The “Spurs Way”?

If you ever want to know how fickle a sport football really is, just ask Emanuel Adebayor. Within the space of seven days Adebayor has gone from being a lazy mercenary who wasn’t fit to wear our shirt to a fans hero who may well be the key to getting our season back on track. A week is a long time in football.

Adebayor’s performance against West Ham in the Capital One Cup last week deserved more than the 1-2 defeat we suffered after he was substituted, but on Sunday the number 10 got to see out the result his performance and two goals warranted.

Banging in another stunning volley before half time and grabbing another clinical finish that sports writers would get a semi over if it was Suarez who had scored the goal, the opinion divider has looked, in albeit only 2 outings, like the player we had on loan from City two years ago.

More than the rise to stardom of Adebayor with the White Hart Lane fan base, the performances of the whole team also seem to have picked up under Tim Sherwood, and particularly against Southampton we may well have seen a return of the much discussed “Spurs way” of playing football.

But what exactly is this?

Under Harry Redknapp and before, Spurs did seem to take the attitude toward games that, since we were inevitably going to concede, we had to focus on outscoring the opponents on the day. The much-praised “well organised” (also known as parking the bus) tactics of teams like Stoke and Bolton have never seemed to be an option for any Spurs team that I have watched; there was no point trying to defend for 70 minutes because we never had enough quality at the back to pull it off.

[authquoteleft text=”Against Southampton we may well have seen a return of the much discussed “Spurs way” of playing football[/linequote]

What this attitude consequently entailed was a much more open, and generally more expansive style of play, particularly at home, than what we have been used to under AVB. This latter set up came under increasing criticism from fans during the last few weeks of AVB’s time at Spurs, and these Tottenham “traditionalist” will no doubt be bursting with excitement at the difference in style that we have already seen under Tim Sherwood.

While it’s easy to start criticising AVB after he has been shown the door and we’ve won our first game since, a point that I have already highlighted needs to be taken into account.

Under Harry and most that came before him, our defence had only half the quality that it does today. With the King missing large chunks of the season through injury and Dawson still showing the same flaws that we still today, the idea of basing our play on a solid defence, going for one goal then maintaining the lead, wasn’t option; we didn’t have the quality to play that way, and it was widely understood that we were going to concede at some point.

Trying to score more than we conceded, and consequently playing with the attacking intent and flair needed to do this, was the only way we were going to win football matches.

[linequote]Tottenham “traditionalist” will no doubt be bursting with excitement at the difference in style that we have already seen under Tim Sherwood[/linequote]

However, skip forward a few years, with players like Jan Vertongen and Vlad the impaler in our defensive ranks, we have a solid defensive unit from where to build the rest of our play on. AVB’s logic was completely justified, and in my opinion we didn’t meet the criteria of playing the Spurs way under him because we had quality enough to win games in a more efficient way, even though we stopped doing this for the few weeks before he was given his P45.

There were a lot of memorable games and wins under Harry Redknapp, the last manager we had who is widely accepted as having played the Spurs way. But, given the option between, for example, having to come from 2 goals down at Woolwich to win 3-2 with a late Kaboul header two seasons ago, and staying solid at the back, not conceding and winning 1-0, do you really think Harry would have rather we done it the, albeit more exciting, but harder way? I doubt it.

Taking the “we’ll score more” attitude toward games is undoubtedly a more exciting way to watch Spurs than what we seen under AVB, and if Tim Sherwood continues to oversee results like that against Southampton, playing in the attacking way with a 4-4-2 formation that so many Spurs fans have been demanding, he may well be given the nod to take charge of the team full-time, at least until the end of the season.
[diver]
[authquoteright text=”I enjoyed watching Spurs against Southampton on Sunday probably more than any other display this season[/linequote]

What  I want to say though is, just because we have won a game, with a second half performance to match any display that we’ve seen so far this season, doesn’t mean that AVB was a clueless idiot who should never have been given the job in the first place.

I enjoyed watching Spurs win against Southampton on Sunday probably more than any other display this season, and riding on the cloud of a win makes it hard not to have the knee-jerk reaction that getting rid of AVB probably was the right decision. But we should still appreciate the job that AVB done at Spurs, and while his idea of how to win games may not have been as exciting as the “Spurs way”, the AVB way still won us a lot of points and gave us a great season last year.

[author name=”Craig Harrison” avatar=”https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/378800000836728525/f3a5d00c84b742e292eaf00e1882ae73_bigger.jpeg” twitter=”niYido7″ tag=”CraigHarrison[/linequote]