I’m expecting most, if not all of the blogs and websites relating to Spurs to be fairly depressing today. The majority will be negative about Saturday’s dismal performance and the poor results in the previous three games. I should warn you now, this will be no different so if you think all is rosy at White Hart Lane and you’re happy with a 5/6th place finish and a quarter final of the champions league then I’d advice you to close the browser window and read no further because it’s unlikely you’ll agree with anything I’m about to say.
I’m getting tired of being told Spurs are having an excellent season. Whether it’s by Harry Redknapp, the media or other fans. Being told I shouldn’t be questioning our performances or results because this is one of the best seasons we’ve experienced in decades. What a load of bollocks that is. For one second lets remove our Spurs blinkers and concentrate on a few facts. We’re currently sitting in 5th place in the league, 5 points behind fourth with only 8 games remaining. Manchester City on the other hand are in third with the same points as they had at the same time last season when they sat in 5th. Have they improved? Not as far as I can see. It’s the Spurs side that have become worse.
The free flowing, exciting football team everyone constantly goes on about has only lost once at home all season. I’ll settle for that, but we’ve also only managed to win 50% of those games while scoring 19 goals. Only Sunderland, Birmingham and Wigan have scored fewer goals in front of their home supporters. Compare that to a 65% win conversion and 11 more goals scored this time last season. We went on to win our final five home league games last season, scoring 10 goals and conceding only 3. The same will need to be achieved this season if we’re to have any chance of finishing in the top 4 again and on current form that’s just not going to happen. Away from home the goal scoring has been slightly better but even the “disappointingly defensive Manchester City” have scored the same as us having played one less game.
We were knocked out of both domestic competitions in the early stages, both in humiliating circumstances, both against London rivals with one being surrendered to the Woolwich. So for all intents and purposes we’ve only competed in two competitions this season, the league and the champions league. If you remove the fantastic individual glory nights from the season we’ve experienced in Europe what are we left with? Surely the only answer from any disconcerting Spurs fan would be one of disappointment?
I know you can’t remove those glory nights and we shouldn’t. Come May, whatever the end result of the season we’ll remember beating Inter Milan and AC Milan. Who knows, we might even remember beating Real Madrid. I understand the thought process behind believing these victories are what being a football fan is all about. This club of ours is built on glory nights and the philosophy is what attracted a lot us to Spurs. They’ve been great and with reference to Inter at home and AC away they’ve been two of the best performances I’ve seen any Spurs team produce in the last twenty years but they’ve been soured by very poor performances scattered throughout the season in the league which for me has taken some of the shine from those nights.
Think of it like this. We’ve been known as a cup team for as long as I can remember. A team that often sits in mid-table but can beat anyone on their day. It’s a tag most of us have wished we could get rid of by performing week in week out in the league. Last season saw us do that for the most part and this should’ve been the same only slightly better. Now it seems we’ve reverted back to type for some reason and a vast majority of fans don’t appear to be too bothered by that. We can’t have it all. We either want to be a consistently very good side or a cup team which inevitably means we’ll lose our best players to those teams who are consistently good but once every 5-6 years we’ll make our way to Wembley. If given the option there’s only one choice especially as being good in the league often means being good in the cups too.
Tactically we’ve looked inept and without ideas at times, players looking half of what they were last season. When faced with a terrible performance, as we were on Saturday, the only response we got from the manager was discussing other teams results and how they had only managed a draw or in the case of Liverpool had lost away from home. So I guess that means as long as everyone else loses, it’s ok if we do? Or we’re told we should be happy with what’s happening at the club because it wasn’t long ago that we could only dream of playing in the champions league. In the same game last season we won 3-0. Are Wigan better than they were last season? The table would suggest no so once again I suggest for some reason we’ve gone backwards.
Why was Aaron Lennon left on the bench on Saturday? As he came on with 30 minutes or so to go it can’t have been because he was injured and having not actually missed any games how non match fit could he have been? vdV once again only managed 70 minutes so if he’s not fit enough to play an entire game why is he starting every week? He’s a fantastic player but surely an unfit vdV being played on the right isn’t as good as Aaron Lennon out there? Harry also decided to play Modric on the left which meant we had no width and little creativity in the middle. Once again our best player was Sandro which says a lot about our performance.
With the players we have there’s no reason we should be getting 3 points from a possible 12 against Blackpool, Wolves, West Ham and Wigan. Forget injuries or even saving players for the game against Real Madrid, there is absolutely NO excuse for not gaining at least 7 points minimum. Those extra 4 points would see us right back in the pack. Add other points we’ve dropped against West Ham, Wigan, Birmingham, West Brom and even teams like Everton and you can see how this really should’ve been our season. There are always if’s, but’s and what if’s in any season for any team but surely we shouldn’t be dropping 4 points to both West Ham and Wigan? In 360 minutes of football against those two teams we’ve failed to score a solitary goal. That’s 16 less than we managed against them last season.
That change in fortune can’t be put down to playing in the champions league can it? There’s something else going on that could see this season’s glory nights turn into distant memories instead of regular dates on our calendar. A very average Liverpool team are only 5 points behind us in 6th when if you believed all the hype surrounding Harry Redknapp’s team, or we managed to play at even half the potential we’ve shown on Tuesday and Wednesday nights they should be a spec on the horizon.
Would we be happy with the performances and results in the league this season had we not been in the champions league? What if we’d not progressed out of the group stages or if AC Milan had managed to take a couple of their chances and we’d been knocked out in the last round? Would so many people still regard this season as “one to remember”? I think not, and while we’re still very much in the hunt for a top 4 finish and who know’s some more magical nights in Europe it’s going to take the team and in particular Harry Redknapp a lot of improvement before any of that happens.
Told you it was going to be negative 
COYS
Submitted by THFC1882
