Laboured victory highlights need for new recruits

After the defeat to Stoke at the Britannia Stadium recently, it was important for Spurs to get back to winning ways. White Hart Lane has been a fortress for us in recent seasons but the Martin O’Neil factor was always likely to threaten our chances last Sunday against Sunderland.

In the end a moment of magic from Dutchman Van der Vart and an emphatic finish from forgotten man Roman Pavlyuchenko secured the points.

The game itself was a tense affair that could have gone either way and if Sunderland still possessed a forward with Darren Bent’s qualities then I don’t think Spurs would have been victorious.

While we have admired the fluidity of Spurs football this season sometimes you need to win ugly; we haven’t been known to possess this quality in the past but and as demonstrated against Fulham we seem to be learning. Fergie and Mourinho were both masters of winning ugly when they had to, but in fairness they always had the squad depth to cover most situations. Spurs are in a similar situation now and recent results support this.

With January approaching Spurs have the perfect opportunity to finely tune the squad for the remainder of the season and all fans will be desperately hoping that we don’t make the same mistake of last year, when failure to sign a striker saw our league form decline.
The Europa League has highlighted the talent that is worthy of developing and has hopefully confirmed to the manager who is dispensable and who isn’t.

My shopping list for Mr Levy is as follows:

Gary Cahill – There has been so much speculation as to where Cahill will move to, and with Wenger and Villas-Boas both ruling out a transfer hopefully the England International will be heading to the Lane. I was always of the opinion that we had sufficient cover in this position but the facts are that both King and Dawson are injury prone, Bassong doesn’t have the quality and Gallas isn’t strong enough and realistically only has another season left at this level.

That leaves Younes Kaboul as the only quality central defender who can be relied upon. There are other suitable options such as Chris Samba and Phil Jagielka but given Cahill’s contractual situation, the price will be right for the astute Daniel Levy to broker a deal.

Junior Hoilett – With Blackburn in a precarious financial position this is another deal that looks possible. Add to that the fact that Hoilett’s contract is running short and we could grab ourselves a real bargain if we secure the Canadian’s signature. With Aaron Lennon’s recent injury and Giovanni Dos Santos looking likely to leave, this transfer is crucial in my opinion. Hoilett could cover any of the attacking positions and at twenty one years of age he has the potential to become a top talent.

Many people including Spurs believed that Ashley Young wasn’t worth the ten million Watford were demanding, but Aston Villa took a gamble and were significantly rewarded. Young is a similar type of player to Hoilett, but the Blackburn forward has already proved he can succeed at this level, so hopefully the Spurs board will not see the deal as too risky.

Leandro Damiao – Unfortunately we may have missed our chance with the prolific Brazilian forward as now the whole of Europe are monitoring the situation. With David Villa out of contention for Barcelona there could be interest there, and sadly there are many teams in Europe with the spending power to blow Spurs out of the running. Hopefully Spurs commercial ties with Internacional can assist us with convincing the player to join his compatriot Sandro at the Lane.

Harry has stated that Spurs will target a special player if one becomes available, twenty two year old Damiao certainly fits the criteria. Another option to consider is Demba Ba, who if he continues to score at the rate he has, will not be wearing the black and white of Newcastle for very long.

Merry Christmas and ‘Come on you Spurs’