Our Current Situation

A couple of nights ago, I attended a “Tottenham Legends Evening”, where Graham Roberts, Ossie Ardiles and Ledley King shared stories and opinions on Tottenham, past and present.

There was a palpably awkward moment when, after Ossie was talking about the serial title-winning side of the early 80s, Ledley King was asked “tell us about reaching the league cup final in 2002”.

Ledley was a Rolls Royce of a defender, and was far too good to have just one medal to show for his entire career. I’m sure you can see where I am going with this, and that is the fear that the same thing could happen when you look back at the careers of some of our current crop.

Current TV pundits have only two things they like to say about Tottenham. 1. When will Harry Kane be sold; 2. Spurs need to win something. It winds me up no end, but unfortunately the arseholes like Souness and Henry aren’t a million miles from the truth about the second point.

The lack of medals in the homes of Harry Kane, Danny Rose, Christian Eriksen etc is something which needs to change, or realistically, the pundits point number 1 above will start to become a lot more relevant.

But it is too easy to say “you need to win something” and not look at the strategy to go from an underachieving side to an achieving one. So what do we need to do?

At the time of writing, shortly before the Everton game, we are 5^th in the league, in the FA cup 4^th round and due to play Juventus in the Champions League 1^st knockout round. Anyone reading this who thinks we have any chance of a trophy this season in anything other than the FA cup needs to get to A&E as soon as possible.

Realistically we can win the FA cup by playing a few good games and not making any additions to the squad. But what about long term?

For me, the squad is too light in a few areas. Firstly, central midfield is a problem and having Dier, Winks, Dembele, Wanyama and Sissoko as options in a squad that, if believed, has ambitions of winning the league, clearly isn’t adequate. Dembele unfortunately can’t stay fit, Winks is up-and-coming, Dier is possibly still a centre half, Wanyama is excellent, and Sissoko should be working in a cafe.

Secondly, we badly lack pace in the attacking areas. Take Son out of the side and there is no one who isn’t a full back capable of beating or running away from a man. Even N’koudou, whose one attribute was pace, has now gone to Burnley.

And thirdly, creativity. Probably/possibly addressed by solving the two former problems, but all too frequently we are stuck for ideas when a team invites us to break them down, and if Eriksen isn’t on form, no one else is capable of unlocking the door.

Who are the solutions? I’m not clever enough to know for sure. I wanted us to sign Ihenacho in the summer as a back-up to Kane, and he hasn’t pulled up any trees at Leicester. I would have liked Barkley to add to the midfield, but that ship has sailed.

Wilfried Zaha or Demarai Gray might give us a bit of depth in the attacking midfield areas and some much needed pace. I’d love to get Mahrez in to have another player capable of creating something out of nothing. I’d give my left leg for Modric to come back, but there is as much chance as Clive Allen returning I believe.

I’m not going to claim to be “in the know” in any way. My uncle’s butcher is not best friends with Daniel Levy’s dry cleaner. But I hear rumours that Ryan Sessegnon might be the only player we sign this window. And then we will loan him back to Fulham.

All it adds up to is a season of transition, in more ways than one. Without a proper home, the squad has not been improved and we are in danger of missing out on the Champions League.

With the progress of the other clubs, not moving forwards is moving backwards.