Here's an excellent report from Dave Gallagher of the Carling Premiership THFC newsgroup:

Alka-Seltzer, anyone? The party was a fortnight ago; welcome to the hangover, for this was, without much doubt, dear readers, the lamest, damp-and-dullest performance to date under George Graham’s managership. All the weaknesses that have been identified here at one time or another over the past weeks were cruelly exposed today by a Leicester side who had merely to offer up a prosaic rerun of their Wembley game plan to take all three points., while in response, Spurs ran around like headless chickens. No, on second thought, I take that back - they were far too predictable for headless chickens. If you want a simile that conveys a better impression of what it was like to watch the game, I might suggest ‘Like moths round a light bulb’. There were a couple of little glimmers early doors from Ginola, like the back-heel that sent Nielsen on a run down the left, only for Ferdinand to miss the chance that came from the resulting cross. Apart from those precious few moments, though, we were plodding and unimaginative. We lacked heart, we lacked conviction, we lacked sharpness, and to use a phrase coined originally by Dave Bassett, we couldn’t hit a cow’s årse with a banjo. All one can say is that we had better liven our ideas up in advance of next week’s FA Cup semi-final, starting with the dress rehearsal on Monday, if there is to be much hope of progressing. Newcastle put four past the normally parsimonious Derby defence this afternoon, and if we offer as little creativity, either at St James’s Park or Old Trafford as we did today, then we might as well forget all about any sunny afternoons in May.

The Leicester team lined up like a sort of guard-of-honour for Spurs’ entrance onto the pitch at the start of the game, in what was quite a nice gesture on their part really, but that was about as good as we looked from then on. There were one or two moments in the first half when we flattered to deceive, with Ginola slipping his markers on the left around the quarter hour to shoot wide, and Steffen Iversen laying on an inviting cross from the right across a virtually empty box, unfortunately just behind Ferdinand. The ball rolled almost to the other edge of the 18-yard area before Keller arrived from 10 yards away and booted it clear, and Graham’s point about Ginola not following into the box enough and looking for the easy tap-ins was as eloquently remade as it ever could have been. David was standing over on the wing with his hands on his hips, surrounded by three blue shirts, as he was to be for most of the rest of the game.

I suppose I’d have to remark that we missed Sherwood, and perhaps Anderton too, from that point-of-view. Nielsen had a frustrating game and wasn’t able to get forward very often, being much preoccupied in the packed and scrappy midfield. The play was predictably condensed once again in there, and characterised either by misdirected short passes or balls over the top with no-one on the end of them. In this respect, we really allowed Leicester to take the initiative, since this is what they set out to achieve. Freund had a very unremarkable game and became overly petulant once again, receiving a booking, and probably deservedly so, for waving his arms around and complaining too loud and long about a challenge by Heskey. Fox played one or two useful passes, but did very little else, other than miss a sitter in the second half, that is. Ginola was quite simply marked out of it, and continually ran up blind alleys, while the others let him do it and offered little in the way of alternatives. Aside from another of Freund’s sliced efforts that he shanked halfway to the corner flag, and Nielsen (I think) lobbing the ball onto the roof of the net, I don’t really recall us creating anything much more to speak of in the first forty-five, and since we were even worse in the second, I am sorely tempted to end the report here and go and do something else.

Anyhow, we went behind on about 35 minutes, with a simple goal from a Guppy free-kick that was awarded to Matt Elliott, although I could have sworn it came off Ferdinand’s head. Walker was caught off his line and the ball looped over his despairing attempt to backpedal and flail it away. I said at half-time that George had better change something if we were going to look like getting back on terms, but in the face of the obvious dearth of options, my words sounded almost as hollow and convictionless, even to my own ears, as Spurs’ performance. Sure enough, it was the same personnel, in the same formation, who emerged from the tunnel at four o’clock and they went back about the same cause in much the same fashion, with, needless to say, the same null result. It really was dire to watch and hardly merits further description.

Finally, on about 65 minutes, George decided enough was enough, and Fox, whose only further contribution had been to spurn a tap into a virtually open goal from 3 yards out when he completely missed Edinburgh’s cross, made way for Armstrong, who only proceeded to demonstrate yet again that he is no lesser contributor in the wasted chances stakes, either. But that was not to be before Leicester, in an ironic, fortunes-reversed echo of events at Wembley following Savage’s substitution, caught Spurs napping at the back with the sucker punch of Heskey’s quick run down the right flank from a throw-in and his straightforward cross for Cottee to slide in and score. 2-0, and it was just as clear to me then as it had been at Wembley that speculation about the result of the game was no longer required. Sinton came on for the yellow-carded Edinburgh, perhaps as much to remove the possibility of another damaging red card from the pedantic Barrie as in the hope that it would generate any more goal chances. This referee seems to have officiated in quite a few Spurs games this season, and in my view could be a contender, along with Paul Durkin and Alan Wilkie for the Napoleon Complex of the Year Award. There’s no point blaming the refereeing though, we were just awfully poor.

Ginola tried to wrest a little bit of control back for us in the latter part of the second half, but he was far too well shackled this time, and got virtually no support from anybody else. They all just seemed to sit back and watch him running nowhere with three Leicester players at his elbow, and by this time, the crowd were so resigned and disinterested, they’d even forgotten, or couldn’t be bothered any longer, to boo at Savage. Armstrong and Ferdinand both subsequently had opportunities to pull goals back for us, but were unable to direct their headers on-target, and perhaps the most depressing feature of this game overall was how little Keller ever had to do.

In a moment that summed up the game for me, Chris Armstrong, when presented with a free header in front of an open goal about two minutes from time, placed it about eight feet wide of Keller’s righthand post. Iversen, for his part, was virtually anonymous. There were a couple of doubtful appeals for penalties from Armstrong and Sinton late on, but the referee never looked twice, and to be honest, both smacked of desparation. Large numbers of the home supporters had already trooped away when Barrie brought a merciful end to the tired spectacle after two minutes of stoppage time. If you want me to sum up the game in a short, pithy sentence, it was like a sort of purgatory. I shall now do my best to forget all about it.

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