Tottenham Flopspur?

Everton looked the stronger side as they made a model display of efficiency to take the win away against a Tottenham side struggling to find their feet in the new season.

The story for the night was set in the first minute as Everton took a very early lead from which Tottenham could not battle back despite an equalizer soon after. Two more goals followed for Everton as they left the pitch for halftime up 3-1 and played out the second in an exercise of how to frustrate an opponent.

Amazingly, Tottenham have 0 points after 2 games. It’s of course too soon to write the team off as pretenders, but they suddenly have a small mountain to climb to get back into the kind of contention to which they were touted. You could see the frustration on the faces of Martin Jol, the players and the fans of the stands.

I think what went wrong yesterday is the same thing that went wrong against Sunderland: no width. I thought Martin Jol would have started with Wayne Routledge but chose instead to use Berbatov and Bent up front with Robbie Keane tucked in behind in a free role. It didn’t quite gel, and was frustrating to watch as the team passed well in midfield but stuttered over and over again when the defense tightened up. Tottenham tried over and over again to poke a hole thru the center and it just doesn’t work unless your opponents respect your width. This is a team desperately missing Aaron Lennon.

Beyond the tactical problems, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of fight in Tottenham. While they are not exactly soft, they aren’t exactly the sort of chew you up and spit you out team which can win ugly -thankfully so in many ways. But what happened to Tottenham last night has been symptomatic of the team for the last few seasons. Look at the personalities: King, Dawson, Bent, Stalteri, Lennon, Routeledge, etc… I mean pass the bong dude, if ever a team needed a Gattuso, it’s this one. A controlled intensity and willingness to grind is missing and while I think Tottenham need to keep their core style they must at least be willing.

Lastly, except for the injuries at left back I don’t buy the argument that Tottenham should be excused for having a makeshift defense. Look around the Premiership and tell me how many teams would welcome Anthony Gardner, Younes Kaboul and Ricardo Rocha in central defense. While they are not household names, they are not slouches. Yes, Gardner went missing on the first goal, yes, Rocha’s a bit out of sync, but these are not bad players, they are all capable of holding a starting place.

Are Suprs a flop? By no means, yet. I said over the weekend that the loss to Sunderland might prove a positive and kick start the team into performing but it hasn’t, it’s looking more and more like a 40m pound bad dream. Tottenham need a left winger before the window closes, Martin Jol needs to decide who his 2 best strikers are and play them, and he also needs to consider a 5 man midfield if the team can’t produce the width.