and flog ‘im.
Yet another Jenas start and yet another game that mirrors pretty much every other where he starts. Anything and everything should be done to move him on during this transfer window.
But then even with all the evidence before him from this season and last ‘Arry still picked him to play last night, so what hope. And while he’s still there Spurs will remain not there. His presence just instils a lackadaisical attitude all round and you know from the very moment you see his name in the starting XI how things will go.
Everton, as side struggling, two wins only at home, can’t score even for toffees and their best player, best goal scoring option, Cahill, is a few thousand miles away on international duty. Yet from the off it’s handed to them, through a soft midfield, Jenas waiving at Saha – yes he was drowning, in his own ineptness – it’s infectious as Galls reverts to the defender we last saw some months back, when he wasn’t worth the transfer fee. None of the “none shall pass” blocking we’ve seen of late, instead a casual “it’s only Saha” drop back and let him have a go, he last scored almost a year ago. Two minutes and well three clean sheets on the trot was asking for too much.
Yes this is Spurs and comebacks have been a plenty, they’ve had to be. And while there’s van der Vaart there’s hope. A knock on from Crouch and he goes for the audacious, it nearly comes off. He swings a cross in from the right and Crouch should have done a lot better. Elven minutes and he’s in the right place at the right time, cross from Hutton, nod over from Crouch and there’s the Dutchman to head in his 11th of the season. Then there’s the over head, again close.
But through it all while Modric again had the space and time to run the game the ball was far too often just humped up to Crouch. Weren’t even 50/50 balls, less than 50% chance of Spurs keeping possession.
Added to that the defence was all over the place, especially at left-back. Assou-Ekotto had played a lot better recently but this was one of his “is he really a footballer” nights. A shocking display, which in the first half he was lucky as Coleman was occupied with Bale a bit so didn’t attack as much. hat of course changed in the second when Bale was forced off, in reality he should have probably come off when he was injured, certainly shouldn’t have come out for the second half, too risky. But it showed probably why ‘Arry didn’t make the change until the 58th minute as his replacement, Kranjcar, went missing leaving BAE to be slaughtered by Coleman for the rest of the game.
Though Spurs bossed the latter part of the first half, they really should have taken the lead, why oh why did Crouch get offside, after the interval they weren’t in it, though of course van der Vaart had a couple of decent chances. It was no surprise that Everton came up with a winner through Coleman. BAE on the right of the park and then in the middle, Jenas poncing about on the left, it was all far too easy a finish from the Irish youngster.
Robbie Keane came on a little later to see if he could work some final magic in a Spurs’ shirt – before some move or other in this window, Brum look to be in pole position – but his 10 minutes pretty much summed up his time since returning from one of his boyhood clubs. He replaced Lennon, who will probably get brickbats but the winger had absolutely no service whatsoever all night. If he got the ball the way Bale does we would see the best of him, all the balls humped up the park but none ever knocked over the back-line into space for him to run onto. Wasting a talent here.
On a night when everything went for Spurs – Woolwich scum and Citeh drawing, Chelski losing to Wolves – they blew it themselves with the right team winning on the night.
So in the window, we want one certain player out, a quality striker who isn’t too tall and some reliable fullbacks, not too much to ask for is it?