THE HORROR OF N17…A HALLOWEEN SPECIAL

And so it continues…Tottenham Hotspur’s nightmare season, a freefall the likes of which no-one anywhere expected, continues apace. Today’s 2-0 defeat at Udinese further underscored the central issue which has caused this situation, namely the lack of a proper forward. Darren Bent fooled this writer with a glowing pre-season, but said-scribe should’ve reverted to the skepticism he’s always held with regards to the player’s ability to play in more than one system. Because the proof has come that he cannot. Indeed, asking Bent to make creative runs, to drop deep and drag defenders out of position or to use his body like a classic hold-up centre-forward is futile. He cannot. It is the starting point of our problems, that and the loss of  (on average) 65-70 goals a season during both transfer windows of 2008.

 

The midfield has thus had it’s metaphoric balls chopped off by this rather large problem (along with having no natural enforcer/holding player), most notably because there isn’t a striking brain cell to be found in front of them. Which forces them sideways. Which makes us the easiest team in football to defend.

 

Once Modric was on the field, he again showed that Tottenham have the midfield ability to service any strikers who are prepared to work and who have some dimension to their game. And when Bent was given a golden chance to stick the ball home from 7 yards out thanks to a wonderful cross from Dos Santos, he contrived to ball-watch a split second too long, and rather than using a striker’s initiative to attack the chance, he instead waited for it to come to him. You know what happened next. Nothing.  Later on, just before Udinese’s breakaway second, he planted a strong header goalwards right at the keeper.

 

O’Hara saw red after two correct yellow card decisions for rash challenges, whilst Jenas blotted a copybook which had been filled with effort by unforgivably contriving to stop running to the goaline and thus fail to clear the second Udinese goal off the line before it trickled in off a post. He thought it had already gone in. Players like Owen Hargreaves or Frank Lampard don’t.

 

It is obvious that Daniel Levy’s transfer policy this summer messed things up drastically. That has been broken down already in this column. No, what now needs to happen at Tottenham is a miracle to arrest the freefall. And that miracle has to happen inside every single player and club employee.

 

It starts with simple stuff. What more can be done with regards to the blame game? This is what they’re stuck with until January, and by God, that is what will have to scratch out 20 points minimum before the club can buy a few strikers if they want to have any real chance of surviving. So it’s really time that everyone made sure they’re giving 100%. From the tea lady to the tacticians, from the programme sellers to the players, EVERYONE needs to pull together and give everything…of course, that’s the problem. Trusting that they can and trusting that they will. AND wondering if they trust EACH OTHER to work out of this mess. David Bentley’s Spurs career hasn’t amplified hopes of such things  (it hasn’t helped his cause that he’s drastically under-performed thus far) Woodgate’s comments post-Udinese weren’t hopeful, and Juande’s cryptic clues didn’t exactly offer a bucket-load of inspiration.

 

Perhaps the saddest thing about it all, is that nobody seems to know when the point will turn anymore. Something you teach your children is that however bad a situation gets, it will end. In the case of Spurs, no parent could say that with any degree of conviction, because the freefall appears so thoroughly entrenched.

 

It is going to take a special act, no, a special SERIES of acts, to save Spurs from slipping into the abyss. And as people go round and round trying to detail the exact reason it’s all gone so horribly tits up, the truth appears to be that there is no one specific reason more than there’s multiple contributing factors.

Yes, getting rid of people and buying safe passage would be nice, but it can’t happen (as mentioned) until January 1^st 2009.

 By which time everyone will know if Spurs managed to sort it out or if they’re heading towards the championship…the optimist will always say that they’ll have proven themselves too good to go down by then, and the realists might not be invited just yet!