FOOTBALL

DEFOE'S BACK TO MAKE HIS MARK

Tommy Smith stands dejected after the match

Sunday October 18,2009

By Colin Mafham

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HARRY Redknapp and Paul Hart both probably went nuts last night – but for very different reasons.

The Spurs boss will have seen red at the way Jermain Defoe needlessly stamped his mark on Aaron Mokoena and was rightly sent off for it. Hart will surely go similarly barmy over Spurs’ brilliant Brazilian Heurelho Gomes, who produced three stunning saves to deny Pompey a share of the spoils they arguably deserved.

Add to that the fact he had Michael Brown sent off at the death for two bookable offences and you couldn’t blame the guy for losing a little heart! Apart from that, though, you have to wonder if this was the sort of game you’d want your kids to watch – and we’re not talking about the football here.

To see Redknapp, flanked by security guards, returning to the club he steered to such heights and savagely vilified wasn’t a pretty sight. And to hear Defoe and Nico Kranjcar booed most times they touched the ball, despite serving Pompey so well in the past, wasn’t easy on the ear either.

Funny old game, eh?

Mind you, Redknapp and Co were more relieved than amused when they ought to have been one down after just 12 minutes. They survived only because Aruna Dindane missed an absolute sitter with an open goal at his mercy.

Tommy Smith left his marker for dead before delivering a peach of a pass across goal but with Gomes stranded and the net gaping, Dindane lofted the ball over the bar from around five yards out. No wonder he buried his head in his hands. That was a shocker and even old ’Arry permitted himself a wry smile.

He must have been bordering on the ecstatic just before the half-hour when Spurs had another escape. This time they had Gomes to thank for a superb one-handed tip over the top after Younes Kaboul’s fierce free-kick was viciously defl ected off Smith. It was heading fi rm and fast for the roof of the net if the Brazilian hadn’t somehow got his fi ngertips to the ball.

But if football can be funny, it most certainly has a cruel streak as well – just ask poor Portsmouth. Within a couple of minutes of that let-off, Spurs snatched the lead when they had played second fiddle for almost the entire half-hour preceding it.

Kranjcar got his own back for all that barracking with a perfectly- placed corner that Ledley King rose head and shoulders over Aaron Mokoena and Yaboul to head into the back of the net.

And just before the break Spurs delivered the real killer blow. Some beautiful build-up play ended with Jermaine Jenas’s telling cross and Defoe provided the outstretched leg that guided the ball into the net for his10th goal of the season.

Pompey’s lack of a cutting edge showed again in the second half when Dindane once more wasted another opportunity. But the Pompey faithful finally had something to cheer when Kevin-Prince Boateng fi nally beat the inspired Gomes – and proved a point to his old club – with a clinical effort.

And they were over the proverbial moon soon afterwards when Defoe truly blotted his copybook with a stamp on Mokoena that deserved the red card it got. Before the end Gomes played saviour again to keep out Hassan Yebda’s volley.