"You don't know what you're doing!" That's what the Newcastle United crowd screamed at Sam Allardyce last season. Thing is, he does know, doesn't he. Blackburn were in real bother when he took over at Ewood Park in December; now they're out of the relegation zone with a real chance of staying up. The same can be said of Harry Redknapp, whose Spurs have sprung from the very bottom to the safety of mid-table. As for Newcastle United? Ahem.
A quick word on Newcastle United's Alan Shearer, before we get down to business: Shearer spent the majority of yesterday banging on about how riding in on his white charger is a selfless act. He's only doing it for the club, and not for Alan Shearer. Not, repeat, for Alan Shearer. Thing is, he's just been on Football Focus to say: "A friend of mine asked me this question: if you don't take the job, and Newcastle stay up, will you regret it? And the answer was yes." He'd regret it if Newcastle stayed up? And he wasn't involved?! Where's Sigmund Freud when you need him?
Blackburn make one change from the team that drew with West Ham, Keith Andrews replacing Andre Ooijer: Robinson, Andrews, Samba, Nelsen, Givet, Diouf, Mokoena, Warnock, Pedersen, Roberts, McCarthy.
Subs: Brown, Ooijer, Kerimoglu, Dunn, Villanueva, Treacy, Olsson.
Ledley King is fit! Ledley King is fit! Gomes, Corluka, Woodgate, King, Assou-Ekotto, Lennon, Jenas, Palacios, Modric, Bent, Keane.
Subs: Cudicini, Zokora, Bentley, Huddlestone, Pavlyuchenko, Dawson, Chimbonda.
Northamptonshire's finest: Peter Walton (Northamptonshire)
Kick off: 12.45pm. At the time of writing, that's in ten minutes time, not that you or anyone else in the future will be interested about that.
And we're off! Tottenham have lost to every team below them in the table this season - apart from Blackburn. If this stat is wrong, don't blame me, I've not been doing any research. I'm simply parroting what the chap on Sky is saying. Thank you, my Guardian!
3 min: Kickity hoof, hoofity kick. Onwards, upwards, upwards, onwards.
7 min: "Forgive my ignorance of Tottenham glory teams of the past, but who is the tiny fella under the trophy? He has the look of a northerner to me," writes Ian Copestake, showcasing attitudes without which the mid-70s LWT sitcom would have been nothing. That's 5ft 3in Terry Dyson, and he is indeed a Yorkshireman. He'd just scored in the 1961 FA Cup final against Leicester, and would be Tottenham's man of the match in the 1963 European Cup Winners Cup final. As you may have worked out, there is absolutely nothing to report from this match so far. Sky Sports may as well have trained a camera on a glass of warm still water.
9 min: Diouf miscontrols a ball while ambling down the right wing. King watches it fly out of play. Ladies and gentlemen, please be upstanding for the FA Premier League, the best in the world!
10 min: Bloody hell. This is dreadful. I'm under no obligation to big this up, so I'm not going to. I'm wondering whether this will be the first match in the history of All Football during which absolutely nothing of note happens. Even the 2003 Champions League final had something for the defensive purist.
11 min: SOMETHING VAGUELY INTERESTING HAPPENS! Sort of. Pedersen cuts inside from the left and swings a cross to the far post. Diouf dives and heads well wide right of goal. Gomes had it covered. However, the pulse still isn't racing yet.
12 min: SOMETHING VAGUELY INTERESTING HAPPENS AGAIN! Keane breaks down the inside-left channel. His cutback into the centre isn't great, but thanks to hapless Blackburn defending eventually falls to Modric, whose shot is deflected wide for a corner on the left. From it, King sends a glancing header drifting wide right, Jenas not too far from latching onto it himself and prodding home. Perhaps this is slowly turning into a classic.
15 min: Gomes comes off his line to claim a long ball, but doesn't make it. Do Blackburn take advantage? No. "Perhaps this is slowly turning into a classic." Well, it's not.
18 min: Here, this was brilliant. Almost. Palacios slides a beautiful ball, centre-left to right, along the ground and into the area for Bent, who comes in from the right wing and arrows a shot towards the bottom-left corner. That's such a sweet pass. Robinson, the sort of flying potato not seen in the game since the days of Tommy Lawrence, sticks out a strong hand to turn the shot wide. The corner is a waste of time. Anyway, Terry Dyson. "Many thanks, very enlightening," replies the ever-so-polite Ian Copestake. "I'm also glad to see my investment in box sets of Mind Your Language continues to pay off."
21 min: Pedersen Rory Delaps it into the Spurs area from the left. The ball causes confusion and breaks to Samba, who has space to shoot - but the ball won't sit up for him and the chance is gone. That was nearly a very promising opening for the home side - and Spurs were lucky there.
22 min: Pedersen Delaps it again from the left. Gomes comes, misses, and the ball falls to Diouf. The resulting shot is arrowing towards the ungarded top-right corner of the net, but Assou-Ekotto somehow highkicks it clear. Tottenham are not dealing with these long throws at all; expect more trouble ahead for them.
25 min: Great news for Spurs: Pedersen-Delap sits down on the turf and holds his calf. It looks as though he might have to be replaced by Dunn. Yep, he's going off, to a smattering of light applause. Dunn eventually comes on, about a minute later, when he can be bothered.
26 min: Lennon makes a brilliant run down the right, cuts into the box, and shanks a hilariously useless cross high into the stands. England fans will be familiar with this.
27 min: Brilliant play by Palacios again: he dummies to send Keane into space down the middle. Keane sprays the ball out right to Corluka, who cuts inside at pace and scrapes a shot just wide right of goal. He should have done slightly better with the shot, but that's a great move by Spurs.
28 min: Very fortunate penalty for Spurs! Lennon comes in from the right and whips a low cross into the area which dinks off Givet's hand. Givet was taking his hand out of the road, albeit not quite quickly enough, and was only standing about a yard from Lennon, but a penalty it is.
30 min: Blackburn 0-1 Tottenham. Keane places the ball not on the spot, but in front of it! Blackburn complain, but to no avail; he's allowed to take it anyway. What nonsense. He might as well be allowed to shove it over the line from 1cm with his nose. Anyway, Keane takes the kick with confidence, slotting it in the left-hand inside side netting. Robinson goes the right way, but he's never getting there.
34 min: Blackburn can't keep hold of the ball at all now. To a man, they've got real funky heat. "Can I just politely (cos that seems to be the order of the day, and is much nicer) point out that Tommy Lawrence was known as the flying pig, rather than the flying potato?" asks Mike Fitzgerald. Yes, Mike, yes you can. He did look more like a potato than a pig, though, didn't he? You've at least got to give me that.
36 min: Blackburn are all over the shop. Corluka, Keane and Bent diddle around down the left, then Modric is slipped into the area. He's free, just to the left of goal, ten yards out with only the keeper to beat! But he hesitates for no reason whatsoever, allowing Andrews to steam in and naff off with the ball. Meanwhile Gary Naylor is of the opinion that Aaron Lennon is hot bull: "We're always told that once Lennon learns how to play a decent cross, he'll be a fantastic player. After 204 appearances, I venture to suggest that if he was capable of learning, he'd have learned by now." In fairness, learning about stuff ain't so easy. For example, I've been doing these reports for years now, and will you look at the state of them.
38 min: Blackburn put a one-pass move together! Robinson hoofs it long, and it skims off Samba's head in the Spurs area. Woodgate spirits the ball clear of danger. That's better from Rovers, would you believe, who are playing very badly indeed.
41 min: Tum te tum. Nothing doing here at present. A very poor match, this, give or take a couple of thrusts forward by Tottenham. So, then, Tommy Lawrence. "He possibly did look more like a potato than a pig," concedes Mike Fitzgerald, "though seeing him dive full length was thing of rare beauty, with the emphasis on the rare rather than the beauty."
42 min: Another peach of a pass from the super-impressive Palacios, who sprays one to the right-hand corner of the Blackburn area, where Lennon awaits. If the winger takes that down, he's clear on goal, but his first touch isn't too clever, spooning up into the air, and Nelsen flees the scene with the ball, cackling.
44 min: Ewood Park is very quiet. And no wonder. Blackburn are a shower.
45 min: Keane and Modric stream down the field and win a corner. From the left, the ball's sent to the edge of the area for Palacios, who hammers a volley towards the bottom-right corner. That's a super effort, though it's impressively blocked by Samba.
HALF TIME: Absolute Shower 0-1 Tottenham. Woodgate flashes a header wide right of goal from a corner. Givet Delaps it from the left and Warnock slices a shot wide left. And that's that for the half. Blackburn have been utterly woeful and deserve to be losing. Whether Spurs deserve to be winning after being awarded a soft penalty, subsequently taken from one yard out, is another matter. But winning they are. This is a good day for Alan Shearer and Newcastle United so far.
And we're off again! An injured Roberts is off, Oojier is on. It looks like Samba is being played as an emergency striker. Within ten seconds, McCarthy has had a wild swipe at goal. Blackburn have come out with their gamefaces on, it would seem.
48 min: Blackburn should have equalised here. Robinson pumps a long ball into the Spurs box. Samba beats Woodgate to it with ease, heading down from the left into the centre. The ball falls just behind McCarthy, but finds Diouf, eight yards out. The resulting shot is ugly as sin, sliced high into the stands and well wide right of goal. But Sam Allardyce will be pleased with his side's reaction so far, a vast improvement on their first-half showing (although admittedly that isn't much of an achievement in itself).
51 min: Hmm, already it seems Blackburn's sting has been drawn. The match, all of a sudden, has gone as flat as Ian Brown at a festival.
52 min: Samba wins another header from another long ball, but Corluka steers him down a blind alley and eventually wheechs off with the prize.
53 min: Keane is sent clear down the centre of the park, but he's flagged offside after breaking a split second too soon. On Sky, Andy Gray suffers an apoplexy, though why I don't know. He suggests that the benefit of the doubt should have been given to Keane because the decision was a tight one. The fact the linesman got it right - by millimeters, admittedly, but right nevertheless - seems not to have penetrated his hot head. Does football analysis have to be as difficult as this?
57 min: Blackburn are doing that thing when they can't keep a hold of the ball again. Oh dear. "When Big Sam was doing this at half time," wonders Gary Naylor, "didn't somebody tell him that saying 'Samba is better up front than you shower' was only a threat and not an actual plan?"
59 min: This is all Spurs, though they're carving absolutely nothing out up front. "Do Blackburn's fans hold Shearer in the same regard as Newcastle's?" asks Ian Copestake. Probably not, Ian, as self-delusion appears to be an art form up in the north-east at the moment (that moment lasting around 17 years). "They should as he played far better for them. Perhaps when his eight games are up at Newcastle he can really come home by replacing Big Sam." Maybe Shearer should take over at Southampton. As things stand, he appears to have taken the easy option yet again.
62 min: Keane battles brilliantly down the right and feeds Lennon. And what a cross he sends over. What. A. Bloody. Cross. Dear Lord. Bent, in the centre, almost breaks his neck as he snaps it back to see where the ball is.
64 min: Mokoena smacks Palacios in the mouth. He's off! Only because he's immediately subbed while the Spurs player gets treatment, though. Much to the home crowd's pleasure, the ever-excellent Tugay, 83, is on.
66 min: Samba is booked for a sneaky shove in Jenas's back. "Judging by the 'improvement' in performance since the interval, perhaps Big Boned Sam took a leaf out of John Sitton's book and asked a few of them for a fight to which they could 'bring their f*@%ing dinner as well'," writes Lee Calvert, with reference to the greatest football documentary of all time, Leyton Orient: Club For A Fiver, in which Sitton has a thundering nervous breakdown and starts sacking folk at half time. "Of course Sam would not have been using the dinner reference as a euphemism."
67 min: Jenas is sprung into the box from the right by Corluka. Jenas's ball across the face of goal is majestic, but no Spurs player is on the front foot, and it rolls sadly out of play on the left.
68 min: See 67 mins, except it's Lennon sending the ball across, and this time Andrews hacks clear from the centre of his goalmouth. Blackburn are beginning to rock here, and it's Spinal Tap rather than Deep Purple.
70 min: Blackburn are now just hacking it clear, left right and centre. They're getting worse and worse. Forget Spinal Tap, this is Jazz Odyssey:
"On the bass... Sam Allardyce! He wrote this."
74 min: Ewood Park is almost totally silent. Perhaps with the realisation that Blackburn's next two matches are difficult trips to Liverpool and Stoke City.
76 min: Blackburn stroke it around for a bit, Warnock and Tugay in the thick of it. Diouf scoots down the right and manages to dig out a cross, sending a swerving low effort screwing towards McCarthy. Six yards out, the striker dives and meets the ball with his head, but sprays it well wide right. That was more than a half chance. A three-quarter chance? He should have done a lot better, anyway.
79 min: Palacios is booked for nudging over Dunn with a slightly late nibble.
80 min: RED CARD! And now he's off! He picks up a second booking for another late lunge on the same player, despite pulling out of the challenge at the very last minute. He deserved a card for the first tackle, but overall that's pretty harsh, that.
82 min: GOAL!!! Blackburn 1-1 Tottenham. What a passage of play this has been. From a corner on the right - which was probably a goal kick - the ball hits Keane on the hand. The ref doesn't give a penalty, but no matter: the ball's lifted back into the box for Samba, who powers clear down the inside-left channel and passes into the centre for McCarthy to sidefoot home under a flailing Gomes.
84 min: Spurs make a change, Lennon being replaced by Zokora.
85 min: How quickly games change. Blackburn have been dismal all afternoon, and now there's only one team looking like winning it. Twice Samba gets on the end of crosses, one from the left - which clanks off his shins with Dunn waiting on the edge of the area to power home if the ball's pulled back - and a second from the right, that one seeing him send a slightly clumsy bicycle kick towards the bottom right and into the grateful arms of Gomes.
89 min: GOAL!!! Blackburn 2-1 Tottenham. Superb play from Blackburn: Diouf shimmies down the right, sends Andrews to the byline, and Warnock hammers the subsequent cutback netwards. Gomes palms over brilliantly. What follows from the keeper isn't so clever: a corner from the left is sent skidding right through the six-yard box, past three black Spurs shirts and the flapping keeper, and to the feet of Ooijer, who scrambles a sidefoot home from two or three yards! Samba was causing a whole lot of bother there at the near post. What a turnaround! How precious could this be to Blackburn Rovers?
90 min: There are going to be three added minutes of this. Samba has been immense.
90 min +2: This looks over now. Sam Allardyce's half-time tactical change - no matter it was dictated by an injury to Roberts - should get the credit it deserves.
FULL TIME: Blackburn Rovers 2-1 Tottenham Hotspur. And that's that. Spurs remain in mid-table on 38 points, but Rovers leap four places in the table to 13th - and more importantly are now five points from the relegation zone.
Not sure what's going on here, but Diouf has lost the place totally! He's rowing with Woodgate, rowing with King, and rowing with Gomes. Suddenly his mood lifts, and he sprints around in front of his own fans dancing like the bastard love child of Terry Butcher and Chris Waddle circa Italia 90. What an afternoon - and not a good one so far for Allardyce's old club Newcastle, who are a further point from safety as a result of this. "You don't know what you're doing"? It seems that's not the case.
