to keep Spurs and England fans interested. Although if you live in Japan watching it live is possible but needs some stamina and you should be willing to bend the law a little. Redknapp has withdrawn Peter Crouch and Van Der Vaart (Holland) due to injuries or he's playing things safe.

Premier League Action COYS

White Hart Lane

Newcastle fans to the left, very entertaining! Our fans were in good voice too. Our chant of "Small team in Scotland" was met with "Small town in Arsenal" which led to us singing "Your sister's your mum." Highlights of the game included a "headbutt" from Kaboul and Joey Barton showing why he is the most hated player in division.