If you look below any comment there are a series of icons. The one that looks like a star allows you to rate a comment or article, either positively or negatively. If you want to find out who's given you rep, then go to Control Panel at the top of the page and it will tell you the last 5 bits of rep that you got.
If he goes the latter, our season is over, and he'll be donning the curly ginger wig, baggy trousers, and size 28 shoes that I had hoped he had shed when he started playing the game that we Spurs all know and have loved since we first began supporting this team.
No, in short. It's because none of us play two up front anymore, its mostly 433 and 4231. Having more than two proper strikers is a luxury only Mancs can afford.
City have Tevez, Aguero, Dzeko, just sold Ballotelli and have high-scoring midfielders in Silva, Nasri, even Milner. Utd have Rooney, RVP, Wellbeck, Hernandez as well as midfielders like Young, Nani, Valencia who know where the net is. Chelsea have only Ba and Torres now but a midfield full of goals in Mata, Hazard, Lampard, Oscar etc Arsenal have Giroud, Podolski, Walcott and Santi Cazorla, Arteta scoring from midfield (and Rosicky and Arshavin?! Are they still there? What?) Liverpool have Suarez, Sturridge, Borini as well as goals likely from Gerrard, Sterling Everton have Jelavic, Anichebe, Naismith, Mirallas and Fellaini and Pienaar who you can rely on for a good few goals (and Fellaini can even be an emergency striker). Villa, Fulham, Newcastle (first three clubs I looked at) all have plenty of options up top too. Spurs have Defoe and Ade (thought he latter was away during the transfer window and the former had a knock). At a (very unwelcome) push Dempsey can play up top. And from midfield we only have Bale (and Dempsey) who you can rely on for goals. Maybe Holtby too. I think Spurs are particularly light up front compared to other teams. Certainly the worst options that we've had for some years at the club. Probably only comparable to the window we signed Rasiak. Who the hell did we have then that made his signing necessary? Man for man all the other teams seem to have more attacking players. Let's just hope that our lack of numbers is made up for by the fact that we have the best one - Bale. Not felt like we were this much of a one-man team for quite a while. Attack-wise at least.
Lenny, I agree with your comments as I share the same views about our lack of strikers and the draining attempt to try and purchase this brazil international ( i forgot his name...actually I'm blocking his name out) Yet looking at that list, i also looked at this table today on stats for the league and we have failed to score in 3 games this season, only Man utd have a better record (2 games) and everton are also on 3 games, so regardless of our lack of options, we tend to always find the back of the net. Also, Arsenal with all their attack options, have failed to score in 6 games, yet recently they have been in some high scoring games yet also conceding a fair amount of goals. So as long as Adebayor comes into form and stays fit then we should be ok, and there is no guarantee signing a striker in January, that he would settle or score goals, QPR spent big and their striker (remy) is now injured and possibly out for the season. ......Yet if Bale gets injured then I'll become negative again!
You're being incredibly harsh on Spurs here. I'd say all the top 6/7 clubs have 4 players who are capable of 10+ goals a season, ourselves included. People like Arteta and Cazorla, Borini(!) and Sterling, Anichebe and Naismith, score fairly sporadically, do not really deserve to be included as genuine, regular goal threats. Nani and Valencia have been woeful this season...
I like a lot of what you write lenny and i can see the point you try to make here, but can't help think like WY, that some of your player choices are a little...odd shall we say! without even checking Sterling has scored 2 goals, his finishing is worse than Downing! if you take Luis Suarez's goals away, they're in the bottom 3. We run with 2 as Chelsea seem to have, but the important thing there is the goals from other players which differ with ourselves. Dembele is no Lampard, Lennon is no Hazard, and Demps is no Mata in the goalscoring stakes. Holtby isn't a goalscorer yet I don't think, if he can add it to his game it'll be more than welcome.
This season we haven't really been overly dependant on 1 player for goals in the league. Fellaini has 10, Jelavic has 6, Anichebe and Baines both have 5 and Pienaar has 4. We only usually let in 1 goal at most too.
Hmm. Well maybe I was being a bit swayed by the year I had Arteta in my fantasy team and he got me a load of points! He's more prolific than Lennon, say, but not exactly a Lampard or Fabregas. Cazorla, however, has 8 goals in 23 league appearances! Borini - alright I was being a tiny bit cheeky there. But I never said that other team's striking options were good. I just said they existed. And Borini was 10m. At that price he's got to be considered a viable choice for the first team, hasn't he? (In a away that Obika, say, is not). Sterling - fair enough. Bad example. Anichebe's got 5 in 14 league appearances. Really decent back-up. Naismith: Well again I point to fact that all I was listing was proper first team options for strikers. I never said they weren't **** options. I think that point applies to Nani. He's a proven goal-scoring midfielder in a way that Parker, Sandro, Lennon, Dembele are not. And Valencia?! Wow - I was just very wrong with that one. Hold my hands up there. Scored 7, 6, 3, 0 in his four seasons so far at Man Utd and only 3 in each of his two seasons at Wigan. Still better than Lennon, mind. To be honest, though, I was a little surprised at how lightweight other teams looked up top too. Though saying that I'm only really talking about Liverpool (and "they need more options up front" has been the most obvious thing to say about them all season) and Arsenal (though they still have three strikers their midfield hasn't as many goals in it as past seasons). Chelsea's only having two is hugely tempered by the incredible wealth of goalscorers in midfield. Even after being a bit wrong about a couple of things and being surprised how thin other teams are up top too I still think Spurs are in one of the worse positions in the league when it comes to sheer number of attacking personnel. Just to add a note of optimism I do seriously think that if Adebayor can sort himself out he is one of the best strikers in the league and he's barely played for us this season. It's not all doom and gloom. Quite.
If Bale get's injured we're basically quite ****ed I think it's safe to say. In fact if Bale get's injured Mark Fowler'll turn negative.
I do agree with Lenny's points RE not enough strength in depth for the goals department compared to our competition. Defoe had a great start to the season but has fizzled out lately and the injury was very unwelcome. Ade has not been the same as last season but you can appreciate that A) He had no real pre-season as City made him train with the youths B) He's had a few injuries C) Due to Defoe's form he's started a few games from the bench which doesn't help him much fitness wise, so hopefully now he's had a run of games with Togo and is returning at an ideal time for us, maybe the pressure of being the main man upfront again will bring his apetite back and we'll start to see the best of him again. Dempsey does seem to pop up with some match winning goals but as a striker he's out of place and we've relied on Bale to score some worldy's lately as teams have been very strong defensively. Sigurdsson, although has been disappointing CAN find the net but he hasn't had enough time on the pitch recently. It was obvious to about 99% of Spurs fans that a new striker was needed, why we (AGAIN) left it til the last day to try and do business I'll never know but there's no point talking about "what ifs". With what we currently have we have to make do with, Holtby has added a nice creative spark so here's hoping he'll start chipping in with some assists and we need to pray Ade really does find his form again. Seeing as we've recalled Kane, I think it'll be silly to approach a match day again (like West Brom) with no recognised striker on the bench as an option, regardless of how experienced they are we need to have the option of calling upon a striker in my opinion if we're chasing a game/ in need of a goal.
And Kane scored a 22 yard strike yesterday for the under 21's. Obika also scored. They should both be on the bench!
we only need one on the bench as we can bring on a M/F and move Holtby up along side Ade or whoever,seeing as Holtby can play that role
Can't wait for ade to get injured so we can have our secret weapon, the dynamic duo up front. ObiKane.
You could say if Suarez gets injured, liverpool are ****ed. Man Utd would have been ****ed if RVP was injured. Chelsea would have ****ed if Mata is injured. We could look at most teams and suggest they would be in a tricky position if one player gets injured as while these teams have other options, they still need that one player to be their main focal point of attack. Man Utd for all their options, are only in such a great position because of RVP, without him it would be neck and neck with City and their own goal is to win the title, so 2nd is a faulure. Out of the top teams, I would say only Man City can handle an attacker getting injured, as they don't rely on one player and switched between aguero and tevez at times. Also you could say we have been playing with one striker all season, in Defoe, as Adebayor hasn't been around, so now its switch to Adebayor and Defoe should be back 2-3 weeks, so we should be fine.
