13^th August 2010 - Summer of Discontent Approximately 36 hours after the City game my cynicism did no so much creep back in but banged down the door, pointed a jagged finger at my optimism and screamed ‘what is she doing here?!’. Success was like a buxom nineteen year old girl whose affection I had mistaken for mutual attraction and not paralytic drunkenness. I was now left waiting for to her remove her head from the toilet bowl and enquire exactly who I was. It has not been a good summer really. Most of our dashing world cup contingent came back home to find they were apparently no longer fit to lace Theo Walcott’s boots. There was a silence after the World Cup that everyone took to be that of the knowing urbane variety – none of this splashing £17m on a North Korean left back who was slightly less responsible than his peers for the 41 goals conceded. But then the silence became deafening. Outside of City’s gluttony, I can honestly say Joe Cole’s move to Liverpool is the only signing I can think of. Utd have bought a highly rated Mexican, Liverpool a tall striker who’d spent his career mainly in Belgium (I think?) whom people in the know believe could go either way, and Arsenal have signed a mouthy striker on a free whom is said (again from people in the know, me not being one) to be good but nothing particularly special. And we have signed only Sandro. The same Sandro we had signed this time some months and had all but signed this time too many months ago to remember. We do have a good squad, the best I’ve ever known. As a whole it should improve but it will not be straightforward. Perhaps one or two will come out of nowhere. I can understand the expectation about Dos Santos, and I am by no means writing him off, but it will take an extended run in a real competition before I declare it a blessing in disguise that Joe Cole made the most suspicious of ‘footballing’ decisions. My prediction is Keane, a player who I’m sure would be long gone any other summer - but not in this climate when clubs optimistically request a loan of seasoned internationals whilst in turn accepting no less than £12m upfront for the steam off the grounds man’s piss. Other players too should disappoint, decay, or revert. Sadly my tips are Defoe and Palacios. Last season was Defoe’s chance; he was undisputed number one, relatively injury free, and with at least one midfielder in unplayable form at any given point of the season, had an embarrassment of riches at his disposal. And while 18 goals seems good it was disappointing for a player expected to breeze past 20, and for many, myself amongst them, it was papering over the cracks. It’s a cliché by now, but most of the game is in the mind, and for me Defoe is as shackled by confidence as Ledley is by his knees. For every game he tortures Hull there will be another where only an occasional snapshot reminds you he is on the pitch, and for every one of these games again there will be another performance where there is nothing to remind you at all. Palacios too I cannot help be pessimistic over. There were times last season when it was like watching Vinnie Jones, had he lost all spatial awareness in (an only somewhat) tragic accident and was now undergoing highly speculative treatment that required mass consumption of MDMA. Some may find it odd, but I also expect a difficult season for Dawson and Bale. Dawson because the phrase ‘from zero to highly respected character actor’ didn’t quite catch and ‘hero’ was shoehorned in: put frankly, many now look at him as a Woodgate or a King - a role for which he is not yet ready and may be castigated for not fulfilling. Bale profited from being neither one thing nor the other last season, so neither right backs nor right wingers had a chance to even try and figure him out. They will have more opportunities this time around which will make it harder for him. By and large though I believe both men have their best years in front of them. The only out and out bona-fide dead wood appears to be Hutton, though it will only take a few run outs as rotten as last season for Jenas to join him (a player who has nothing to prove apparently, spouted with the sort of self-delusion that would make Naomi Campbell question his priorities). But it is foolish to think that the current squad is enough. Last year was like watching an athlete run beyond his ability with veins bulging and deep pain on his lock-jaw face, glancing over his shoulder constantly before finally falling over the line in knots of cramp and tears. This season we were to be the leggy sort who runs the same race at a cantor and is immediately prepared to give a composed television interview extolling the virtues of the competition (as they approach their last lap in the background). One or two players could have perhaps given us the extra yard but then they have not been forthcoming, neither for us nor for anyone. It has not been Harry’s fault or Levy’s, but the coming home to roost after a decade of decadence in the English game. If anything our chairman can feel hard done by, having held his cards for so long only to find the other players had bluffed away their chips when the time finally came to play his cards. Neither does it help that our peers have failed to capitulate as we hoped. Everton, Arsenal and particularly Liverpool were supposed to enter the season in disarray, with key players gone, leaving politics and poverty to pull what remained apart. It never worked out that way though, and if rumours are to be believed Liverpool are on the verge of acquiring a backer with greater funds than most countries. Or for that matter any country other than their own. At least Villa have had the good grace to self destruct in a hail of humiliation and conspiracy. ‘Doing a Spurs’ I believe it’s called. My predictions? No big signings, the unexpected (and unintended) triumphant return of Keane, an initially embarrassing but eventually spirited go at it in the Champions League (as nerves and pressure succeed to underdog status) without making it beyond the group (given we beat Young Boys). In the Premier League I see fifth, below the increasingly focused City but above the not quite rehabilitated Liverpool. Sadly, Man Utd to win the League.

..

Want to bet on the spurs? Check out the latest betting odds online with our partners at bwin.com

..

TOPSPURS COLUMNISTS

	David Hayes	Martin Cloake	Greg Meyer	Sean Morley	Logan Holmes	Jim Duggan	Colin Ashby	Woodo	Guest Column
		Footy Doctor	Laurence Coss	Il Falcone	Robby Boy Sumner	JimmyG2	Dan Wetzels	Richard Pymont
Columnists Homepage		The index and archive page of the TOPSPURS columnists

25^th May 2010 - Summer Transfers

Ah, there’s the rub! We’ve qualified for the Champions League, now what on earth are we supposed to do?

Well I suppose first things first; out with the old. As Harry has a habit of pulling players in from the cold without warning (see Huddlestone, Bale, Bentley and, most famously, Pavlyuchenko) it is not as easy to predict departures as it once was. When Jol or Hoddle disliked a player then the sorry individual couldn’t be more frozen out if he were sent to a Gulag. Ramos didn’t even bother with squad numbers, taking Levy’s penny pinching to heart by saving on felt digits. But with Redknapp it wouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to find, say, Alan Hutton suddenly back in the team come autumn.

We can make good educated guesses mind you. If Barça and Real resist Adel Taraabt for fear of instigating a bidding war, it is still possible he’ll join a continental club most have only just about heard of (Tenerife, Braga or such alike) for about the same price we bought him for. Dos Santos seems resigned to a similar fate, and in truth both seem quite happy about it from what I can tell. I always find it hilarious how people cannot resist a bit of a flash forward. They are the large chested ladies of football, readily forgiven for shortcomings which would doom a less eye catching peer.

For years we have pulled out our hair at insipid performances and left the ground grumbling ‘no pride in the shirt, guillotine the mercenaries and bring in some young blood who care about Tottenham’. Finally, in Redknapp, we seem to have found a coach with a similar prerogative and who cares little for players who beset the boredom of occasionally turning out for a middling team of also rans (that’s us up until a month ago) by exploring London’s (admittedly rich) nightlife. Despite all evidence to the contrary, a quick goal compilation video on YouTube gets people yelping that he is making a terrible mistake neglecting such players. Frankly, I’m not sure exactly how many thinly veiled put-downs Taarabt must make, or how hilariously he must underachieve, before some fans will drop the premise he has been ‘mishandled’.

Up a bit on the frozen out-o-meter are Hutton and O’Hara. Jamie has come to see himself as the ‘honest’ footballer, while everyone else has come to see him as a somewhat tedious rent a quote. But in truth that’s a minor complaint, and the real crux of the matter is he wants first team football we cannot give. Fare thee well. Hutton is a funny one. I have never seen a player fall so rapidly from expensive marquee signing (nipped in just before Fergie no less!) to being a figure of complete indifference. Apparently he did quite well at Sunderland, so perhaps yet another who was not suited to life in the capital. Nonetheless, what money is made on O’Hara will surely be lost on the right back.

Onto tepid – here we have Keane and Jenas. Robbie has talked recently about looking forward to the Champions League campaign with Spurs, and being honest he has the demeanour of slight delusion, like a man in the pub telling anyone who’ll listen that he’s booking a family holiday away to Crete and refuses to acknowledge his wife has changed the locks and had her new lover move in, a good looking young investment banker the kids already call dad. Jenas looks ready for the sack too. Keeping with metaphors of suburban life, he always gave me the impression of one of these middle management types who make sure to never rattle any cages for fear of losing their pension. These people are the life blood of bloated bureaucratic corporations, but fare less well in the competitive world of Premiership midfield playmaking. I anticipate the most celebrated transfer out in living memory.

If these six players were sold, £30M+ would be freed up with precious little impact on the team that hit its Champions League qualifying stride. That’s a nice thought.

Now lukewarm – Pavlyuchenko and Bentley. Both have done enough to warrant staying on without exactly pushing their case. They could be kept to give continuity and strength in depth, or could be sold to reap back their value. All in all I see Pavlyuchenko as the more likely to go, effectively to create space and capital for that all important complete forward we all crave so dearly.

Which brings us steadily along to ‘in with the new’. Things get more complicated here and there isn’t really a point going with the papers; this week’s Micah Richards is last week’s Stewart Downing. We sign who we sign and that’s pretty much it. All we can do is enjoy the guilty pleasure of speculation and hope the more fanciful predictions come true. Joe Cole? Yes please!

As we have learnt the hard way under Ramos and Santini, revolution is not the way, but evolution. For that reason alone it worth persevering with players who individually may not be considered anything special (the Huddlestones, Crouchs, Assou-Ekottos and Bentleys). That in mind, the current lot is still not Champions League standard, or good enough to consolidate fourth for that matter. So who do we need?

Well, a top forward. As top a forward as we can get really and this seems general consensus. Our ability to finish games off is sadly lacking and regularly makes a minefield of fixtures that should be a walk in the park. Part of the reason the traditional big four for so long seemed to balance European success so easily with Premier League consistency was their ability to quickly put a game to bed and then see out the ninety minutes at the tempo of a training match.

Next comes a central midfielder. Optimists will point out the better displays of free flowing football spurred on by Huddlestone and Modric, but sceptics such as myself cannot overlook the all too regular occurrence of our midfield disappearing, usually with twenty minutes of a game to go having previously seemed in comfortable ascendency. Great as the result was, that (a relatively weak) Arsenal had 66% of the possession at White Hart Lane is an uncomfortable statistic. Maybe Sandro will have the rare ability to walk into a team and play as though he has been there all his life, but his age and conditioning (both cultural and footballing) would make it seem unlikely. Maybe Palacios can put this mess of a season behind him and continue where he left off this time last year and maybe Huddlestone will step up and begin to stamp his authority on the midfield, for the full duration, game in, game out. But that’s an awful lot of maybes.

Lastly a central defender. Dawson had a good season but is still not quite the totem some make out. At 26 he is still a couple of years off peak for a centre half of his style and so he remains the capable deputy. Likewise, King’s fairytale finale should not cloud the issue. We need the defence to perform as it does when he is present (or as close as is possible) week in, week out, and sadly that can never be the case with Ledley himself there.

Frivolous requests include a modern right back (i.e. a wingback who can actually defend) and, if we do embrace the 4-5-1 so many believe is the future for elite sides, then perhaps another silky midfielder. Joe Cole? Yes please, though if Chelsea can’t agree to his wage demands how on earth will we.

On current form, Harry is neither a parsimonious spender nor a frivolous one. Most players are bought for a specific purpose, but then others might be signed simply because it’s too good a deal to turn down. His reputation as a wheeler dealer seems a little dated to me, and you have to go back to his days at West Ham to find hard evidence of players being traded more often than the stickers that bore their image. But the hacks don’t care about this. Combine his reputation and ours and then throw in the sub plot of Champions League football and we should have a jolly old time in the redtops this summer! Edin Dzeko? Yes please!

24^th May 2010 - Belated Season Review 09-10

Its sort of virgin territory here; usually at this time we can sit back and relax, safe in the knowledge we’d passed another season that didn’t really matter and could now spend the summer wondering what like for like player trading would go on in preparation for yet another. It was reminiscent of one of those sitcoms where nothing every changed, regardless of how many characters they had to kill off. I’ve described to friends many times how Spurs to me is like trainspotting; I realise the futility, but I do it anyway. But now there’s a spanner in the works with the club having actually made a significant achievement. The future is expansive, but it’s also dark and dangerous. If I’m going to be brutally honest I suddenly can relate to fans of Norwich or Burnley or the like who spend their whole lives waiting for promotion to the big league, but upon doing so are left with the very real and decidedly unpleasant prospect of being humiliated on a weekly basis.

A curiosity this season has been that overall pretty much no one player has been outstanding, albeit with mitigating factors. There has been no Klinsmann, no Ginola, no Berbatov and all the true high fliers have at some point sunk. In the case of Modric, Lennon and (of course) King, injury was the culprit. Modric, though not actually injured for all that long, took a while to return to previous highs and never really found the consistency of his early season form. Bale and Defoe were also, at some point outstanding. Bale only played half a season, the rehabilitation from the previous year’s mauling still incomplete in September (on a side note, I can’t understand anyone who criticizes Redknapp over this, the insinuation being Bale was only discovered accidentally on account of Assou-Ekotto’s injury; its textbook man management to take a young player out of the side when his confidence is shot. And it worked a threat).

Defoe is a more complex case. Being honest I can’t help but feel it was not a good season for him. A quick look down through his stop start career shows it has always been stunted by some force another, be it the shambolic (if talented) West Ham team he graduated into, the rare alchemy of the Keane and Berbatov partnership standing in his way, or the long lost weekend at Portsmouth. Add to this a habit of sustaining injuries just as he came into form, and it all colluded to make Jermaine, at 27, somewhat of an unknown quantity.

Last winter it seemed some quantity indeed, and there were all the inevitable repercussions of a player leapfrogging into the elite; £30m bids from Barcelona were touted and would-be tacticians brainstormed means of shoehorning him into the England team with Rooney. Sadly in the interim Defoe has gradually slid back down from this elite and where once he seemed slight degrees of improvement away from rubbing shoulders with the like of Fowler, Rush and Shearer, he now resides with the good but not great (the Dublins, the Sahas, the Yakubus). His tally of 18 league goals becomes decidedly iffy when taken into consideration that nine of these goals were scored against Wigan and Hull. The famous five goals in thirty five minutes became an albatross; he has demonstrated he could be a top player, but has so far balked at the challenge of proving he is one. He is still fairly young (although at 27 he is too old to be as bound by confidence as he is) but most fans would feel a truly top forward is needed over the summer, somewhat despondently having believed briefly they already had one. Still, take him over Darren Bent any day (yes, yes, I know how many Bent scored).

While on this note we may as well try and swallow all the bad medicine. After what I thought was a phenomenal start with all sorts of Steve Gerrard overtones, Robbie had a drastic fall in form and Redknapp decided, like Jol years before him, that he and Defoe were not right for one another. Robbie was given a breather after 120 minutes against France, Wigan were beaten 9-1, and that was that. It makes me very sad to see how far Robbie has fallen. Whether it is just a dip or whether the decline is now terminal remains to be seen, but the resuscitation will probably be attempted elsewhere.

Palacios has become somewhat of an elephant in the room. No one wants to say it, but on the balance of things he has had a poor time of it. Our saviour only last season, a wide berth was given as trademark crunching tackles gave way to trademark pointless fouls and sloppily giving away the ball (often just passed to the opposition). It could be simply a matter of a drop in form, but then it could be argued previous displays flattered to deceive. One theory I have heard whispered is that the team has already outgrown Palacios as we now control games and thus need our midfielders to be more than just destroyers. Having just scratched an itch that has bothered us for as long as I can recall I prefer not to think about it, and hope that Palacios Mk1 returns in the May.

I think everyone who has tried to pick a player of the season has struggled. Gomes and Dawson seem to be the prime contenders, having played at a good level throughout the season. Both are very good if slightly overrated. Gomes has redeemed himself to the point of being considered (almost) a top keeper and his shot stopping must be the best in the Premier League, but if he is to truly establish himself as a great in England he must master the rough aerial set piece that is so much of the domestic game.

Dawson is another comeback king, beginning the season on the bench (with the ignominy of a rumoured move back to Forest) and finishing it with an unofficial captaincy (surely rubber stamped with Keane’s inevitable departure) and an England call up. There has been much talk of the superiority of his form compared to that of the ailing Terry and Ferdinand, though this blurs the issue somewhat; both the later are at a nadir in their careers but at some point have shown themselves to be first class centre halves. Truth is Dawson is not there yet, and is another player who sits atop the middle tier of his discipline alongside the Richard Dunnes and Sylvian Distins of the world. There’s the old saying about damn lies and statistics and I can’t help but feel this year’s defensive frugality is a case in point. Only when King played did we really have that condescending cool air of calm seen in outstanding back fours, and even then the effect would fade with the great man’s pain killers and the last twenty minutes or so and we would revert to the usual last ditch tackles, finger tips saves, and joyful bewilderence at the ineptness of opposition forwards. Don’t get me wrong – I’m a big fan of Dawson. He is brave, motivated and likeable, makes the most of his abilities and has constantly shown the character to pull himself up. At 26 he is still a couple of years off premium vintage for a centre half, and by that time he could have that additional true class necessary to be amongst the best, but for now I believe he is still the sidekick (albeit an extremely accomplished one) and if we are serious about locking out the prime forwards in the world on a fortnightly basis, we will need something extra (preferably a new knee for Ledley or even a new groin for Woodgate, but medical science is unlikely to progress so far over the summer, particularly with the World Cup on and whatnot).

Two players who just failed to make the podium are Kranjcar and Huddlestone. Kranjcar came in late and left early while spending half his time being shunted from one position to another as Redknapp hoped in vein to accommodate both he and Modric in the one side. Though it rarely worked, Kranjcar is the definition of one of those good headaches – surely too good too be left out, but with nowhere obvious for him to play in.

Huddlestone wins this year’s ‘stick it up your arse’ award; once I admitted that Tom was the only player I hated, painting him as a pathological coaster. I would like to say that was years ago but it was only November. In the ensuing season though he has stepped up and even if matches passed him by (which has happened less and less) he seemed concerned by it, whereas before he appeared to look upon himself as just a poor young player who really shouldn’t have been dealing with such responsibility so early on in his career. Though I remain sceptical, Tom has developed into a good Premiership player in the most important position on the pitch at only 23. Stating we should sell Modric if we are to waste him out on the left is still the only thing I’ve written on Topspurs that makes me feel silly, but saying Tom Huddlestone is the only player I hate is the only thing that makes me feel bad; save the odd prodigy here or there, most players would be doing well to achieve what he has by the age of 23. Whether he has what it takes to become the real deal is up for debate (and often is), but for now Tom has happily proved me premature.

The rest of the team were usually ‘solid’ (a nice way of saying the right side of average, but then a team can’t all be stars). Corluka and Assou Ekotto both had good seasons without being remarkable, though the later is an opinion divider. Assou Ekotto on his day looks a fine full back, but on his (slightly too common) off days barely looks like a footballer. Corluka’s best is not on par but neither is his worst. To retain their places in a team that strives to be Champions League pedigree, both must improve.

Bentley and Crouch played their part without ever taking the opportunities afforded them with both hands. Both have the same problem of being perennially caught between overachievement at a lower level and underachievement on the step up. Both are good squad players but Bentley, in particular, cannot escape his price tag. Crouch, I think, will hang around for a few years, operating as a human curve ball (via a long ball). Pavlyuchenko too had a renaissance, but he is a player I still don’t understand. There was of course a goal spurt, but average players have been getting goal spurts as long as I can remember; Pavlyuchenko is by no means average but then neither is he top drawer. To finish of the squad, we learned rumours of Gudjohnsen’s demise were greatly exaggerated and we finally saw some of that Kaboul potential which managers have talked of all these years.

I began by saying that no player had been truly outstanding and there’s a comforting ring to that. Firstly because it emphasises the alchemy involved, the streamlined ‘parts greater than whole’ unison every team aspires to, and also because it doesn’t promote the niggling injustice felt all summer long when the one decent player in the team is on the back page of the Daily Mail each and every day having “his future resolved”.

Unforgiven as they may be, a quick look at the midfield of the old Lennon (with the final ball missing), Malbranque, Zokora, Jenas hints why Keane and Berbatov may have considered themselves to have outgrown the club. There are no such discrepancies this time around, refreshingly, and no one player stands head and shoulders above his teammates (Modric is the closest thing, though he still needs a full season playing to his best consistently to prove it).

That is not to say we are ready. A true Champions League club must be in the habit of nonchalantly chalking up effortlessly wins at venues like Goodison or Ewood or the Reebok, despite being just off a plane from Marseilles or Eindhoven. We are still in the habit of making such games hard work, with the last twenty minutes always uncomfortable no matter how weak the opposition.

We perhaps need three new players to help us kick this habit. The first is easiest, as it seems unanimously agreed we could do with a top forward to score that elusive third goal to kill off the game and allow us see out the second half in a casual (energy conserving, injury avoiding) saunter. I would also say a midfielder to dominate over games like an emotionally abusive spouse, though some would say Palacios or Huddlestone need only time, and others again would point to Sandro (it would be to my surprise if we see anything real from him for at least a season mind you). In defence too we need a sure thing, but we face difficulties here. No player will be as good as King, but no player even approaching this standard will happily play understudy. Dawson, meanwhile, has come too far to go back to the old days when he fed off the crumbs from Woodgate and King’s table.

The Mirror, the Mail, the Sun and the Star will keep us guessing, but until August, I guess that’s that. Just while writing this, one thing made me smile; no matter what, we will never again see a midfield of Jenas and Zokora. Well done Harry.

Disclaimer: Please note the words on this page are the opinion of the topspurs columnist and are just that, opinions, not facts and are nothing to do with Tottenham Hotspur Football club PLC. Just a supporter having his say nothing more nothing less. Any commentary on betting is meant for discussion purposes only and does not constitute any form of advice or recommendation.