Spurs news: Power is nothing without control

By Sunshine
November 21 2005

The 1-1 draw at home to West Ham is the game which has frustrated me the most this season. Not just because the opposition grabbed an undeserved equaliser in time added on to injury time

the two minutes originally signalled by the referee had already passed), but because it really was a game that should have been dominated, such was the paucity of our rivals.

There are scapegoats aplenty on which to discharge the responsibility for the two dropped points, but I don’t want to concentrate solely on what I consider to be our evident weaknesses (the lack of a midfielder capable of playing to a high standard on the left flank, Keane’s relative ineffectiveness when picked to start, Stalteri’s unconvincing performances, Lee’s inability to use his left foot and the lack of a quality, traditional target man).

A quality left midfielder would resolve a lot of problems, give the side some much needed balance and ease the pressure on Lee, who runs his little heart out every time he pulls on a lilywhite shirt, but can’t be expected to dominate his flank for 90 minutes. With Lee being right footed, a ‘leftie’ just in front of him, who can cover the position when our Korean flies forward and also shoulder at least 50% of the responsibility for providing an attacking threat down that side, would make an enormous difference. The good news is that Jol is well aware of this and that we seem to be actively seeking the player in question (given that Reid appears to no longer enjoy his manager’s faith).

Keane is a player that I like, his grit and determination when he has a point to prove are an asset that the club would do well not to deprive themselves of. Unfortunately, these days he only seems to step up a gear when he is called to make an impact from the bench. He has never been a goal-machine and he doesn’t have enough pace for someone as selfish in the last third as he is. I’ve no problem with keeping him as a fourth choice striker, though there is no doubt that he does. Spurs have to do what is in the best interest of the club, not the player, so I can see a move looming large in January for the talented Irishman, despite his obvious love for the club, a feeling which is reciprocated by the vast majority of fans.

Stalteri is a tough, uncompromising defender, but when not trying to disrupt the opposition, he treats the ball with the ease of someone whose feet have in-growing toenails causing painful puss to ooze out of them. Yesterday he was lucky that Etherington has about as much end product as there is space in Pamela Anderson’s bra. Every time his direct adversary came anywhere near him, he seemed to get panic attacks. That’s not what I want from our defenders, what I want is assured performances. Fault can not bee found with the Canadian’s application and determination, but his football has been found wanting far too often for comfort since he joined our ranks. Perhaps it is indeed time to introduce young Kelly to the First XI. If it doesn’t work out, then despite having four right backs on our books (those two, plus Pamarot and Ifil), I’d strongly suggest an early January dip into the transfer market, where we could do a lot worse than snap up Zoro (the Ivory Coast player, still 22 or 23 years old) from Messina or Johnson from the Stamford Bridge outfit. Many dislike Johnson, but I see his pace as the perfect complement to Dawson’s physical presence.

Lee, too, has yet to fully convince. However, I can see why he was bought (a steal at £1.3m) and if he were ever to be aided and abetted on the left (something which should be righted a couple of months from now), I’m certain that he’d be more widely appreciated. As it stands, we’ve no replacement for Lee, short of drafting either Kelly or Stalteri over to the left, but I’ve never been a big fan of square pegs being shoehorned into round holes, so either we invest again in the next transfer window or we recall Ziegler from his loan and give him the role of understudy in the hope of seeing the same player who impressed us all in the early stages of last season.

Mido had a good game against West Ham, but he is still very young, is not the finished article quite yet and Rasiak is hardly providing him with much competition. What Spurs need to do is bring in a quality striker. Our chances of signing Kuyt, if we ever had any, now appear to have disappeared with the emergence of the reputed interest of AFC and Chelsea. Good. Kuyt is without doubt a very good player, but I’m always wary of spending huge amounts of money (and £12m really is huge to us) on players who were valued at scarcely more than a bag of chips up until a couple of seasons ago, despite not being particularly young (he move to Feyenoord for around £400k when he was around 24, if I remember correctly).

If I had to choose what road to go down, it would either be shelling out a sizeable wedge (£9m?) for a player like Cissé who has had a torrid time of it at Liverpool since his £14m move (first a massive injury, then being played out of position on the right) a couple of seasons ago or a more reasonable amount (say £6m) on another relatively young player, like Vucinic of Lecce and Serbia & Montenegro U-21s (a sort of adolescent Cristian Vieri clone - a high compliment, indeed), who has proved his mettle (last season) in a tough league like Serie A, looks every inch becoming a star player in the very near future and could play with either Defoe or Mido. Whilst Lecce may be struggling this season (and, as we know, those worst affected by a team’s difficulties are the strikers), someone who notches 19 goals in 28 appearances (last season) in such a tough league for such a small club at the age of 21 (22 now) must have something going for him.

As I said, I don’t just want to concentrate on those weakness. There is another, more important issue that was starkly apparent in the performance against West Ham. That issue is the inability of a midfield jam-packed with quality players to subdue relatively modest opposition with something other than sterile possession.

Davids, Carrick, Tainio and Jenas should have had enough in their collective locker to pin a second rate (more so without Reo-Coker) Hammers midfield in their own half. Instead, once we’d scored the goal, we dropped back too deep and tried to defend the lead, relying on counter-attacks to kill the game off. That is unacceptable. Davids and Tainio are capable of more than matching any Premiership midfield for aggression and heart, whilst Carrick and Jenas are players of rare quality (so much so that both have a great chance of featuring in the England squad for the forthcoming World Cup in Germany). West Ham should have been torn to shreds, not ‘managed’ like some sort of project, the objective of which was to notch up the full three points.

Too often our ‘stars’ were hassled and harried, by far lesser players, into making schoolboy errors. Our midfield can be slick and produce the odd scintillating piece of football, but they still seem to lack the conviction that their curriculum should confer upon them.

I suggest that Jenas has a word with Eriksson and asks him exactly why he’s in the England squad ahead of such consistent performers as Parker. Perhaps then he can play to those strengths, instead of merely treating us to glimpses of what makes him such a stunning prospect.

Carrick, on the other hand, has to read the papers a bit more often, especially those articles by distinguished pundits of the footballing world that wax lyrical about his ability and class. Maybe then he will realise that he has to impose those attributes on each and every game which sees him take the field. Carrick needs to become more incisive. Jol should get him to watch recordings of Milan playmaker Pirlo’s games. Pirlo, if anything, isn’t as lucky as Carrick is, since whilst he’s got the willing, though limited, Gattuso fighting his corner, our lad can rely on someone as accomplished as Davids.

I very much doubt that from January onwards we’ll be seeing these four midfielders lining up together in a starting midfield very often, but then again, we shouldn’t need all that power in order to get the better of most opposition.

Whatever combination of midfielders Jol elects to put in the starting XI, there is enough quality there for them to control the game against all but the very top teams and when I say control, I don’t just mean a few slick passing movements or sterile, pointless possession. I mean toying with the opposition like a cat would with a mouse, toy with them until the opportunities to strike are manufactured.

As the old Pirelli advert goes, power is nothing without control. A fitting description of the proceedings against West Ham.