George Graham, while he continues to specialise in the Cup sprint, is producing quite a kick into the final League bend. It was he – aware that his players are jockeying for a place in next weekend’s Wembley line-up – who precipitated the thrust of victory with a triple substitution 11 minutes from time.
One set of fresh legs were those of Steffen Iversen, to whom Les Ferdinand had originally been preferred. Iversen’s shot after 88 minutes was parried by Mark Bosnich and Tim Sherwood – ineligible for the Worthington Cup final – reacted fastest to bundle in the winner.By then, Spurs should already have been in front by virtue not only of their general domination, but also a most valid penalty claim, turned away by the referee Peter Jones early in the second half.Jones, considered by Graham to have had “a very poor game”, failed to acknowledge Riccardo Scimeca’s unsubtle shove on Les Ferdinand just as the Spurs striker was launching himself at Stephen Carr’s right-wing cross. Ferdinand’s prolonged protestation earned him a yellow card.That caution followed the altogether more predictable one issued to Villa’s pounds 5.5m debutant Steve Stone. As a Forest player, he had been sent off at the same venue in November after engaging in a feisty individual contest with David Ginola.

Unrepentantly, he re-engaged in wing warfare and was booked for a scything challenge on the Frenchman.From the start, Stone surrendered top billing down their shared touchline to the ever engaging Ginola, whose creamy runs and sugary crosses merited better than the fumbling finishes applied to them. Graham’s only lament was that Tottenham had not won by considerably more. Ginola, no doubt, shared the sentiment after providing so much ammunition only to see it rendered blank by those whose job it is to pull the trigger. One low cross was successively missed by Darren Anderton, Sol Campbell and Ferdinand.Ultimately, such wastefulness was of little material concern to Tottenham, who head to Barnsley and Wembley this major cup week in good cheer.Villa’s continued capitulation, however, is anything but cheery for their manager, John Gregory. Eight matches without a win, one point out of 21, no success away from Villa Park this side of Christmas, it’s a sign of his desperation for any little scrap that he considered “it looked to be a classic 0-0, which would have been a bonus for us”.Gregory’s continued good humour is laudable and as a looker on the bright side perhaps he’ll appreciate that this rotten spring has at least eased one social dilemma.One Villa Park season ticket holder, having received an invitation to an old friend’s wedding on 8 May, was for many pre-Christmas weeks angst- ridden at the prospect that “we could clinch the title that day”.Safe to say, he can now happily RSVP ASAP and there’ll be a spare seat in the Doug Ellis stand for the Charlton match Anyone interested?.

THE BENEFITS of a winter break came under scrutiny at the top and bottom of the Nationwide First Division yesterday. Grimsby Town, at home to the runaway leaders, Sunderland, and the bottom club, Crewe Alexandra, away to Swindon Town, both had had their three previous matches postponed and had not played since 27 February Results of the experiment were mixed. Grimsby, after carving out chances in the first half, fell behind to the Wearsiders five minutes into the second when Kevin Phillips finished from Nicky Summerbee’s inch- perfect pass. And although the Mariners worked hard, Sunderland had the cutting edge and Lee Clark added a second goal to keep them 12 points ahead of the chasing pack.
Meanwhile, lowly Crewe, inactive since winning at Bolton, had clearly put the lay-off to good use and won away again, 2-1 at Swindon Town.

First- half goals by Rodney Jack and Phil Charnock put them on track and although Chris Hay’s second-half strike threatened to derail the Railwaymen, Alex held on.None of the sides jousting for the second automatic place to the Premiership blinked as Ipswich Town, Bradford City and Bolton Wanderers all won.Second-placed Ipswich Town, beaten at lowly Crystal Palace in mid-week, recovered with a 3-0 win over Huddersfield Town. Jim Magilton, in the last game of his two-month loan spell from Sheffield Wednesday, got them off the mark in the 13th minute with a right-foot shot and David Johnson’s 15th goal of the season on the stroke of half-time made the second half more comfortable. Bobby Petta added the third.Their East Anglian neighbours, Norwich City, were thrashed 4-1 at third- placed Bradford City, who were 4-0 up at half time. Peter Beagrie, who tucked away a 25th-minute penalty to put Bradford 2-0 up, orchestrated their best moves, Lee Mills scored to take his season’s total to 21, and Jamie Lawrence scored the pick of the goals, dashing 30 yards through the porous Norwich defence to slip the ball past Andy Marshall. Perhaps the Norwich director, Delia Smith, should look at the Canaries’ pre-match menu.In the second half they pulled a goal back and Bradford had John Dreyer sent off, but the game had been won and lost long ago.Bolton, who had gone five games without a win and conceded three goals in each of their three previous matches, got back into winning ways with a 2-1 victory over Queen’s Park Rangers at the Reebok Stadium, Bob Taylor scoring both their goals.In the ruck tussling for the fourth play-off place, Wolverhampton Wanderers made the biggest gain, jumping from ninth to sixth after defeating struggling Bristol City Haarvard Flo scored twice in the 3-0 win.

Sheffield United kept pace after a fright at Tranmere Rovers. Trailing 2-0 at half-time, Traianos Dellas scored two in their eventual 3-2 win.The Second Division play-off hopefuls Manchester City, Gillingham, and Bourne-mouth, beaten at home for the first time in a year, all lost while in the Third, the leaders Cambridge United lost and second-placed Cardiff City drew It’s a very nervy time of year.. ON TUESDAY evening, after a Second Division fixture at Stoke, Kevin Keegan will pull off his Fulham bobble-hat and, metaphorically at least, don an England topper to finalise his first squad as chief operating officer – sorry, manager – of the national team, to be announced on Thursday afternoon. Friday morning will find him track-suited and football-booted again, doing what he loves best at Fulham’s training ground in Roehampton (once, coincidentally, used by England), before another Nationwide League fixture, at home to Blackpool on Saturday. In his own words: “You’ve got to have your Fulham head-on, then as far as I’m concerned, it’s England all the way, with the get-together on Sunday and six days together before the Poland game.” By then, the FA’s technical director, Howard Wilkinson, backed up by his assistant Les Reed, Derek Fazackerley and Arthur Cox, hopes to have undertaken all the preparation, and more, that a full-time manager would have been involved with.
“The intention was that Kevin’s Fulham time would be affected as little as possible,” Wilkinson said. “We’ve been to Poland, organised scouting, looked at tapes and we’re hopefully making sure that by the time he arrives, before he wants an answer, we’ve anticipated the question.”The good news to report, after a week of Fulham-watching, is that the Keegan head is firmly screwed on and as yet shows no sign whatever either of swelling with importance or bursting from the pressure inside it. If there is any bad news, as clues are sought to his eventual intentions regarding the England position, it is that the level of job satisfaction he finds at Fulham Football Club is clearly high enough – and the level of aggravation low enough – to render any other employment undesirable the moment it becomes too stressful.