All Action, No Plot

So, it’s once more unto the breach, for the new season is upon us. The friendlies are done, fantasy league teams picked – all that’s left is for AANP Towers to rustle up a list of top ten aims for season 2009-10, and then we can get cracking…

1. European Qualification

Top six, or a trophy. Or both. The bookies make us sixth favourites for the title, and sixth spot is an aim that straddles the divide between “ambitious” and “realistic”. In more private confines we may peer hopefully towards fourth spot, particularly given the sales made by Wenger this summer, but there will be tough competition for that, from City, Villa and Everton as well as l’Arse. However, we ought to finish above a couple of those. Given the squad we now boast, and the absence of European distraction, anything less than Europa League qualification would be a disappointment.

2. 50 Goals From The Strikers

During the halcyon 2006-07 season under Martin Jol (blessed be his name) Berba, Keane and Defoe bagged over 60 goals between them, and we netted around 100 in all competitions. This time around, 20 goals from Defoe, and 30 from the combo of Keane, Crouch and Pav, ought to guarantee that we’ll be pushing for European qualification. Would be nice if Modders, Lennon and Jenas could target five each as well.

3. Avoid Long-Ball Overkill

The signing of Crouch undoubtedly gives us something we previously lacked - a pressure-release for when we’re under the cosh, and generally the option of an aerial presence (I still am not convinced that the gangly one possesses sufficient heading prowess to be labelled an aerial “threat”, so “presence” will have to do for now). However, as if often the case with England, just having him in the team can lead to long-ball overkill from his team-mates and there was the oocasional worrying sign of an all-too-hasty resort to the long-ball in Crouch’s 45 mins vs Olympiakos. While Modric is probably smart enough to avoid this unless necessary, I don’t trust the others to resist the lazy over-use of the long-ball to the beanpole.

It was mighty strange to behold, but the second half of last season saw us become watertight at the back. Consistency of selection appeared to be the key, as a back-four of BAE, Woodgate, King and Corluka picked itself just about every week, while behind them Gomes grew in confidence. Clean sheet upon clean sheet provided a most apt platform for a slew of one-nil wins, which propelled us from relegation worriers to European hopefuls. More of the same this season would be jolly handy, as we appear to have sufficient fire-power to score against just about anyone.

5. Four-Four Draws

Not necessarily a wish that makes any sense, given the clean-sheets request immediately above, but 4-4 draws are my guilty pleasure. Nothing says all-action-no-plot like an eight-goal thriller – and nobody does these better than Spurs. Based on the premise that we will presumably drop points at some stage this season, I hope that when we do so it’s in the form of a 4-4 draw.

6. A Song For Jenas

Possibly one at which you will raise an eyebrow, as seasoned all-action-no-plotters will be aware that the lad is not exactly a favourite at this establishment. Indeed, he has become such a scapegoat in my eyes that every time I stub my toe or miss a bus, I find myself automatically blaming him. Nevertheless, he deserves our backing. He tries his socks off week in, week out; and in his absence we often lack a midfielder bursting forward into the area. Few things in life are as infuriating as watching the King of the Sideways/Backwards Pass bringing a swift counter-attack to a grinding halt with several unnecessary touches and a short pass back towards the defence, but I have started to wonder if this might be because he lacks that Ronaldo-esque arrogance to be more adventurous. Being one of the few players in the team without his own song cannot exactly help the blighter’s confidence, so I hereby declare that I would join in an ode to JJ, albeit through slightly gritted teeth.

7. Look After Modric And Palacios Like Our Lives Depend On It

Our squad is looking impressive this season, with a couple of players competing in every position. However, Modric and Palacios are simply a class above, and as such are irreplaceable. They may miss the odd game suspended or with a minor injury, but we cannot afford for either of them to miss a six-game stretch. Not selling them this summer was a positive move; now we have to do everything in our power to keep them happy and healthy. Whatever they demand we ought to provide for them, and great lengths must be taken to avoid so much as a bee sting befalling them. If either of them get injured on international duty I’ll blinking well kill someone with my bare hands.

8. Hudd and O’ Hara to Come of Age

A big season for both. Being a young player with potential is one thing; but actually fulfilling that promise is another, and the target for both Hudd and O’ Hara this season ought to be to push on and nail down a regular spot in the starting XI. For the Hudd this means adding more energy and bite, and bossing games more frequently; for O’ Hara it means complementing his attitude and work-rate with greater finesse (if they were combined into one they would form one heck of a player). There is no guarantee that either will achieve this. It’s a step too far for some (see Gardner, and perhaps even Jenas), but a move made with aplomb by others (eg Ledley). Both players have their unswerving apologists and unrelenting critics, so perhaps the litmus test will be in the identity of the teams courting their services next summer – Villa, Everton, Liverpool; or Fulham, Sunderland, West Ham?

9. Give The Kids A Chance

Mightily pleasing to see Livermore, Rose, Bostock and Obika given opportunities to mix it with the first-team in pre-season, and one would hope that with seven substitutes per game, one or two of these will get some Premiership minutes under their belts before they start shaving. While it is unrealistic to expect all of them to make the grade, it would be nice to see one or two graduate from our youth team, as only O’ Hara and Ledley seem to have done in recent years. However, as has been noted in several quarters, should we make a bad start ‘Arry will not dare throw in the kids, whereas if we begin the season well he may not want to jeopardise things by giving youth its head. Time will tell.

10. Keep Ledley Fit

The stats generally show that we win more games with Ledley than without, but no abacus is necessary to see the talent of the guy. He simply mops up trouble with bundles of class and minimal fuss. If there is a silver lining from our failure to qualify for Europe last season, it is the reduced number of games, and no-one should benefit more from this than Ledley. With a spot of luck, and plenty of cotton wool in which to wrap him between games, he might be fit on a weekend-to-weekend basis, which would be absolutely ruddy marvellous. But keep him the hell away from the liquor.

11. More Insane Transfer Rumours

Admittedly I am now rather stretching the definition of a top ten, but these ridiculous rumours make me laugh. Last season we had Jenas to Inter, and Zokora to Real. Now it’s Bale to AC Milan. Balderdash, but hilarious, and I hope for more of it this season.

Spurs’ Cult Heroes
Final opinions sought on the top 20 Spurs Cult Heroes - players who achieved legendary status amongst us fans for what they did at the club. The majority pick themselves, but still some debate over the final few – Waddle? Teddy? Gilzean? White? Freund? Conn? Lineker? Burkinshaw? Have a read here, and voice your opinion.

Bassong, eh? Well first up, if you’re looking for an in-depth Strengths-Weakness-Opportunities-Threats analysis of the chap, then look elsewhere. We at AANP Towers spent most of last season watching Spurs, rather than Newcastle, which I would suggest is a fairly pardonable offence.

Word on the street is that he is quite handy. He comes highly-rated apparently (don’t they all?), and a toon-supporting friend of a friend has had some pleasant things to say about him – closer to Lennon than Corluka in terms of pace; one of the few players to keep his head up until the bitter end in Geordie-land; proved himself equally capable at full-back as at centre-back; generally a ray of sunshine in a world of black-and-white grey. While there is something vaguely ominous about buying a defender from a club that has just been relegated, the consensus is that it seems a reasonable buy.

However, to repeat, my dossier on the blighter is rather bare at the moment, so I’ll turn my attention instead to a few hypotheticals.  It’s academic now I suppose, but I do wonder whether we would have gone fishing for Bassong had all three of our centre-backs been fit – that is, was it always ‘Arry’s masterplan to have a juicy selection of four dedicated centre-backs from which to choose this season, in the hallowed name of Squad Depth? Or alternatively, have we just spent £8 mil on an ad hoc defender to see us through the next month or two, until everyone is up and running again?

The last time we splashed out on someone to see us through an injury crisis was in January, when Defoe broke his foot and Keane was bought. Back then £10 mil or so struck me as an awful lot of money for a short-term solution, but the proof of the pudding was in the eating, and in the absence of Defoe in early-2009 the pointy shouty Irishman did his job, and as such justified the outlay. (Thereafter Keane went a little weird, all midfield-running and an allergy to shooting, but by then we were safe from the drop).

Back to Bassong. If he was bought with the season-opener vs Liverpool in mind, it was a rubbish idea, as he is suspended for that and the next game. More pertinently though, might ‘Arry even be viewing him as Ledley’s long-term replacement? Possibly too early to speculate about that.

In the shorter-term, I wonder what the pecking order will be when King, Woodgate and Dawson are all fit. Admittedly, “when King, Woodgate and Dawson are all fit” is possibly an assumption too far, but assuming they are all patched up and good to go at some point, I would guess that Bassong will be first reserve, ahead of Dawson. It’s hard not to like Daws, and after a dodgy 2007-08 he was largely back on form last season, but there are still flaws in his game. For all his willingness he does tend to act first and think later, prone to rushing out of position in gung-ho manner and leaving a Dawson-shaped gap behind him. He will get his opportunities this season, but at 25 he is unlikely to take too kindly to a stop-start season mainly spent warming the bench.

Those are just some idle musings to welcome young Bassong to the White Hart Lane fold . What we have, by all accounts, is a young, pacy centre-back at a fairly reasonable price in the current market. Broadly speaking, it gets the much sought-after nod of approval from AANP Towers, as it is further indicative of a sensible summer spending policy at the Lane, something we haven’t had in years. It’s another signing that bolsters the squad, and will make us a tougher nut for opponents to crack in 09/10.

Spurs Cult Heroes

Opinions still sought on the top 20 Spurs Cult Heroes - players who achieved legendary status amongst us fans for what they did at the club. The majority pick themselves, but still some debate over the final three – Jennings? Teddy? Gilzean? White? Freund? Conn? Lineker? Burkinshaw? Have a read here, and voice your opinion.