Lucas looks back on a season where Tottenham amazingly won just as many trophies as they did last year.
Aspirations of reaching the Champions League via the Premiership and winning the UEFA Cup faded away, but for Tottenham Hotspur, a second consecutive top-five finish has to be considered a good thing. Consolidating their position as the top team outside of the big four, Spurs mixed beautiful attacking football with the type of defense that would make even the French laugh on their way through the year. Here I’m going to look at the best and worst of the season in the form of a list, because quite frankly that’s much easier than writing a “creative†or “well thought out†piece.
Without further adieu:
Good Work:
Dimitar Berbatov- What more can be said about this genius of a footballer? He’s just really, really good. Great touch, great vision, great hold-up play, great finishing. You have to respect a man who can score twenty three goals without ever actually going into a full run. He says he wants to stay, I damn well hope he stays, and if we can add a couple more good players, my word but we could have a fantastic side next year.
Michael Dawson- He’s not creative, he doesn’t look for the clever ball out of defense, but realistically, he won’t be beaten more than once a game. Even in his worst game this season, he was still better than most Premiership defenders, and there is not a single defender who I’ve seen who is definitively better on headers.
Martin Jol, Second Half of the Season- For about four months, it was pretty much hard to watch a Spurs game without shouting at Jol through the television about his choice of formation, his substitutions, or his team selection. But he pulled it together in the end, and I would say that after watching him manage through the injuries to Ledley King, Lee-Young Pyo and such, we could have done much worse. That, to me, is the highest compliment Jol can receive after his brutal first half of the season.
Bad Work:
Martin Jol, First Half of the Season- Just awful. Really. Whether it was inexplicably playing Aaron Lennon on the left, or refusing to play Jermain Defoe at all, I was pretty much ready to punch a whole in the aforementioned television every time he came on screen. If his last couple months were a fluke, I’m going to be begging Jurgen Klinsmann to come our way.
Mido- I really, really do not like him. I know it doesn’t necessarily hurt his play, but I feel like maybe if he showered he might be more respected as an athlete. I’m just saying. Also, when you know you’re going to be on television, maybe don’t, you know, go out drinking the night before. It’s pretty obvious when you’re hung over, you jackass. Good riddance.
Spurs’ Defense- Just as a general idea, with Pascal Chimbonda, Michael Dawson, and Ledley King, we have three parts of a very solid defense. Realistically, we were utterly shambolic at times. Whoever we get at left back this off season should help, but the weak defending has to be better- has to- if we are to make a run at the top four next season.
So, there you go, an entire season of football summed up in six poorly written parts.