Average at its best

Article by Cam Lessard


There is something to be said for being average. In fact, I have lived my entire life as an average human being. I performed average in school, have an average job, live in an average town, drive an average car... catch my drift? In other words, there is nothing extraordinary about me, in the negative or positive. So, who better than an average guy like me to tell you that our beloved Tottenham squad should strive to be about as average as they can possibly be?

When you rate a team, the sum of the parts does not always equal the whole. Manchester United, for example, who struggled to find their footing early on, are now on an absolute tear.

So, Di Maria must be carving up defenses, right?... No, not really. Ok, Radamel Falcao must be cherry picking goals like crazy?... Ummm, no he's been going unused more often than not.

I see, it has to be Van Persie scoring at will?... He has not played since February.

But those guys make nearly a combined £700,000 per week wage!... Right, but Manchester United has been better without them in the line up. They have replaced their high priced mega stars with guys like Marouane Fellaini and Daley Blind and have seen a vast improvement on the pitch.

When you create a fantasy team, filled with studs, goal scorers, flashy play makers, or trick shot artists, you are not necessarily creating the best team.

After Spurs had an influx of £86 million for selling Gareth Bale, AVB and Levy brought in the likes of Paulinho (£17m), Soldado (£26m), Eriksen (£11.5m), Nacer Chadli (£6m), Capoue (£8.6m), Chiriches (£8.5m), and Lamela (£30m). The idea was to create an 'all-star' team and make us forget about our lost hero. I'll give them Eriksen; he has proved to be a valuable asset and is surely worth more than the money spent to buy him. The rest? Complete whiffs, so far. Excluding Eriksen, that is around £96m spent on guys who contribute very little considering their individual purchase prices.

Some of the best players for Spurs this season, Harry Kane, Nabil Bentaleb, Ryan Mason, and Danny Rose, are all cost effective options who grew into their current roles. Sure, if Entienne Capoue ever reached his potential he'd make Ryan Mason look like an amateur. And, if Soldado were scoring, like he was supposed to, Harry Kane probably would not be where he is at, either. But, that is not the case. Young boys, with chips on their shoulders, with limited internal push, with so-called ceilinged potential, have beat out high priced former 'stars' with grit, determination, and resiliency.

The emergence of the youth players has been the best part of this season. Parallel to this, is that Spurs have figured out that they have a lot of fat that can be complete extracted, hopefully, over the summer. In doing so, Spurs need to realize that 'average' players, whose best quality is effort, are better for the club than highly priced, over rated ones. Once this is figured out, Poch can cultivate a strong youth squad, harvest the best talent for the top team, and supplement the home grown assets with wise, cost effective purchases.

I'm not saying Spurs should ignore highly rated talent this summer, I'm just saying sometimes the grass is not always greener. In this case, there is nothing wrong with being average.

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