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February 2013
Sherwood's downward trend
Those Spurs fans (and there are plenty) who like to criticise Tim Sherwood might want to latch onto the form figures which show that after 15 games in charge, the Spurs head coach has slipped further behind the overall ratings for this season achieved by Andre Villas-Boas. Under Sherwood, Spurs have scored 25 and conceded 15 in all games, whilst in 26 games under AVB, the ratio was 46-25. AVB had the benefit of more Europa League games against mediocre opposition.
Sherwood is now rating below AVB in all three areas, but the consecutive losses this month against Dnipro and Norwich have accelerated the criticisms of his tactics and use of substitutes. Sympathisers would point to the number of injuries to key or suitable players in a month where Vlad Chiriches has been absent, and Spurs have over-relied upon skipper Michael Dawson and Jan Vertonghen. The number of bookings received by our two centre-backs (Dawson 2 and Vertonghen 3)this month are an indication of the pressure they have felt.
On the other hand, Sherwood has to be given credit for his re-instatement of Emmanuel Adebayor, who this month has scored 5 more goals to take the lead in our goal-scorers' chart with 11, against Soldado's 10, and Jermain Defoe's 10, most of which were in the Europa League. Jermain made only a cameo appearance this month, and has now said his emotional farewells, as he heads off to Canada and Toronto.
After making only 14 starts in our 41 games played so far this season, Adebayor has forged marginally ahead of Hugo Lloris in the accumulating Player of the Season grades, which are shown below. Lloris takes the Player of the month vote though, with three individual man of the match votes.
Under Sherwood, we have been knocked out of both domestic cups, and against vehement rivals. Then, this month we lost AVB's 100% record this season in Europe. On the plus side, apart from Adebayor's record, we are scoring more goals in Premier League games. Also, we are still fifth, and perhaps not quite out of the hunt for Champions League football.
We do face a difficult and decisive March with a home game against Arsenal (who lost today at Stoke), away matches at Chelsea and Liverpool, and a home and away Europa League game against Benfica. It's the sort of menu that any football fan would relish. Let's just hope can have positive reflections at the end of the month!
Don't forget to check out the players' current figures re. appearances, cards, goals scored and accumulated ratings to date below.
...if you want to read reports of the matches played during this season, then links are on the Spurs Odyssey Fixtures/Reports page here. By working your way back through the previous month's figures, you can review the performances over 13 years!
