| S |
|
65.57% |
| P |
|
67.53% |
| U |
|
59.63% |
| R |
|
64.09% |
| S |
|
58.2% |
| = |
|
63.01% |
Form Guide 2009-10 Season
P W D L F-A GD Pts
38 21 7 10 67-41 26 70
+ 12 Cup Matches
Pos:- 4th
. May 2010 figures
. Last season's figures
2008-09
August 2009
Spursometer = 70.84%
Player of the month - Wilson Palacios
Spurs had their best start in donkey's years, with 5 consecutive wins, including a 5-1 Carling Cup win at Doncaster. Only Chelsea's one-goal better difference kept us from the top slot! Both debutant Sebastien Bassong and Benoit Assou-Ekotto got their first goals for the club in an opening day win over Liverpool, and Jermain Defoe had a spectacular start to the season with a hat-trick at Hull, where we also won 5-1. Jermain also scored at Upton Park, where we won again, and Aaron Lennon scored in that match and in the last minute against Birmingham. No wonder Defoe, Lennon and Crouch were called up for Fabio Capello's England!
Luka Modric had been highly instrumental in Spurs' great start, but suffered injury against Birmingham and would miss the next three and a half months football. Croatia probably missed him more than we did, as we very rarely drifted out of the top four all season. Palacios was in great form as anchor man in midfield, but also scored a classy goal at Hull, which was his first senior goal for the club too. Jermain Defoe won the Premier League player of the month award, and Harry Redknapp was named the manager of the month.
September 2009
Spursometer = 60.15%
Player of the month - Peter Crouch
By the end of September, Gareth Bale had played just 6 minutes of league football. Spurs tasted defeat twice - in consecutive games at home to manchester United and then at Stamford Bridge. Our form was regained with two wins in which we scored 5 goals, at Preston (Crouch hat-trick), and at home to Burnley. In this game Robbie Keane found his scoring boots for Spurs with 4 goals, but he was to score only 4 more before moving to Celtic on loan in January. At the time of writing, Keane remains on Spurs books, but the magic date of June 30th approaches, and Robbie is being linked with one or two clubs such as Aston Villa. Maybe a permanent move to Celtic is on the cards.
Throughout the season, I felt that Harry failed against some of the big teams because he sought to match their style, rather than play to our strengths. In the end that's a minor grumble in the scheme of things and in a season which ended with qualification for the Champions League! Michael Dawson made a welcome return, and Heurelho Gomes had yet to oust Carlo Cudicini from the number one berth.
October 2009
Spursometer = 55.56%
Player of the month - Heurelho Gomes
The dose of reality in September turned into October depression, which ended in a horrible result and team performance at The Emirates. Spurs endured a run of 4 defeats in 7 games, and a shock home defeat to Stoke before losing at Arsenal. By now we had also lost to three of the "Top Four". Robbie Keane had been voted by Spurs Odyssey readers as our worst player in 3 of our 5 games, and he was never really to regain the favour of the fans. Niko Kranjcar was making an impactive in place of Modric, and fringe player David Bentley was your man of the match in our 2-0 Carling Cup win over Everton. Jermain Defoe's sending off at Portsmouth was expensive, as he missed three crucial games.
November 2009
Spursometer = 71.33%
Player of the month - Niko Kranjcar
November was a historic month which included Spurs record Premier League win over Wigan (9-1). Even the Wigan goal came after a blatant handball, which only the referee failed to notice. Jermain Defoe scored a magnificent 5 goals, and became only the third Spurs player in our history to score 5 in a league match. Gomes' form was brilliant, and he made a crucial penalty save from Darren Bent, having been allowed to stay on after having committed the foul that led to the penalty. Kranjcar was being hailed as the signing (and bargain) of the season, as Spurs had once again raided Harry's former club Portsmouth, whose financial plight dominated their relegation season. Kranjcar won your Player of the Month vote, despite Jermain's record goal tally, but the Croatian displayed consistent good form across the midfield, scoring a great goal in the Wigan game. Having scored 45 goals in our first 17 games, we looked on target for another 100 goal season, but ultimately we missed that target by 4 goals.
December 2009
Spursometer = 60.7%
Player of the month - Michael Dawson
December 2009 for Spurs consisted of apathy at Old Trafford (Carling Cup defeat), generosity at Goodison Park (drew 2-2 after surrendering a two goal lead), a gift to Wolves (another shock home defeat), a couple of parties for the players, polished off by the highly commendable habit of cleanliness (of sheets) and winning of league games (Man City, Blackburn and West Ham).
Spurs finished the year in 4th place, having started 2009 in 16th. Harry Redknapp's league record in 2009 read as follows:- Played 38 - Won 20 - Drawn 8 - Lost 10 - Goals For 67 - Goals against 42 - Points 68. We were on target for a similar total, and quite rightly hoped for a place in the top four!
Luka Modric returned, but Kranjcar was still playing a full part, as were Lennon and Gomes. Ledley King's appearances had been all too sporadic at this stage, and with Woodgate injured for virtually the whole season, Michael Dawson's return and partnership with Bassong was proving crucial, as Spurs started to collect clean sheets. The players incurred the wrath of Harry Redknapp for a party trip to Dublin, but some were also out on the town after the win against West Ham. Improved results led to closer media attention and occasional embarrasing pictures of even our esteemed club captain staggering out of night clubs. Such publicity seems to be part of the price of success.
January 2010
Spursometer = 57.66%
Player of the month - Gareth Bale
Having emerged at league level in December, Gareth Bale was to dominate the Spurs stage on so many occasions in 2010. He deservedly won the first two Player of the Mon th awards, and was man of the match on numerous occasions. Played primarily on the left of midfield, ahead of Ekotto, Gareth was to leave the best of defenders trailing in his wake as he sped mercilessly towards the opponents bye-line or penalty area. Gareth was voted man of the match in 4 of our 6 January games, which were not always the most successful, as we only drew at home to Hull, allowed Leeds to take us to an FA Cup replay (mind you, they had knocked out Man Utd!), and lost at Anfield.
Although we held onto 4th place, by now we were all rueing the points lost against Stoke, Wolves and Hull at home, and Everton away, fearing that they might lead to failure to cross that coveted finishing line in our dreams. We made another "fire-sale" re-purchase from Portsmouth in Younes Kaboul, who was to play a special part late in the season at Eastlands.
February 2010
Spursometer = 62%
Player of the month - Gareth Bale
Our Jermain scored another hat-trick to give us victory at Elland Road, but lowly Wolves scored a league double over us as Harry Redknapp fielded a weakened side, with the FA Cup match at Bolton on his mind. Kaboul made his first appearance at right back for us at Wolves. His performance was okay, but became even better when he played there later in the season! Spurs enjoyed good cup runs as well as their good league form, but made hard work of progress in the FA Cup, needing another replay to put Bolton out of the way. The fantastic loyalty of Spurs fans was evident in the game at The Reebock Stadium, where home fans hardly bothered to come, whereas Spurs took 4,500.
Another (almost) forgotten man - Roman Pavlyuchenko - started a run of superb scoring form as a substitute at Wigan, where he scored two goals, keeping his place for the Bolton replay, when he scored another brace. The Russian went on a run of scoring 8 goals in 7 matches, and has always been well-received by Spurs fans. A last day 2-1 win over Everton ensured we held onto that 4th place.
March 2010
Spursometer = 67.28%
Player of the month - Wilson Palacios
March was great with 4 wins and a draw in our 5 games. Spurs had played 10 games since a defeat, and that was the disaster at Wolves, which was the only defeat in the preceding 15 games. Those March results were achieved without key players Aaron Lennon and Ledley King. Jermain Defoe and Tom Huddlestone missed three of the games too. Not that he is everyone's favourite, but Jermaine Jenas was also missing.
Spurs had won 5 consecutive league games, which equalled our current Premier League record.
The overall performance marks for the team improved over February, and almost without fail, all of the players improved their personal standing in the eyes of Spurs Odyssey readers, up to 200 of whom contribute their grades after every game.
Spurs had made it through to the FA Cup semi-final, and were drawn against Portsmouth, so we all fancied a trip to Wembley for the Final. Wilson Palacios was Player of the Month for three fine performances, and the issue now arose of trying to preserve him and avoid a tenth booking before the amnesty deadline the day after that FA Cup semi-final. Things were not to go to plan there.
April 2010
Spursometer = 61.36%
Player of the month - Heurelho Gomes
That run of Premier Leagaue wins came to an ambarrassing end at The Stadium of Light, where Darren bent scored two, but also had two penalties saved by Gomes, who thus became the first Spurs keeper since Pat Jennings in the seventies to perform that particular feat during ordinary match play. Then came the great shock of defeat to lowly Portsmouth at Wembley in the FA Cup semi-final, aggravated by a booking for Palacios which meant he would miss our two most crucial games.
Those two crucial games of course turned out to be the home games against Arsenal and Chelsea, both of which were won, and both of which will live long in the memories of Spurs fans present. Gareth Bale scored goals in open play in both those matches. Gomes made three world class saves in close succession against Arsenal, who we beat in the league for the first time since 1999. The biggest hero of course was Danny Rose, who must dream forever about his spectaular 30 yard volley that had the Arsenal keeper grasping thin air.
Four days later, Chelsea were our victims, and this was an even better performance, with Michael Dawson being hailed in the presence of Fabio Capello. Luka Modric had also been performing admirably in central midfield in the absence of Palacios, and Kaboul was ably filling in for the injured Corluka at right back. Defeat at Old Trafford was of course a disappointment, but 6 points from these three games was more than any realist anticipated.
May 2010
Spursometer = 63.2%
Player of the month - Heurelho Gomes
For Spurs, the month of May consisted of three games. Despite Tom Huddlestone's cracking drive that secured three home points against Bolton, the month was truly defined by that fantastic victory at Eastlands on the night of Wednesday 5th May, 2010! Peter Crouch scored the only goal 8 minutes from the end when City's emergency loan keeper Marton Fulop could only parry Kaboul's powerful cross, allowing Crouchie to step in and head home such a memorable goal beneath the massed army of travelling Spurs fans. We sang all night, and well into the final game at Turf Moor, by which time defeat could not take away our precious Champions League place.
Ledley King played 4 consecutive games at the end of the season, and played himself into Fabio Capello's World Cup squad. Defoe, Crouch, Lennon Dawson and Huddlestone made it to the 30, and ultimately, due to Rio Ferdinand's late injury (replaced by Michael Dawson), only Tom Huddlestone did not make it to South Africa.
Unsurprisingly, in view of the team's best league performance and achievement since Spurs Odyssey and its exclusive form guide have been established, this was our best season in that time. As reported in the May form guide Gareth Bale was your player of the season, followed by Heurelho Gomes and Michael Dawson, who won the official supporters' club award.
Harry Redknapp won the Premier League Manager of the Season award, and despite his foibles has of course become the first man to take Spurs into the Champions League.
I am writing this just before England's crucial World Cup game against Germany, but whatever happens at International level, already we are looking forward to the new season, with the prospect of Man City at home in our first game, and that oh so vital Champions League qualifier. Let's hope that last season was a stepping stone to further success next season and beyond!
Don't forget to check out the final tally of appearances and grades for the players below. The grades are based upon a mark out of ten, and formulated from the votes of Spurs Odyssey readers
...if you want to remind yourself of the matches played during the season, then See the Fixtures page here. By working your way back through the last month's figures, you can review the performances over the last 10 years!
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