When stone-faced Steve Coppell gets off the bench and starts yelling at his players, you know something ain’t right in Reading. It wasn’t all that right in White Hart Lane, either, as Tottenham Hotspur beat the Royals 1-0 on a penalty kick awarded because of a handball on Greg Halford.
Coppell was none too pleased with the penalty call, but it was a handball in the box, and you can’t use your hands in Association Football. It’s there in the laws of the game. Can’t use your hands in this game. So there. It probably would have helped Reading’s cause a bit if they had put on a better offensive performance than this. Leroy Lita had one real scoring opportunity that went off the post, and there didn’t seem to be much else. The Spurs just looked more focused on offense the whole game, even though they had more offside penalties than the Oakland Raiders in a month.
The Spurs climbed into 6th place on the Premiership table, which puts them in UEFA Cup position, although Everton may have something to say about that when they take on Aston Villa tonight — and by tonight I mean roughly 3:00 PM EDT.
Meanwhile, Manchester United remain 6 points clear of Chelsea in the title race with a 4-1 trashing of Blackburn. Liverpool jumped ahead of Arsenal after Peter Crouch nearly beat the Gunners single-handedly. Bolton stayed atop the race for UEFA Cup qualification by knocking Sheffield United back toward the relegation zone. Sheff U is only one point ahead of Charlton, who continued to climb back into safety with a 1-0 win over Wigan, which is now only 3 points clear of danger.
The Charlton-Sheffield United match on April 21 could be huge. Take note of that, MLS owners…
