Interesting

Dublin Spur

Spurs could be top-four contenders, under stable leadership
Matt Dickinson, The Times
April 01 2014 14:04PM

The funny thing about Tottenham Hotspur, as they alternate between buck-passing and blame-gaming at the end of a troubled season, is that I do not think there is a whole lot wrong.

Or, rather, there is plenty that can be put right which would give Spurs nine more points to elevate them to fourth place in the Barclays Premier League.

They could probably make that leap simply by getting to the bottom of what has turned Jan Vertonghen, one of the most assured central defenders in England a year ago, into such an error-prone wreck and by coaxing him and Younes Kaboul back to top form.

They should be one of the sturdiest partnerships in the division (and with Vlad Chiriches a more than capable back-up) but it does not suit some around White Hart Lane, least of all Tim Sherwood, to focus on why experienced players are so wretchedly underperforming.

To do so might throw light on failings at the training ground, as well as problems of motivation and organisation, when it is so much easier to hark back to the £110 million spent last summer and to paint the squad as deeply flawed and in need of another overhaul. It does not wash.

Even with the loss of such a potent match-winner as Gareth Bale – and at a world-record £86 million, can we remind ourselves that anyone would have sold at that price – Spurs have a squad which stable leadership could turn into top four contenders.

Despite all the upheaval from ousting Andre Villas Boas mid-campaign, the acclimatisation problems of so many new players, the change and disruption, Spurs are only two points worse off than this time last year. Further off the Champions League places, admittedly, but hardly a wreck.

They have a top class goalkeeper in Hugo Lloris, options at centre half when balance and confidence is restored. Full back is one area which can be strengthened but, in Kyle Walker, they have a young defender who, not so long ago, looked like becoming an exciting England regular.

Sandro and Paulinho are more than capable of playing central midfield in a Champions League team, with Nabil Bentaleb an emerging prospect. Most managers would love a playmaker of Christian Eriksen’s wiles. Mousa Dembele and Gylfi Sigurdsson bring a good range of midfield strengths.

A motivated Emmanuel Adebayor has shown in recent months just why Villas Boas was cutting his own throat by ignoring him, and Roberto Soldado will end up scoring goals for someone if Spurs cannot work out a system which suits him.

Andros Townsend was one of the revelations of the past year, and wing options would be plentiful if Erik Lamela had not struggled so badly. At £30 million, he has been the big let-down of the summer signings, and there are doubts about his ability to settle into a new country but pretty much everything that could undermine him – change of manager, injury, unsettled team – has conspired to compound his first-season blues.

Question marks also remain over the calibre of Nacer Chadli and Etienne Capoue but, when you go through the squad, do you imagine for a moment that Brendan Rodgers or Roberto Martinez would not have been able to fashion a decent, dynamic team out of such raw materials when we see what they have done at Liverpool and Everton, respectively?

With a degree of trust and harmony between the Spurs leadership, a clear direction and a manager believed in by board, players and fans, is it not difficult to see how Spurs could quickly be in a much stronger position.

It is time Spurs moved beyond this debate about the efficacy of the club’s transfer policy last summer, but the nature of the club politics means it keeps being dragged up, repeatedly.

Sherwood’s understandable insecurities about his position ensure that he is busy scoring political points when his focus should be only on improving his team on the training ground.

He leaves out all the new signings, even playing Aaron Lennon, ludicrously, as a number 10, in a silly attempt to show that he is working with players he does not want. He erupts on the sidelines and then sits passively in the directors’ box, lurching from one extreme to the other. Toddlers act like that when they do not get enough attention.

Sherwood’s behaviour is daft, but it has to be set against the dysfunction of a club where even if the hierarchy advises that he has every chance of being the manager next season, no one believes them.

Such is the mistrust for Daniel Levy, and the uncertainty around a club, where Sherwood agitates to shape his own team while the chairman, and Franco Baldini, the director of football, advise that the squad needs bedding in. They urgently need to leave this agitation behind, and that will mean chopping Sherwood if he cannot see the obvious improvement which can come from those players already at White Hart Lane.

There are plenty of good coaches out there who would look at Spurs, see the underachievement in this squad and detect an easy win.