In my opinion we need upgrades in both wingback positions as neither of our first choices have any consistency to the quality of their passing or crossing. I will concede Rose has improved but still lacks the essential ability to know when to cross and when to shoot. Walker is a hopeless case and will always cause us problems with his basic lack of nouse.

However, this summer I think we need to concentrate on bringing in more intelligence to theside, eespecially in the midfield and attacking areas.

If you look at it from a different perspective, we're actually in a weird 'win/win' scenario.

Win the next two games and we're back in with a genuine shout of 4th. Lose them and there'll be a strong possibility we'll miss out on the Europa League. Both equally acceptable in their own right

english clubs might wanna start taking europa seriously(spurs do actually to be fair) as you may have to fight for 3rd place soon enough.

I think the wide areas definitely need to be addressed as a priority, especially further forward. Walker and Rose are both erratic as hell, but not completely without the talent required for their position, so I think their liabilities can be minimised somewhat with focused coaching. Walker in particular repeatedly fails at the basics. IMO this can be corrected, but it first needs to be recognised.

this team can easily be transformed with just 2 or 3 smart signings, but I just know we're going to completely Spurs it up this summer. our two biggest problems are an almost complete lack of creativity at times, and our terrible defending as a team. the latter can definitely be fixed with the personnel we already have, IMO it's the former that needs addressing in the transfer market. we need two wide forwards with pace, intelligence and creativity and another striker. we can always get "better" defenders, but it won't make the slightest bit of difference if the team still defends like a pub side. that will only improve on the training ground.

Nice to stop the mini-rot, and to do so comfortably. It's funny. When we don't win these "easy" games some moan, and when we do, they dismiss it becaue it's an "easy" game that we should win anyway. No game is a given, and Newcastle are not a bad team, they are just in a downward spiral that they can't get out of. You can only beat what's in front of you, and on the whole, we played well. Annoying that the lino stuffed up and cost us another a clean sheet though.

We look so much better and more comfortable at the back with Fazio there, and Jan is miles better with him alongside him. I hope we stick with them, I still don't understand why we changed things in the first place?!

Reading some of the comments, I don't think Rose is getting enough credit for how much he has improved, and for how well he is playing.

Poor Danny Rose. I suppose I'm not really a fan but he deserves a little cover and help sometimes

If we learned anything from the past month it's we can't afford injuries - takes so little for the wheels to fall off.

This made me laugh. According to Ladbrokes, Timmy Tactics is looking to bring in the hatstand on loan next season.

Read the paragraph carefully though


http://news.ladbrokes.com/football/f...e_232123.html?

Out of London - you've got to be joking! I sense another family crisis back in Togo.

I hear Ade feels that he is still capable of doing a job at the very highest level. Consequently his agent is only talking with Chelsea, Barca and Madrid!

Don't know how accurate this is, but this claims to be all the possible permutations for european qualification if (and likely when..) we finish outside the top 4.


No mention of 7th and Ars*nal winning the FA Cup, but I suspect it'll mean we'd join in the qualifying stages again, but maybe 1st or 2nd stage. I suppose if we're going to qualify for it either way, the ideal scenario would be to go straight in to the group stages and not have the season start in July.

I think you are right in that Kane aside, Rose is probably the only other of our players where there has been a noticeable improvement from last season.

Yes Rose has improved alot based on last season but the facts are that despite getting himself in some very good attacking positions his success rate at putting dangerous crosses into the box is very low. He is also still slow at getting back when attacks break down.

If we are to keep him then he needs to keep showing improvement especially in these aspects of his game.

Using goals conceeded and clean sheets our defence is rated 15th in the league according to Statto. Whilst our attack is rated as 5th with Kane's goals bumping us up.

Walker basically confirmed as out for the rest of the season. Still no news on Hugo though.

http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news...update-210415/

Well I suppose it was bound to start sooner or later ..


http://www.theguardian.com/football/...mpions-league?

.. and yet just last month, it was reported that he was happy in london because his family are settled here and had indicated he wanted to stay.


http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/footba...n-hugo-5307079

London is by population the 6th biggest French city so I’m sure Lloris’ wife feels right at home!

Stories appearing now on our planned end of season clear out with the obvious candidates listed. That is if we are willing to sell at a reasonable price. Hatstand, Soldado and Kaboul I think will present a challenge to offload whilst Chiriches, Dembele, Paulinho and Capoue I’m sure will be attractive to a few clubs home and abroad. It wouldn’t surprise me if Sherwood is interested in taking a couple of players off of our hands.

Incoming Poch’s priority is a wide striker, centre midfield and a centre back which sounds familiar to the beginning of this season. We also need to increase our home grown quota which wasn’t mentioned.

It'll certainly be an interesting summer, that's for sure. I know we're supposed to have also brought in someone to oversee the financial side of transfers as well so it'll be interesting to see if her authority extends to being able to incoming bids and player valuations or if Levy still retains final say.

If it's the latter then I imagine the process of shipping out the deadwood is going to be as long and drawn out as you'd expect.

Early kick-off tomorrow at 12:45pm down on the South coast. Dare I hope for a decent result?

it's going to be interesting for sure. we beat them early on when they were in the middle of their great run of form, but now when it arguably matters more, both clubs aren't in the best form.

a loss would pretty much put the final, inescapable nail in the coffin for any hope of 4th position - it's probably half-banged in as it is

we'd still need to beat city next weekend either way, which isn't all that likely, but a win tomorrow could give us a bit of momentum - especially if Villa can take points off them.

if this is true, could be rather humiliating for the hatstand ..


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/foo...-transfer.html

I guess our prime aim is to get Ade off of the wage bill. At 31 years old, he is not so attractive as a proposition especially with his wage demands.

Agreed. I'd probably be surprised if we did let him go on a free I suppose, because i'd half expect Levy to hold out for something rather than nothing.

That said, as far as I understand it, City are actually still subsidising part of his wages, but that comes to an end at the end of this season, so I suppose it would come down to how much it would cost to keep him at the club as opposed to paying him off to leave so it could rather bizarrely be the cheaper option to release him.

Team is in ..

Lloris (c), Dier, Fazio, Vertonghen, Davies; Bentaleb, Mason; Chadli, Eriksen, Lamela; Kane

Subs: Vorm, Chiriches, Yedlin, Dembele, Stambouli, Townsend, Soldado

Not much of a change from last week i suppose, but you'd have expected Rose to start at least.

Definitely a case of 'here goes nothing' i suppose ..

The bench today just shows how few attacking options we have. If we need to chase the game we have two largely impotent forwards on the bench.

Rose has a hamstring problem. I'm surprised Lamela starts again, let's hope he gets going from the off unlike last week. A least with Dier and Davies in the full back positions, we will be more defensive minded on the flanks. Good to see Lloris back at last.

Apparently Rose has a hamstring problem and Paulinho's wife is due to give birth.