When Tottenham signed Paul Robinson in 2004 there cannot be a Spurs fan out there who was not chuckling into his beer. For a paltry £1.5m we had bagged a keeper who was already an England international, had Champions League experience and was in red hot form. In fact Robinson made an excellent impression at Spurs and performed well for... hmm I'll be generous and say 2 seasons.Adored by the fans, the stopper built a splendid rapport with the Park Lane end in particular. Holding onto the England jersey was a foregone conclusion and even the emergence of young pretenders such as Kirkland, Green and Foster failed to dislodge him. But the cracks soon started to appear. Actually, I rather suspect that the cracks were there all along, but that infamous night against Croatia proved to be a catalyst for implosion. In all fairness, I don't even that mistake was Robbo's fault. Neville should have known better than to back-pass directly toward the goal, and you can clearly see that the ball bobbles up about six inches just as Robinson's boot swings through it - but the media went into frenzy.
Since then every fumbled cross, every deflected shot that squeezes in where perhaps it shouldn't and every 30 yard screamer that leaves the blundering oaf rooted to the spot is treated as further evidence that he is "having a crisis of confidence". Well, maybe he is - in fact maybe he has been for some time now, or maybe he just wasn't as good as we thought he was. Whichever way you look at it this situation is exactly why clubs like to have 2 decent keepers at their disposal.
Under Martin Jol, Robinson could be fairly safe in the knowledge that his would be amongst the first names on the teamsheet, regardless of his form. Perhaps this led to a little complacency, but Ramos proved to us seven weeks ago that he will not tolerate mediocre performances - whoever they are from. A string of poor performances finally saw the Spaniard hand Cerny the shirt full time, and who could disagree with that decision?
The Czech custodian has been an incredible servant to the club. He has quietly gone about his business without word of complaint, despite clearly being good enough for regular Premiership football elsewhere, and whenever he has been called upon to step up he has rarely let us down.
However, Mr. Robinson didn't quite see it that way. His toys came flying out of him pram so fast that some quarters could swear they saw a transfer request amongst them. He was still sulking by the time the rest of the team were warming up against Arsenal and refused to partisipate, much to the understandable annoyance of his boss. It is the opinion of this writer that this behaviour was nothing short of disgraceful. It shows unbelievable disrespect for his team-mates, the fans and the club. Perhaps Robbo himself didn't agree that his performances warranted his relegation to the bench, but ultimately it's not his opinion that counts. Ramos had quite reasonably decided to try Cerny and surely the right thing for Robbo to do was to buckle down and give a bit of extra effort in training, not have a hissy fit and engineer a transfer at the first sign of trouble.
The dust has now settled and it transpires that Cerny isn't really all that after all. An absolute howler against his home town team has left Ramos with a big decision to make: Is it time to reinstate Robinson? It is widely believed that he will, and that could be a masterstroke.
Juande Ramos is proving himself to be a man of his word. He clearly doesn't stick with favourites. Robbo makes mistakes and bang - he's out. Cerny makes mistakes and bang - Robbo is back in. What clearer a message can he possibly send to his squad: Nobody is safe, I will pick whoever is performing and drop whoever is not.
It's strange to think it, but maybe that blunder by Cerny has done more to enhance our chances of lifting some silverware on Sunday than people might realise. Hopefully Robinson will come out tonight with plenty to prove. If he has the right attitude he will want to show the fans, the boss and the media that he should never have been dropped in the first place. Ramos will publically show that he doesn't hold grudges and perhaps this could be the motivation for our new number one to put in a string of top class performances.
I'll tell you this, if we are to stand any chance on Sunday we need a keeper on top of his game. By dropping Robinson Ramos proved himself to be a great manager, by recalling him at such a crucial stage of the season he could prove himself to be a genius.
