MF’s Spurs Season Review 09/10 – September

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September 2009

Spurs 1 Manchester United 3

The injury to Modric sustained against Birmingham meant Harry’s first tactical realignment and as a consequence the first raising of serious doubts about his loyalty to skipper Keane. Crouch, Defoe and Robbie all began this game and the selection looked imbalanced and narrow. Defoe’s great goalscoring start to the season continued when his spectacular overhead kick after Vidic’s unintentional knockdown put us one up inside a minute. Everything got stodgy very quickly however and we were 2-1 down at the break. Scholes’ early bath gave us an opportunity but led by Spudhead up front, United gave what was probably a season’s best performance by an away team at WHL and nicked another to make it a comfortable win. Late transfer window signing Niko Kranjcar made his Spurs debut when he came on for Keane near the end.

Chelsea 3 Spurs 0

There’s not much good to say about this one. We were the better team for the first twenty minutes or so but were struggling thereafter, especially when Ledley went off just after half time leaving us with a central pairing of Bassong and Corluka. Drogba in particular took full advantage of the large turning circle of the latter. Robbie had a stonewall penalty claim turned down when it was 1-0 but that didn’t disguise the difference between the two teams.

Preston 1 Spurs 5 (Carling Cup 3rd Round)

After two poor weekends a boost to the morale was needed and a Peter Crouch hat-trick was the basis of an emphatic win. Harry played a weakened team by starting with Giovani and giving Bale & Dawson their first outings of the season. Gomes played his first game since getting injured against Hull but Redknapp kept faith with Cudicini for the next league game…

Spurs 5 Burnley 0

…which was the first of three visits to WHL during the season for Owen Coyle managed teams. In total his players were to concede ten goals and score none. A lot of the early season debate had centred on the form of skipper Keane. His apparent loss of a yard (at least) of pace and sharpness around goal led many to wonder whether his value as a leader in the dressing room was really a good enough reason to keep him in the side. Well his four goals in this game did much to bolster the pro Robbie faction. Huddlestone played in defence alongside Bassong as we had run out of fit centre backs. He played well. Jermaine Jenas’ strike from the edge of the area after half an hour turned out to be his only goal of the season.

In the table The big Four were gathering, we were doing okay though.

The top six  at 30 September 2009  –

P   W   D   L   Pts

1.  Man Utd                           7    6    0    1   18

2.  Chelsea                            7    6    0    1   18

3.  Man City                          6    5    0    1   15

4.  Liverpool                         7    5    0    2   15

5.  Tottenham                       7    5    0    2   15

6.  Arsenal                             6    4    0    2   12

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