Performance of the season by Adebayor!
Emmanuel Adebayor’s 4 assists plus 1 goal dynamic performance on Saturday against Newcastle made him the very clear winner of the Spurs Odyssey man of the match award. Much as I hate to mention another former Arsenal player, Adebayor became the first Premier League player to provide 4 goal assists in one game since Fabregas did it in 2009 for “The Others” against Blackburn. (Thanks to Opta Joe on Twitter for this stat)
We had 290 voters this week in the usual post-match survey, and Adebayor got an astounding 9.2 out of 10. That is the highest individual grade given to any Spurs player this season. That is saying something in a season which has seen several absolutely brilliant efforts. Gareth Bale got 9 out of 10 for the Norwich game on 27th December. This was Adebayor’s third man of the match “award”, and he got another really high score for his two goal performance in the 4-0 win over Liverpool in September. Bale though has been voted man of the match 5 times in our 36 games to date. Scott Parker has won three such votes, and he and Bale are battling it out for our player of the season vote, based upon individual grades throughout the season. We’ll be keeping you informed on progress on a regular basis. Club Captain Ledley King is in the running too!
There is a need to take into account the quality and ability of the opposition, but there can surely be no doubt that in the first half particularly against Newcastle, we saw some of the very best football that Spurs have played all season. That’s really saying something, because many pundits agree with Sir Alex Ferguson that we are the most attractive side to watch this season. Long may that continue, but every time I hear it, I pinch myself really.
After every game, we invite readers to assess the team in five skill areas, which are SKILL, PLUCK (effort), UNFORCED ERRORS, RESOLVE (Defence), and SCORE RATIO. Hence the “Spursometer”, which has now been run on the site for over 11 years, but these days is far more comprehensive than it was for most of those years. This week was the first time this season that the overall grades exceeded 80% in all five categories, and therefore the overall mark of 84.8% is the highest of the season, exceeding the previous best of 80.6% in our 4-0 win over Liverpool. The next highest mark was for the Hearts game on the opening day of the season. It is no co-incidence that each of these three games were high scoring ones for Spurs. Despite all our success so far, that score ratio factor has been relatively poor by comparison to other skill areas.
Here are just a few of your comments made in this week's survey:-
"Manu's best game in a Spurs shirt. Simply a masterclass in centre forward play."
"Best game for Ade, I have seen."
"Best performance from Ade yet, I think that Harry found a great partnership between Ade and Saha. It will be interesting to see where VDV slots in now."
"Adebayor was fantastic today, a proper centre forward, & he linked up with Saha like they've played together for years. Another shrewd Redknapp signing..."
"Stunning stuff from the entire team. Everyone was firing and Adebeyor especially was just incredible."
"Adebayor was just magnificent - beyond his seeming nonchalance he really does link up the play beautifully and had a hand (or foot!) in all 5 goals. Has to be MOTM for me."
· See the "Spursometer" in full here
· Saha broke a 942 minute duck on Saturday!
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