It’s Hoddle with the Steal

Here’s the back story to this article. I completed the first draft of a piece entitled “A Change For The Better”, whereupon I thought a nice cup of tea, a few chocolate biscuits and a Sky Sports Football app browse would perfectly compliment my tireless slogging to provide you, the lucky few, with some pearls of wisdom. Three HobNobs in and a nearly choked on my aforementioned brew; Glenn Hoddle has stolen my bloody idea: the return to the 4-4-2 system. He too mentioned that Soldado is more effective with a strike partner and that this tactical approach can offer the width we desperately need and the chance for Lamela to be given free roam. I’m not sure whether to be flattered or irked, I’m going with the former seeing as it is Glenn Hoddle, after all, and half the time I have no idea what I’m saying. But don’t let that put you off reading the rest. Seriously. This is the good half, I promise.

Now, I don’t suppose what I’m going to say next will win me many supporters, but I think Sherwood had it right… let me finish… tactically. Overseeing a very bright and, on the whole, successful Spurs academy is no mean feat and serves to highlight that Sherwood is a man who knows his football. It was well publicised that his methods were a little unorthodox, to say the least, but under his tenure we were free scoring, more balanced and the players had smiles on their faces. The 4-2-3-1, with inverted wingers, is a sound approach if you’re a top team with 4 playmakers and forwards at the top of the 3-1 (see notes on Real Madrid for this) but we have to get real and understand that although we nurtured some of that, we are not that, by any means.

Surely, if there is anyone who knows of the benefit of Spurs playing a 4-4-2 it is Pochettino. Cast your minds back to earlier in the calendar year, Southampton away, 3-2 to the Tottenham, Soldado whipping in an inch perfect cross and Adebayor poking in the finish. This is what is missing. With two strikers, they have the intuition to know exactly what type of ball they themselves would like to receive and thus pick that instinctive killer pass to one another. The Forest game last week showed us that Kane and Soldado can form a solid partnership, but what is worthy of mention is that the efforts Soldado cannot be underestimated. His poachers instinct and intelligent play means that he can swap duties as out-and-out striker with sitting a little deeper and controlling the forward game. Combine this with Lamela just behind the strikers, running in from wide positions and having a go himself and I am sure we will see the creativity that, so far this season, has been lacking somewhat.

On a final note, (I just needed to get this off my chest) but I personally am relieved to hear that there are no takeover plans. I’m not too sure if Cain Hoy is a person, a name of a company or just the name of the consortium, either way it’s a weird choice of name and they were a total nuisance, completely taking the team’s mind off their job in hand. Imagine yourself, hard at work, and you hear of a company takeover bid, surely that would make anyone question their future, not just the playing staff, but the background team, who surely stand more to lose. As such, it comes as no surprise that the talk surrounding the bid coincided with a dip in form. Now that this has gone away and the papers are back to massaging Lampard’s ego, I hope everyone involved with Spurs can get back to business and work our way up to the top the league.

As always, COYS and lets beat those buggars from South London and get the season back on track!!!

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