Spurs with a side of Barbeque, Part 4:

Keeping the Carpathia at Bay

In part four of his series of articles for e-Spurs, James Pike gives us his views on his beloved Spurs from The Tar Heel State, USA.

For you, the readers of e-Spurs, I have but one message this week:

This is not the end, people. At least for now.

Yes, I am well aware of our circumstances. Three defeats in a row after 12 matches unbeaten, and a side that have a long history of collapsing in the late part of the season. All signs point to us folding like a house of cards and crashing out of the top 4, right?

Spurs Mistakes Against Liverpool

Usually, I would be inclined to agree. But I’m not calling for a lifeboat just yet.

I don’t think that this recent run of form says that we are destined to collapse as much as it says that we are incredibly thin for a top-4 calibre side. Note that in all three losses, we have had either one of Gareth Bale or Aaron Lennon unavailable. And we have had to play out of our natural formation as a result.

Not surprisingly, we have struggled to get used to the 4-4-2 that has been used, and we’ve looked awful. No width going forward, no ability to stretch and burn defences like we’re used to seeing Tottenham offences do. We have looked narrow, unorganised at the back, and by and large downright awful.

But I think that that just speaks to how much we need certain guys out there on the field in order to play well. In particular, Azza.

Lennon Having a Fine Season

Gareth Bale is a wonderful talent and a fine player, but he’s nowhere near as successful as he has been this year without Azza on the opposing wing. Lennon has the pace to draw defenders to him, and is right talented with the ball. He is, for all proverbial senses, another weapon that we have going forward. His presence on the field creates all kinds of problems for opposing defences, because it forces them into either locking down Bale (and leaving Lennon to run all over you, as he did against Man United at home) or trying to spread their defence about normally and hoping that they can cover both Bale and Lennon (which, when both are playing as well as they had been coming into this week, is almost impossible to do).

Long and short, Lennon frees up Bale enough for Gareth to be able to do his thing. When Aaron isn’t out there, it allows defences to concentrate all of their defencive focus on Gareth. When defences get to throw all of their men at Gareth, it becomes much easier to beat us, because we don’t really have any consistent goal-scorers besides him.

Wingmen Bale and Lennon

 Hence the results of this past week. Once Aaron came on at the San Siro, we had the width, but not the goal-scoring capability (Ade’s goal was all kinds of lucky, and we really should have gone out of the Europa League); against Liverpool and Fulham, we had our goal-scorer out there but no width to free him up. We need both that width AND that goal-scoring ability to compete for a top-4 spot.

This is why I’m not hitting the panic button and/ or going for the Titanic’s lifeboats just yet. We didn’t have our full squad out there at any point in the last week. Likewise, I’m not convinced that we are destined for doom just yet. Just because we have one bad week with some of our key players injured doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re in big trouble.

And by the way, it’s not like we haven’t been in this situation before this season. Remember Moussa Dembélé and his hip in November? We couldn’t win a game with him on the injury table (and one of those games happened to be the Wigan game at home). Then he comes back in December, and after the collapse at Goodison Park, we go on to play 12 matches unbeaten.

Key Man Dembele

  If anything, this week has only reinforced my belief that Gareth Bale and Aaron Lennon are indispensable to our success. For as poor as we looked this past week, I can’t make any fair sweeping judgements about those matches because we didn’t have our full-strength side out there on the pitch. So I’m reserving my judgements until I see everyone back out there healthy. That’s in part why I’m glad we have the international break to come- some of our guys are going to get some rest that is sorely needed (if the Fulham match wasn’t any indication). And one of those guys taking the two-week break happens to be Aaron Lennon. Provided nothing extraordinary happens he’ll be ready for the Swansea City match.

If we have everyone back at Swansea and we play like we have been, then you can start hitting the panic button and calling this team the Titanic. But until then, don’t start sending out your SOS for the Carpathia. We may not need it yet.

Keep the faith, and COYS!

-James

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