Spurs news: So far, so good

By Sunshine
September 19 2005

Believe it or not, only 3 (three) outfield players of the current ‘ideal’ starting XI were either at the club or first choice last season. Defoe, Carrick and King.

Two were bit part players or back ups (Mido, Dawson), whilst a massive 5 (five) only joined a matter of weeks ago (Davids, Jenas, Lee, Stalteri and Routledge, whom I’m pretty certain Jol prefers to Reid).

Spurs have so far played 6 competitive league matches. If we, for the purpose of this post, leave the Chelsea game out of the equation (10 men against 11, with a referee who was about as straight as the leaning tower of Pisa), then that just leaves us with the 5 matches:

5 games (2 home, 3 away).
2 wins (1 home, 1 away), 3 draws.
5 goals scored, 1 against.
4 clean sheets.

Given the make up of the team, with so many ‘new entries’, the above statistics make good reading.

The side are hardly playing champagne football, but we’re hard to beat, we don’t give up when we go a goal down (not even against Chelsea), we’ve started to dominate large phases of the game away from home (with the exception of Blackburn, but then again it was hardly our ideal first XI, it being a mid-week match et al) and we’ve got the sort of squad that demands respect from any opposition.

When the players shake hands before the start of hostilities, opponents are greeted by a team of internationals comprising 20% of the England squad (Defoe, Carrick, Jenas, King, Robinson) and a world class Dutch master. The opposition just know that they’re going to be in for a tough encounter.

Add to all that the fact that we field the youngest side in the Premiership by a country mile (12 months younger, on average, player by player, I believe) and we are shaping up very nicely, indeed.

Jol’s decisions, both in terms of selection policy (Carrick, not Mendes; Defoe, not Keane; Reid, not Lennon; Stalteri, not Kelly; etc) and formation will not be to everyone’s liking, but that is his prerogative and the results (which are what he’s judged on, ultimately) obtained so far hardly warrant much criticism.

I, for one, am happy with the progress we’ve made and confident (as opposed to ‘hopeful’) in what the future holds.

That hadn’t been the case for years.