League?
Or are Spurs just having a dog of a start to the new Premier League season?
Well it ain’t exactly 2 pints from 8 games – being 5 from 4 – and they’re only 2 points behind fourth spot – currently held by Blackpool – but you look at the opening fixtures of the new season and you think it should lead to a great run, bunch of victories to take into the opening Champions League fixture coming up this Tuesday.
No, this of course is Spurs and so it’s a home loss to Wigan and being unable to overcome what has become a bogey ground with a draw at West Brom’s Hawthorns. With two disappointing performances.
Things of course haven’t exactly been smooth sailing because of elements out of the control of club, manager and players. Dawson, last season’s player of the season out for weeks, followed up by Defoe absence for even longer while both were of England duty. This looks to be compounded by Modric lasting half an hour against West Brom before a kick put him on crutches for his exit at half-time, an injury that ‘Arry initially feared could be another break to to the leg that kept him out so long last term. Which thankfully it turned out not to be.
This after he’d scored the opener and as Spurs dominated the start and most of the first-half of the game. Same old story though, not being able to finish teams off, this time again as with the Wigan game it was mainly down to not creating that many good chances. Lennon should have done better with an early left-footed shot, it was about the only thing he did in 77 minutes he as on the park.
And that was the problem so many in the side didn’t perform, in the midfield five as ‘Arry went with one up top and crowded centre. Huddlestone was pretty anonymous, Palacios was well the Wilson of late which is far off what we first saw when he arrived from Wigan. Pavlyuchenko, just didn’t work on his tod, combination of not looking interested at some points and it just not being his game. Now if Defoe had been fit and played as he did in that first England game, well. And then I see Gyan score for Sunderland and I think, I wish we had gone for him – did put him in my fantasy teams.
Those that did work were Modric, before his exit of course. Bale, who had shifted to left-back and made storming runs after storming runs, he pretty much ran himself into the ground throughout the game. It might not help that extra distance he has to go when attacking and then getting back to defend as a fullback, he was the best Spurs player on the park, could have helped if ‘Arry had brought Assou-Ekotto in place of Modric instead of Kranjcar and moved Bale forward.
The other player who worked was Van der Vaart, played his part in the good play early on, including the build up to the goal.In the end though his lack of games of late told and he faded in the second half.
But then the whole team faded in that second 45 minutes and from going in at the break unlucky to be level 1-1 Spurs came off at full time probably lucky to have the one point from the draw. The Baggies could have and probably should have made things much worse.Thankfully with a few good saves Cudicini redeemed himself somewhat for the error that led to their equaliser.
The defence, well shaky at best, Gallas looked like he hadn’t played for a bit which he hasn’t, Corluka is just far too slow at fullback, would Kaboul be better there but then that would mean Bassong in the middle. Does that make things better or worse? Hard to say but the chopping and changing that will happen and will have to happen from game to game won’t help.
But as the title says are they saving themselves for Werder Bremen? God I hope not because the way things are going…
The one thing you can say on the day, in his return to the Premier League referee Howard Webb didn’t actual effect the outcome in the way he usually does in Spurs games.