Article by John WardWhat a good 7 days, and most importantly what a great 7 points that was. A week that ahead of the Manchester United game had seen every pundit and fan giving you their opinions on who the next possible Spurs manager might be, finally ended with more optimism and trust in the team and encouragingly more belief in the Managers ability to get the best out of the undoubted talent he has at his disposal.
The argument in some quarters will be that Manchester United are not a great team and that their last 2 recent losses at home prove this, I understand also that winning against both Fulham and Sunderland is not something that given our investment and ambitions to be a top team should be something that we feel grateful for however, lets remember before the Man United game Spurs as a club, as a team and as individuals were under immense pressure to finally give the fans, media and the other teams in the Premier League a sign that as a collective they were up for the fight and were serious about performing week in week out in the Premier League. Thankfully, I believe we did this.
Against Man United we performed extremely well and had it not been for a large dose of bad luck I believe we deserved to win that game, I also think that tellingly getting the goal from Sandros superb effort in free play was important and who knows maybe it gave Holtby the confidence to try his luck when the opportunity presented itself a few days later. At Fulham, a team whose poor run in the league had seen the departure of Ex Spurs manager Martin Jol a few days beforehand and who were under new management for the first time as they welcomed Spurs to the Cottage, to come out of there with a win was a huge result regardless of the performance. To get the win there and for Lewis Holtby to win the game with such a great goal was superb.
I think AVB has been right to start with Defoe over the last two games as Soldado was below par in the Manchester United game and in this testing period I do think it is better the devil you know, yes Defoe has his faults but his strengths at this moment in time still stand him above Soldados recent performances.
Against Sunderland, Spurs were very impressive, especially in the second half when the team played at pace moving the ball to one another with fluency and with guile. Lennon was my Man of the Match, his work rate both in an attacking and defensive sense was exemplary and I genuinely believe that if you are an opposition left back the prospect of facing Lennon and Walker would be enough for you to pull a muscle in the pre match warm up and take a seat on the bench, as when both of them are in full flight I cant think of a better right sided pairing around.
Dembele and Paulinho have been an interesting talking point for many Spurs fans this season however, the last week has finally shown some kind of understanding and even possible ‘buds’ of a blossoming partnership. Paulinho clearly has his legs back and whilst I do think AVB was still wrong to have played him after he had played 2 International Games and traveled 5000 miles in the week before the Man City game, his decision to play him in the Manchester United game behind the striker I believe showed us all what he is capable of for example, the ball that he played behind the Manchester United defense for Soldados spurned chance - was a ball of great weight and feel and that should be something that is inspiring for the team if he does have that in his Locker.
Dembele has also picked up in recent games and maybe that is because AVB has given him more license or confidence to express himself I don’t know, but either way at times on Saturday against Sunderland it was a pleasure to watch him.
If we skip past the Europe League game on Thursday then we must look at the prospect of welcoming an in-form and exciting Liverpool team to White Hart Lane on Sunday. Luis Suarez is for me, performing at a different level at the moment and his goals against Norwich were superb. For me this is one game without doubt that you have to play Vertonghen in the Centre of defense, (Hopefully he would have recovered from his ankle injury) and if as a team regardless of the performance, we can get a result then I think the road to recovery at the shock of losing 6-0 to Man City will have been fully completed.
Lastly, a thought of positivity towards AVB, nearing the end of the Sunderland game Townsend came on and went to the left side, he then received the ball out paced the right back and crossed to Defoe who hit the woodwork, interestingly ten minutes earlier but on the other side of the pitch, Lennon got to the by line crossed the ball in and Defoe headed the ball onto the post. Surely this was the admission that whilst it has come very very late AVB may have finally realised that with the pace our wingers have he can instruct them to beat their man and get the ball in the box.
COYS
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In reference to your last note about our change to width and crosses against Sunderland. Soldado must have been pulling his hair out at the irony of it all!!
ReplyDeleteWhat he would have given to have had some decent supply over the last 10 games! - He is far from perfect, he needs to make more runs into channels and generally hold it up a little better,.
But I couldnt help thinking, if only we'd given him that sort of service instead of putting Townsend on the b*****y right wing for our first few games!! - At last he is on the left.
A quick acveat here: I have absolutely no problem with inverted wingers, they can be a good thing, but there are 2 KEY Components to having this work successfully,...:
1 - Full backs: -
They must be able to attack and overlap properly to provide the width, allowing our inverted wingers to get in and outnumber the opposition CB's with our CF.
2 - Player Selection: The wingers NEED to be capable of going EITHER way. Inside or outside.
In my opinion, there are only 2 players in our squad skillful enough and versed enough in this role to do it,.. They are Lamela and Chadli.
Lamela has absolute bags of ability and can go either way on either foot, Chadli at least has experience in the role and is aware that you need to mix it up and he does try to cross with his left occasionally to offer variation.
My views on our recent inverted wing choices:
Townsend is NOWHERE NEAR ready for this role and never was!!! - Has a lot to learn. Good to see him on the bench, and then on the left,.. He has plenty of time.
Siggurdson is a No 10 and ALWAYS has been!!! - Why on earth AVB has been playing Siggy on the left with Naughton at LB is beyond me! -
When we havent been able to play a proper bona-fide LEFT FOOTED left back behind the winger, we needed to change the winger to be either a left footer (Townsend) or someone capable of maintaing the width through football intelligence (Lamela, or even Holtby for a better balance until Lamela is able/prepared to track back effectively)
Anyway - One we get Rose back (Typical that Super Jan gets injured) this will all be academic, hopefully AVB will sign another quality LB as theyre so important to his system and we wont have any more issues!! -
Send the kids out against this Russian lot and get as many people rested and fit for the bin-sippers on Sunday!! - COYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!