As a long-suffering Tottenham fan, in fact I've been following them since 1962, I'm more than used to being disappointed. However, this year I expected better.
After the excitement of Gareth Bale's performances last year Spurs' fans looked forward to either a side built around him which became even better or, God forbid, a side built from the proceeds of his sale. In the event, Bale chose to leave the Spurs' management brought in a gaggle of new players at great expense; supposed experts and pundits lauded their choices and supporters looked for a year of great things, minus Bale. So far, so good.
Sadly, reality has now intervened. The new-look Spurs team has enormous talent and enormous potential, or say all the 'experts', and all at great cost. The actual truth is that they appear to be a group of players who simply don't work together and have great difficulty penetrating the defence of any half-decent team, and their defence is dodgy. Yes, they haven't conceded many goals but then they haven't played anyone of real note, except Arsenal to whom they lost and Chelsea with whom they gained a slightly lucky draw; God help them when they play anyone really good.
Today, they contrived to lose at home to Newcastle. It was only 1-0 but the manner of the defeat was enough to make any Spurs fan weep. In the first half, they were inept and impotent; Dembele, who seems to have more bad days than good, seemed to be half asleep, and poor old Soldado at the front was given no opportunity whatsoever. Instead, a simple through-ball found an unmarked Remy who placed the ball into the Spurs goal.
The second half was a slightly different story as Spurs replaced Dembele with Sandro and AVB had clearly read the Riot Act; Tottenham actually looked as though they wanted to compete. However, their multitudinous attacks ended with no result. Spurs' management will no doubt claim that they were denied by the Newcastle goalkeeper, who did have a good day, but the truth is that Spurs are simply not good enough. They failed to create real opportunities, failing miserably to breach their opponents defences while Newcastle still presented a threat on the few occasions when they were able to break out.
Tottenham are still a team in the making and one can only hope that they will eventually make it. However, at the moment they are second rate at best and their inability to score goals is becoming highly embarrassing; the ludicrous claims that they are title contenders have been well and truly shown to be nonsense. On today's showing, it will be a miracle if they make the top 4 and a huge surprise if they even get into the top 6 at the end of the season; winning cups is just a joke. It will even be a surprise if AVB is still the manager come the end of March.
Oh for the days of Billy Nick !
No comments:
Post a Comment