Daws biggest problem as captain imo, is he cannot read a game of football, he reacts to last ditch situations, but can't see it coming 10 seconds earlier to position himself or others via shouting. He doesn't organise his own protection from our deep mids it seems, gaps everywhere when Sandro isn't playing. Sandro for me is our biggest miss when he's out, his tenacity is infectious and lifts the team, the others do not.
Dawson is just not good enough, full stop! What's even more worrying is that players like Paulinho, Vertonghen are starting to get that, "what the **** am I doing here, this isn't what I was promised when I signed" look about them....
Thats exactly what I saw yesterday. Its been on JV's face for some time, he seems no happier at CB since handing in a TR for being played at LB......whatever happened to Player of the Month!
That's what I referred to yesterday about Verts, when he was cocking things up himself, but still finding time to slag off his teammates - and the ref! Didn't look like a guy planning an extended career at WHL....
I think the problem we're facing now is that Sherwood is being exposed for what he is. A very inexperienced and young coach who is getting found out. Earlier results were good because of the 'change' - let's impress the boss. He also stuck the right players in their preferred positions, using a simple 4-4-2 system and that got the players motivated. However, in more recent games, Sherwood knew that formation wouldn't work week in, week out and is trying new systems that are negating that positive, free flowing system due to the fear of leaking a hat-full of goals after the Man City humiliation. Sherwood clearly doesn't understand these newer modern day systems and has struggled to get any positives from using them. We're no better at the back because of the change and we're worse going forward. The player's body language tells that story. I do wonder what Sherwood tells the players leading up to games and more particularly, on match days to get them ready for our next opponents as we've been so sluggish in the first half of pretty much every game we've played under him that I would like to know if he actually does any homework on our opponents or gives the players any direction. Has anyone actually seen Sherwood in the stands at a games with an upcoming team? I haven't so is he relying on a scouting team or worse, Les Ferdinand or Steffen Freund to give him their insight? I hope not!
We seem to have no plan in place. To me all season it has seemed like we have individuals rather than a team and being honest they aren't great individuals.
I have to give credit to Danny Rose, it's amazing how this guy has managed to convince one manager that he was better than Ekotto thus leading Ekotto to be loaned out and then the other manager to continue playing him and not taking up the opportunity to recall Ekotto. Rose is fast becoming the worst full back I've seen at Spurs, if it weren't for his Arsenal strike, he'd be level with Giberto. If we don't get a new LB in the summer then someone needs shooting. Dreadful, dreadful player. Is Zeki Fryers really that **** or is he just extremely unlucky not to be selected?
In a nutshell, if we seriously want to be CL contenders, the players like Naughton, Dawson, Rose, Bentaleb, and probably one or two others, are simply not up to required standard.
The problem with Rose is not that he has been more crap than any of our other crap players but that seemingly we have outcast a decent left back to the championship and deemed Rose good enough to fill the gap. Does anyone still believe Rose is as good as Ekotto? Yes Ekotto had lapses once every 2-3 games but that is SO much better than having lapses 2-3 times per game like Rose. I'm sick of seeing him busting a gut to get back as the oppo right wing streaks menacingly towards our goal while thinking "the best we're gonna get out this situation is conceding a free-kick within shooting distance"
Ekotto had the odd lapse but for the most part he was defensively sound and contributed to attacks fairly decently. Our best LB in years. Rose can't defend for **** and for a former winger-turned-left back, he can't cross or attack for ****. Can't believe I even once thought Rose may have had the potential to become better than Ekotto, he'll never reach Benny's level.
