Tottenham and England Keeper Paul Robinson has been a little down in the dumps recently, but Martin Jol aims to cheer him up by playing him tonight in Spurs’ away leg trip to Anorthosis Famagusta. Tottenham take a 6-1 lead into this game and The Times says that Big Martin Jolly thinks that even Robbo can’t gift the Cypriots that many goals, can he? The Times thinks that even by playing Paul Robinson in such game where he would normally have been rested, Martin Jol is showing how concerned he is with his keeper’s confidence.
Jol said:
“Paul wants to play. He knows that he wants to do better and we want to do better defensively. So he will start. He is my No 1, so I made a decision. It is a good opportunity for Paul to keep his rhythm.”
The Tottenham manager also revealed that he had a ‘team meeting’ when Robbo’s errors were discussed :
“It is a chance before the Liverpool game to get a good game under his belt again and forget about that mistake the first goal scored by Martin Laursen, for Villa]. We had a team meeting when we talked about errors and him making an error. But I’m not someone who will punish him for that because I know that he is England’s No 1 and that he is No 1 for us. In the same game he made two very good saves before that.â€
Lets just hope that this doesn’t blow up in Jol’s face because conceding any clangers to Anorthosis Famagusta would really dent Robinson’s frail confidence.