The Missing Link

Article by e-Spurs Correspondent David Levy

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‘Clinicality’

It’s not even a real word but somehow it almost perfectly describes one of the biggest attributes our spurs team has been devoid of for some time.

Players like Suarez, Aguero, Van Perise (more often than not), Drogba…… Clinical. They can be counted on and trusted to win games for their respective teams, taking their chances and creating for others. They inspire victories and have fans being told to sit down in their seats all over the country.

Last year we had Gareth Bale. He was (is) a magician when it came to scoring a wonder goal and he was the catalyst for a lot of the good we saw in our side. What he brought to our Spurs team, as incredible as it was, is not what I am trying to focus on in this article.

What we have needed for a good few years now, since the Keane and Berbatov partnership, is a clinical finisher. A Forward who leads the team from the front and can be relied on to finish the chances put in front of him by others and to create plenty for himself and the players around him.

We have had a string of failures while trying to find ‘that guy’. Darren Bent, Roman Pavlyuchenko, Robbie Keane (post Liverpool), Luis Saha…. The list does not make pretty reading now we know the outcome of their tenure, however it’s fair to say that none of us ever really expected those players to consistently spur us to victories and inspire our team to trophies.

Jermain Defoe, for all he has done for the club, has never been anywhere near a consistent match winner and his poor form for 2 thirds of last season and in his early chances this season, hindered our results. With him leaving in a couple of weeks that leaves us with one recognised striker at the club.

Roberto Soldado is the man we all hoped would take on this role, maybe not from the get go but by now, at least, we hoped he would be banging in the goals on a regular if not prolific basis. This plan didn’t come into fruition though and Soldado struggled to lead the line on his own, playing a system that wasn’t creating enough chances for him. There was only one thing Tim Sherwood could do once put in charge.

Emmanuel Adebayor.

He has played in all 9 of Tim Sherwoods Premier League games in charge of Tottenham and has at times looked like a machine capable of single handily winning us games, something he has come close to doing if not at the very least being the catalyst for some of our victories.

In the 9 games he has had a hand in 8 of the goals, Scoring 6, assisting 2 and creating around 2 chances a game for others. He appears to have re-found the form of the 2011/2012 season where he scored 17 and assisted 11 in 32 games.

You remember that season a 10 point cushion in 3rd position thrown away to finish 4th and not qualify for the Champions League.

We had the dream team that year – Modric, Van Der Varrt, Bale and Ade. Great players playing alongside great players with Ade’s ‘clinicality’ nearly averaging a goal a game for us be it by scoring or setting up others to do so.

He led the line in a way that we had been crying out for a forward to do for years and all the players around him clearly were enjoying him doing so. When he wasn’t leading or dipped in form our whole team suffered. That’s not to say without him we couldn’t win or with him we couldn’t lose – obviously those situations did occur and it wasn’t up to Ade to win everything on his own for us. What we saw though was what the world looks like when you have a striker capable of being a clinical force, an inspiration on the pitch.

The rift between him and Andre Villa Boas that is now public knowledge was clearly affecting his ability to perform on the pitch last season and was clearly the reason behind getting just one start this season pre Tim Sherwoods reign.

I don’t forgive him for not being able to perform, more often than not when he was given the chance to however I hold no grudges and do wonder where we would be in the League right now if our talisman had been starting every game from gameweek one this year.

Ade is working extremely hard for the Tottenham cause right now. He is actually leading by example, tracking players back into our own half, picking up the ball deep, out wide, in the box. Tim appears to be looking towards Ade to be a leader on the pitch and he has paid back this confidence in him with inspirational performances.

He could score more and his finishing could be more consistent but at the moment he is our missing link and his ‘clinicality’ is winning us games. The players around him need to start consistently following his lead and mimic his never say die attitude. We need to see that even more from everyone and from second 1 of our games.

I believe he can lead us to greater things and I now believe he wants to.

COYS.

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