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November 2012
November. Stands for no goals, no progress, and what hope?
Here in the Uk, we have a popular charity which takes place every November, called "Movember". The "Mo" being short for moustache, grown during that month for men's charities.
In the case of Spurs, November this year stands for no league goals, no league wins, no league progress (quite the opposite in fact), leaving the obvious question of what hope do we have for the immediate future and the rest of this season.
I am struck by the thought that with last week's 6-0 thrashing by Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club reached a low point not equalled since Harry Redknapp was appointed in October 2008, when we had (sorry about this) two points from eight games. As manager, Harry did suffer a horrible start to our league season of 2011-12, when we lost to Manchester United and Manchester City (badly) in consecutive weeks, but he bounced back, finishing fourth and only missing out on Champions League football because of Chelsea's trophy win.
I am not trying to start a "Harry back" campaign, and I am not calling for AVB's head yet, but as I reported last week, he is on borrowed time in my opinion, and that 6-0 defeat certainly started a flurry of negative reporting, and depression amongst Spurs fans.
Surely, it is nothing less than outrageous that the (approximately) £160 million worth of talent (£105 million spent this summer) at Spurs' disposal could not muster a league goal or a league win in their three games. Spurs' home fans haven't seen a Premier League goal in open play for their team since September 28th. The team hasn't scored such a goal since October 20th at Villa Park.
The bottom line this month is that all those players who have made appearances this month suffered a deterioration in their accumulating grades for the season, with one exception. That exception is Vlad Chiriches, who had the good fortune to sit out the Man City game, but has performed consistently since his Spurs debut at Villa Park (in the League Cup) in September. Chiriches was voted man of the match in our Europa League game at Tromso, where he played in a protective mask due to the broken nose he suffered in the home game against Newcastle, before the most recent International break.
Chiriches has good feet; keeps his balance and has shown a liking for moving forward laying off meaningful passes. Sadly Michael Dawson, the club captain shows deterioration in each of these qualities, and I feel that a fully fit Kaboul, Chiriches and Vertonghen all surpass our Captain, who has been badly exposed this month.
Vlad Chiriches has thus been voted your player of the month for November, whilst Hugo Lloris still heads the ongoing player of the season chart.
A score ratio mark of 37.8% is a disgrace, and it is disturbing to see (at best) average performances from our high profile summer signings Soldado, Lamela and Paulinho. Things can only get better, and the team has 9 games in December in which to bounce back!
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!
