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Have Spurs Slumped Again?

2 min read
by The Fighting Cock
Here’s some old news for you; Spurs collapsed last season, picking up 16 points from their last 13 games, having reached mid-February on 53 points from 25 games. All Spurs fans have been wary of the same happening again this year. Was the cause physical, psychological or a combination of both? A settled first XI […]

Here’s some old news for you; Spurs collapsed last season, picking up 16 points from their last 13 games, having reached mid-February on 53 points from 25 games. All Spurs fans have been wary of the same happening again this year.

Was the cause physical, psychological or a combination of both? A settled first XI was favoured by Harry Redknapp in the league, and AVB has similar inclinations (his frequent rotation of the centre-backs notwithstanding).

[linequote]Since the last-gasp equaliser against United four weeks ago Spurs have lost to Leeds in the FA Cup, picked up 7 points out of 9 in the league, and now beaten Lyon in the Europa League.[/linequote]

Injuries to key players – Parker, Kaboul, Defoe, Adebayor and Dembele means the new manager has been forced to rest them, which could yet work in Spurs’ favour. A mental failing has been labelled at Spurs teams of the past, though fans had hoped these had been dispelled after the late surge for fourth in 2010, which included wins over Arsenal, Chelsea and Man City.

Amidst all the justifiable acclaim for the most key player of all, Gareth Bale, there seems to have been an important issue missed: Spurs are again collapsing.
Since the last-gasp equaliser against United four weeks ago Spurs have lost to Leeds in the FA Cup, picked up 7 points out of 9 in the league, and now beaten Lyon in the Europa League. The results have been good and the disappointment at the early end to a possible Cup run has been more than tempered by the healthy league results.

Spurs Leeds

But what if we choose to exclude Gareth Bale’s statistical contributions? He’s scored all six goals in Spurs’ four most recent games – each of them incredible solo efforts. Spurs have kept a clean sheet in only one of those games (against West Brom, who played the majority of the second half with 10 men). That would leave us with a solitary point from the last three league games, and in a very tricky situation in the Europa League.

[linequote]Amidst all the justifiable acclaim for the most key player of all, Gareth Bale, there seems to have been an important issue missed: Spurs are again collapsing.[/linequote]

Bale’s displays have been immense over the last month – he’s even being compared to Cristiano Ronaldo by a press pack seemingly competing in the field of hyperbole – but it’s possible that they’ve also been masking a worryingly disjointed and lifeless series of team performances.

Lyon are next up again in a week’s time, with a rousing European night on the continent perhaps offering the perfect stage for the rest of the team to awake from their slumber. After that it gets really serious with West Ham away and the north London derby at the Lane. We can’t afford any more passengers on the Bale Express.

[author name=”garpat” avatar=”https://twimg0-a.akamaihd.net/profile_images/1139106876/image.jpg” twitter=”garpatt” tag=”garpat[/linequote]

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10 Comments

  1. DAVSPURS
    15/02/2013 @ 2:12 pm

    I have done a long winded blog on this subject and three players we need back fully fit or i fear your rant about passengers will bare fruit. These are the three Defoe Kaboul Huddlestone( fully fit) Passer scorer and defender

  2. Yido
    15/02/2013 @ 2:12 pm

    What a pointless article. We would be playing in the Champions League again this year if Arsenal didn’t have RVP last season…. But they did. So we’re not.

  3. Scotspur
    15/02/2013 @ 2:21 pm

    If Bale wasn’t playing through the middle, he’d be setting them up for our strikers…so relax. And if he does get injured, Azza pitches in on the assists anyway.

  4. Jay
    15/02/2013 @ 2:25 pm

    I’m not sure how this article justifies/backs the thesis you propose. Of course if you take away any player of a team who is on a good run of form, it looks as if that team is dependent. Where would we be if Defoe wasn’t red hot in the first half of the season? Obviously not to well. I mean, where would United be if they didn’t possess RVP? Definitely not 12 points on top. Great teams have great players to rely on during segments of the season, when others are not producing. Someone will eventually take over from Bale, it is inevitable.

    • Craig the Yid
      15/02/2013 @ 3:31 pm

      Spot on!

  5. Mike
    15/02/2013 @ 2:36 pm

    Yido, CORRECTION. We’d be playing in the CL now (or maybe would have been playing) had Arjen Robben not missed an effing penalty in the CL final against Chelsea. He described it as terrible but I think he was being kind. It was a very expensive miss for Spurs but at least helped us get rid of Redknapp, Modric, VDV etc. which, in the long term, was a good thing.

  6. Craig the Yid
    15/02/2013 @ 3:29 pm

    You could easily write this article for Man utd, Liverpool, City, Chelsea, Barca, Real Madrid and probably more that don’t come to mind at the minute. Barca are a shadow of theirselves without Messi, same with Ronaldo for Real, Suarez for Liverpool and RVP for Utd. It’s easy to say one player is carrying a team when they’re playing out of their skin but until Bale starts picking up the ball in our own box, running the entire length of the pitch by himself and then scoring I don’t think it’s justified to say that every other player apar from him has been below par

  7. Garpat
    15/02/2013 @ 9:09 pm

    Agree that a team is made of eleven players so arbitrarily taking one out is false. I still think it’s legitimate to worry a bit about how the rest of the team is functioning at the moment. Interesting that the ‘slump’ has occurred at the same time as Defoe being unavailable. I’m keeping the faith that we’ll finish above the scum. COYS

  8. Chris B Waters
    15/02/2013 @ 11:34 pm

    Everyone makes interesting points. I agree about VP carrying Arsenal last season (they’d have been lucky to finish 11th without him) so Bale, momentarily I hope, is carrying a Spurs team too, which is seriously missing the midfield creativity of most of last season, with Modric being the biggest loss. Up until late February, right up until we were 2-0 up at that damn Gooners game (plus with Harry having England stars in his eyes …and it would have been better if the court case had been in June because he might have stayed focused on the job he was actually being paid to do, and not had 4th snatched from the jaws of a nailed on 3rd), our football was praised as being the best in the Premiership!
    Much of that was down to Modric and Parker (the latter’s been a bit lost in recent weeks without the Gail Platt lookalike beside him) who between them gave the flanks, Bale and Lennon, more freedom through their simple push and move alliance. Now we have Dembele playing too deep and not looking a patch on the player who burst into our team at the beginning of the season. He also actually looks knackered. Dempsey’s beginning to look too patchy and less sharp than before ..neither striker nor link player. Sig doesn’t seem to be as good as Kranks, yet is being given more chance to show his worth than the latter had. Parker is pushing up too much and providing fruitless end balls, when his best position is holding/tackling. So the midfield, all in all, is a bit of a mess …compared with the great heights of last season! No wonder Lennon’s having to work harder than usual, and Bale is moving inside to take control. And wonderful control it is too!! But we’ve got to give the kid a break, because a few seasons ago he was taking the Milans and everyone apart and then had, for him, a kind of slump period because of being over played …so this fabulous current one man show ain’t gonna last forever! We need a proper midfield system or pattern (Ok, we really need a Modric type playmaker and a top striker, but they ain’t coming until the summer, if at all). Let’s also hope Defoe and Kabul come back strong, the former with one of his temporary bursts of goalscoring form, and Hudd finally steps up to the plate (I had such hopes for that bloke and really thought he could be the next Hoddle a few years back). Holtby looks the business but it’s a question of him finding, in time, his best position. With nurture he could be better than VDV, less injury prone and just as influential ..a natural leader.
    OK …can we make 4th or better, without a similar collapse? I think we can because we’re winning through a poor patch, and if Bale continues to do wondrous things, great, but we need the team to start fully clicking again as a unit. Dembele needs to play behind the striker(s) more. Defoe and Ade need to start bloody scoring again, as that’s their job!!! Parker needs to stay in his best position and link with defense and whoever’s in front of him eg, Dembele, Holtby etc.. Maybe give Hudd one more try in attacking midfield, although he can always cover for Parker in front of the defense. I really am not sure that Dempsey and Sig should feature much more now this season. It’s a tough call, but we have to be ruthless in making that top four as it really does mean EVERYTHING for the coming seasons! We can play better, that’s for sure, and there should be NO distractions this time around. 8 victories from 12 games is not beyond us, and that will get us there, even with 2 or 3 losses.

  9. Peter Isaacs
    27/02/2013 @ 10:13 pm

    Fellow Spurs fans, these comments about Bale going to Real and being a one man team are designed to unsettle our club and cause unrest, the media don’t like Spurs and will say and do anything to try and disrupt our effort to get c/l qualification like they did with Modric and Berbatov, also the other teams that have regularly qualified do not want extra teams in the chase spoiling there regular trips abroad look how Liverpool fans moaned when we took their spot and now Arsenal are in a similar position (on the slide) COYS

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