Tottenham Hotspur were worth half a hallelujah yesterday so clearly an echo of the weekend's worldwide rendering of Handel's Messiah had filtered through to White Hart Lane.A 3-2 victory over Sheffield Wednesday, in a match of naive defending mitigated by skilful individual touches from both sides, lifted Spurs from 16th to 11th in the Premiership to give their manager, Gerry Francis, a breathing space.Francis made it to the Tottenham bench yesterday after missing his team's departure from the League Cup four days earlier with a back injury suffered at home. His team, without a win in six league fixtures, responded by scoring three times in the first 45 minutes which was half as many as they had managed in their previous 10 league games.Then, having made hay while the sun had shone, Spurs started to become men of straw again once it had begun to set. David Pleat reorganised his Wednesday side from the back and saw them score twice to stir more anxieties among the Tottenham supporters.It was probably as much to calm nerves as anything else that Francis brought on Darren Anderton for Neale Fenn, an earlier substitute, with two minutes remaining. Because of frequent injuries Anderton had made just two first-team appearances since playing for England in Euro '96. So the early pendulum of managerial pressure has swung back towards Pleat, who had seen his team raise themselves from the bottom three through a draw with Aston Villa and a victory against Everton but is now in urgent need of win at home to Crystal Palace on Saturday.The way Sheffield Wednesday defended, or rather failed to defend, during the first half awoke visions of their heavy defeats this season, 7-2 and 5-2, by Blackburn Rovers and Derby. Their recovery did them credit, but they have still not won away from Hillsborough since the beginning of March.At the heart of the victory Tottenham so desperately needed lay the omnipotence of Sol Campbell, both as a defender and an athletic supporter in attack. Campbell's close-marking of Paulo Di Canio rendered the little Italian ineffective for the best part of an hour and it was not until substitute Wayne Collins and Mark Pembridge were able to lend the Wednesday strikers more consistent support that some familiar deficiencies in Tottenham's defence started to show.The best thing that happened to Tottenham yesterday was Sheffield Wednesday's worst moment, a gift of a goal by Kevin Pressman in the sixth minute.
Pressman, usually one of the Premier League's more reliable goalkeepers, made one error by sending a clearance straight to Andy Sinton and then, after Sinton's pass had found Jose Dominguez, compounded it by allowing the Portuguese player's moderately-struck shot to slip under his body and over the line.Dominguez, fouled thigh-high by Pembridge, soon departed but it made little difference to Tottenham's overwhelming authority at that point. Six minutes before halftime more poor defending by Wednesday led to another Tottenham goal. Campbell intercepted a weak clearance after Fox had centred from the right and Chris Armstrong reacted quickly to hook the ball past Pressman.Then on the stroke of half-time Ginola began and finished a move that saw him find the far corner of the net with a left-footed shot from a position similar to the goal with which given his team the lead in the CocaCola Cup against Derby. Thereafter there were moments when White Hart Lane suspected that again the advantage would be surrendered.With 19 minutes remaining Collins forced in Wednesday's first goal after Tottenham had failed to clear Lee Briscoe's low centre. Then in the 84th minute Pembridge's cross dropped beyond Justin Edinburgh for Di Canio to score their second.Tottenham wasted several late chances to relax their nerves, not to mention those of their followers. Francis was relieved to win but less than enamoured of his team's performance after half-time.
`Football's about mentality as much as ability,' said Pleat.At times, certainly, it is enough to drive the sanest manager mad.
