Is it a coincidence that any concerns over our current form have come at the same time that Moussa Dembele started his spell on the sidelines? The Belgian International arrived in the summer and after a debut goal from the bench, has settled comfortably into the left sided defensive midfielder slot.
In his absence, Tom Huddlestone has taken over and while Tom has received some praise from Andre Villas-Boas, he’s been receiving his fair share of criticism from supporters on social media. Meanwhile, the importance of Moussa has been backed up by the Opta stats.
To start with, Spurs have won every league game that Dembele has started and that fact alone is enough to cement anyone’s place in the starting XI. The stats continue with effective passing and tackle ratios and while these can be overused at times, they are impressive.
The defensive midfielders can often fall under the viewer’s radar, particularly for those on a diet of TV Highlights but just how vital is it to see Moussa fit and back in the side?
If you think Hudds is our problem and Dembele is our savior your sadly misinformed. We have not kept a clean sheet all season and if we had then we would be unbeaten fact and only drawn the Wigan game. Let me explain whats going on when you play Hudds is skill is hitting quick missile passes with back spin like a golf shot. When Hudds looked up to pass all he could see was 5ft7 Defoe hemmed in by a back three helped by the floating seven and Al habsi stopping every shot. Any Manager worth his salt would have seen this and at Half time take and taken Gallas of and brought Aby on and gone the same has Wigan 343 . we all no what he did was wrong and when he finally woke up he took younger and more energetic Walker off. Why i knew Wigan would win if they scored first has bean a crusade of mine for quite a few season and in my opinion only is why there is a lot of shocks in football and also premature deaths rising by the season Having said this i don’t pick on any poor soul who had died in this sad way from heart attacks. Like i say this can not be proved and i only mention this because two of the supplements being used can cause death by exhaustion. When England’s game was called of Sky ran a story about our players poor performance was down to the medical staff giving our players a sleeping draft to calm them down from the energy drug Caffeine a shocking admission especially when it was banned in 2005 and is now allowed.There is also other drugs being used to help with this work rate but they are still banned and its these i no are being used to shock our team because i have become an expert in spotting this abuse.
davspurs, sorry i dont agree with you at all. As you saw at the Wigan game our entire problem is the sides inability to a) control the midfield b) link attacking passing movement from a centralised hub (aka Modric role) throughout the midfield to our wingers and through to our strikers. Sandro is a very impressive assertive defensive midfielder who can from time to time perform this role, however, this should not be his main focus so we need a Modric type player (aka Dembele) to perform this attacking linkage play.
In the absence of a decent creative midfielder (Hud, Sig are not good enough) we should look at either one of our youngsters or Vertonghen (preference) given his performances this season so far to pickup the ball and either link in our wingers or link up to our striker (s). I would like to see:
Bale (LW) Sandro (defensive mid), Vertonghen (defensive cover and attacking central mid) and Lennon (RW) with both Defoe and Ade up front.
Until Dembele is back we do not have another choice as our linkage play between midfield and the strikers since Modric has departed is totally nonexistent.
Good idea, I would like to see Vertonghen given this role. Maybe Thursday’s game AVB should try this out.
What a crock of SH*TE
Substitute “Modric” for “Dembele” and we are getting to the heart of the problem. If the first 10 games are anything to go by I think a 4th place finish is a pipe dream. Poor Gareth Bale is expected to carry the team. Packing the mid field might make us hard to beat but we won’t score many goals unless we replace the creativity that Modric and Van der Vart gave us last season.
Completely agree, see above!!
we could do with some extra flare
lennon and bale are both misfiring and defoe upfront is never going to win us anything
i think we lucked our HARD on not getting moutinho
january could make of break spurs. all the big teams will come calling for our big players and we will sell (just like arsenal)
The problem is that we have no cutting edge.
Bale was doubled up on in the second half v Wigan, and we had no supply line at all.
The fans were on Tommy’s back in the second half for being slow, and he was, but in his defence there was no movement ahead of him, so no-one to play quick passes to.
The defence is a different issue. Gallas has been our best defender by a mile, and that is not saying much. Walker has been below par all season and Vertonghen looks far better going forward than at the back (one of two exceptional tackles apart).
Spurs have never really had a back 4 that guarantees a clean sheet, but unless we address this then we will continue to drop points.
Kaboul is estimated to be back around Xmas, so knowing spurs we will see him back at Easter. The defence need to wake up.
Lloris to start playing even if he just gets them more organised it will make a difference.
Vertonghen has never made it a secret he prefers being in the center and when he was there he did some brilliant defending. I do agree with various parts of what is written above however. Yes we seriously miss the linkage that Dembele presents and Hudd is doing his best but his fitness levels are just not good enough for this level at the moment. I seriously hope we find a central play maker over the next break. We have had 50% of our best back four playing for half the season and one of those playing out of position, this can only improve.
Lloris has to start playing soon .. Brad has been great but we need a pro-active goalie that helps move our attack forwards and not just lob the ball to the opposition. Brad does do some great looking saves, however because he doesn’t minimise the angle by coming out to meet the player he has to do specky looking saves. In my opinion we need a our world class option rather than our sentimental favorite.
ColinSC, wouldn’t you say that Friedel kept us from conceding three or four against lowly Wigan.
In the absence of Dembele or buying someone new who would you put in the position of attacking midfielder for the games against Man City and Arse??. Our options are limited but surely one of the squad can do this? Hud surely isnt an option due to his lack of pace.
[…] How much are we missing Dembele? jQuery(document).ready(function($) { postID = 808122; if (jQuery("#jockspin_carousel_"+postID).length > 0){ jQuery("#jockspin_carousel_"+postID).hide(); } }); Is it a coincidence that any concerns over our current form have come at the same time that Moussa Dembele … […]
for me we really are lacking that special creative spark and i have been baffled some of avb’s decisions thus far. however, i will also note that we have a real lack of fit central players and levy has to accept some of the blame for not replacing the quality we sold with who he brought in (i.e dempsey and sig) against city and the scum i would play the following 11.
lloris
walker-caulker-vertonghen-bae (i think he’s back now)
sandro
lennon-falque-bale
defoe
ade
with the front 2 switching in a 4-1-3-1-1 formation. for me dempsey and siggy havent done enough to warrant inclusion in the team and falque needs to be given a shot as i was impressed with his creative spark against norwich. i understand this may seem like too much pressure for the lad against 2 tough opponents but let’s see what he can do in the final third with a strong back 4 and sandro covering and getting stuck in. once parker and kaboul are back we will look a much steadier ship anyway
tim… that team is too lightweight mate.
Sandro and Falque in CM v two teams who play 3 in there…? we would get absolutely over-run and beaten convincingly.
————–Lloris—————
–walker–gallas–caulker—vertonghen
———-sandro–hudd———-
Lennon ——Siggy———–Bale
———–Ade————-
obviously if Dembele is fit he comes back into the side.
that said, i want Falque to be given a chance… i thought he should have started v Wigan instead of the passenger that is Clint Dempsey.
hopefully he does well tonight.