The New Spurs

By Sarf Lahdun Andy
September 19 2005

The arrival of Jermaine Jenas seems to mean Project Tottenham has to take a different route to that originally conceived by Martin Jol; recently, much of the emphasis in the transfer market has been on finding wide men with pace – that, along with ‘old heads’ is where we have been deficient.

It all pointed to 4-4-2, but now, because of Levy’s insistence on pursuing Jenas, Jol can tear up his plans.

The reason is that we, literally, have to play three across the middle. It’s not possible to drop Carrick anymore than it’s possible for Mourinho to drop Makelele. Jol must have an agreement with Davids to play him in this World Cup season otherwise Davids wouldn’t have come, and Spurs aren’t a team who can afford a £7 million bench warmer – especially when the Chairman likes him so much.

So three of the first names on the team sheet are: Jenas – Carrick – Davids

Yet it’s suicide in the Premiership to have an aging wide left player without genuine pace, who can’t take on and beat full backs and who’s delivery from out wide is, at best, average. And there is nothing worse for your full back to have in front of him than a central midfielder who no longer has the legs to cover your runs, or double up with you on quality wingers – and opposition managers like nothing more than to exploit square pegs in round holes: Play Davids wide left and we’ll be overrun, bent way out of shape and lose all momentum.

All-in-all, the arrival of the excellent prospect Jermaine Jenas presents us with something of a dilemma. So what do we do ? Jol doesn’t yet know, I haven’t seen or heard any stunning expositions on how we integrate a three-man midfield . . . the best I have so far is this.

Look at Curbishley’s hugely successful midfield trio at Charlton:

Kishishev (L) – Smertin – Murphy (R)


Well, Curbs old cock, we can do that, as well:

Davids (L) – Carrick - Jenas (R)


To the left and right of that Curbishley plays wingers (Rommedhal (R) and Thomas (L)) – both willing to chase back, cover and offer defensive options, and up front he has a pacy, tall front man (Bent).


And that’s where the problems start for Jol. We can do pacy right and left if we want (Routledge, Lennon and Reid), but what of Jol’s preference for four strikers that he talked about so much last season (currently down to three and a half due to Kanoute leaving and Feyenoord trying to stitch us up over Kuyt).

If we play Routledge + Reid/Lennon, that leaves the single tall striker position between Defoe, Keane, Mido and Raziak.

But what of exposing our full backs ? Perhaps we should just concede all width and play like the old Wimbledon ?


How else – other than this 4-3-3/4-5-1 that Curbishley deploys - do we incorporate Levy’s star buy in central midfield ?

There seem to be problems no