Happy Travellers

Under the guidance of Tim Sherwood, Spurs appear to be perfecting the art of playing badly and winning. Though perhaps I shouldn't jump the gun as I'm mainly basing this on the last two games. Against Swansea I felt we were once again far from convincing in victory, particularly in the first half when for large periods Swansea appeared in control of the match in terms of territory and possession. Though I did feel that we were slightly more dangerous than them when we counter attacked with pace. The main failing from us in this regard was the final pass, there were numerous occasions when broke quickly after winning the ball back, got into a good position with at least one man over, and then played a poor pass and let Swansea off the hook. Ten minutes from half time, Christian Eriksen alleviated the frustration brought on by the earlier errors by providing a delightful curling cross, which had neither of our two players queuing up to head it in done so, they would have been utterly negligent, thankfully in form Adebayor made no mistake from all of 3 yards out. Moments later it should've been 2-0, but after excellent work by Adebayor down the right, and unselfish play by Eriksen and then Bentaleb, the underwhelming Nacer Chadli lashed wildly over the bar. Had he found the net, the goal would've been reminiscent of Alan Shearer's magnificent second goal against Holland at Euro 96. The goal seemed to relax the Spurs players, and we went on to control much of the second half, albeit with the help of a Chico Flores own goal. The build to which was good play by Spurs, with Michael Dawson slotting a nicely weighted pass inside the opposing full back for Kyle Walker to run on to, and he flashed a dangerous ball across the face of goal, but sadly for Chico, he stuck a boot out and diverted it into his own net when there were no Spurs players in a position to apply the finishing touch themselves. After that we never looked like surrendering the lead and Adebayor slotted home with ease following good work by Danny Rose to make it 6 goals in 8 games for him since Sherwood brought him out of his AVB imposed exile. The late Bony consolation was of no real concern for Spurs as we recorded our fifth straight away win, which is the best run of away form for the club since 1960.

I read an article this morning linking us with a potential move to re-sign Dimitar Berbatov. When taking into account the fact that Defoe will be gone by the end of February, which will leave us with just two strikers, I think this seems like a reasonably good idea. Berbatov is still a class player, he was never reliant on pace, so his advancing years shouldn't be a big problem. And if we fill the positions around him with pacey players like Townsend, Lennon, Eriksen and Adebayor, then we can utilise his skills at holding up the ball and bringing others into play with his good passing range. It feels like the kind of transfer that may work in a similar way to when Redknapp brought Eidur Gudjohnsen to the club in January 2010. An older attacking player with good technique and experience who can come into the side as and when needed and possibly make a difference. Gudjohnsen scored a couple of important goals that year as we qualified for the Champions League for the first and only time to date, along with a run to the FA Cup final, maybe Berbatov can come in and have a similar impact.