Jamie O’Hara has claimed that the Tottenham Hotspur side that he was part of in 2009 is better than the current team.
O’Hara, who came through the Tottenham academy was handed his first-team debut by Juande Ramos during the 2007-08 season and went on have his best season for the Lilywhites the subsequent campaign under Harry Redknapp.
The team he played in boasted of some top talents including the likes of Ledley King, Jonathan Woodgate, Robbie Keane, Luka Modric and Gareth Bale, although Bale and Modric were yet to really evolve into the superstars they later became.
O’Hara claimed that squad was better on paper than the current one, and even insisted that Mourinho’s men currently lack a player like Aaron Lennon to take people on and make things happen.
The 34-year-old told talkSPORT: “I think the 2009 team was a better team than Spurs have got now.
“You are talking about Modric, Berbatov, Keane, Bale, Lennon. I think Spurs need an Aaron Lennon and that should be Lucas Moura and should be Steven Bergwijn.
“Aaron Lennon was someone who had blistering pace, could get beyond and when he got the ball he could make things happen.
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“When I’m seeing Bergwijn and Moura get the ball, they’re not making things happen.”
O’Hara was still playing for the Lilywhites the last time the club got their hands on a major trophy and the former Billericay Town boss admitted that Jose Mourinho was been brought in to end the drought.
He added: “At the end of the day, Spurs haven’t won a trophy and they’ve brought Mourinho in and changed the mentality of how they want to play and how they do things.
“If at the end of the season he has a trophy to show for it then it’s a huge success.
“He’s brainwashed the players into thinking ‘this is the way we are going to do things and we are going to get results playing this way’.
“It hasn’t quite worked out in the last couple of weeks and they’ve dropped away but they still have enough quality in the team to win games.”
Spurs Web Opinion
O’Hara’s point about Lennon is actually a fair one. Lennon was almost unplayable between 2008 and 2010 and our game plan at the time was often just to isolate him against the left-back and give him the ball.
It was similar to the way Wolves and Newcastle use Traore and Saint-Maximin respectively. Despite having loads of wingers in our squad at the moment, we lack a player like that who can pick the ball up and run with it.
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