Old vs New & The Creative Sparkle

[Rackybear]

Ive seen a fair few signatures compare the goalscoring records of Berbatov and Keane against our new set of strikers Pav, Bent and Campbell.

Its true, Pav, Bent and Campbell have scored more goals then the gruesome twosome that left the club in the summer.

Its also true we have lost creative spark since the departure of the two strikers, something which has increased the burden on our midfield to create goalscoring oppurtunites for the frontmen - a part of our game which continues to evade us.

Berbatov and Keane have both been heavily criticized by their own set of fans since their moves to Liverpool and United, something which I believe has somewhat over shadowed their true contribution. I just want to take a look at the pairs stats - which shows exactly why they meant so much to us in terms of creative influence.

Our current strikeforce have mustered a measly two assists the whole season:-

Pav - 0
Bent - 1 (vs Liverpool)
Campbell - 1 (vs Wisla Krakow)

Berbatov has mustered 8 in total - making him the highest assister in the EPL at the present time.

Keane has a total of 5 assists - 4 coming in the league, with 1 in the CL.

I think these stats are important regarding our need for players in the Jan window. We do need some solidity in the middle of the park, and we do perhaps need a left winger. But my priority would remain to get some creative sparkle behind the strikers. Modric enough is not alone, and to have a succesfull team which can replace the contributions of these talliesman we need other players who are on the same wavelength as the croat.

I think the major problem vs wigan was, we lacked any cutting edge and idea's the minute we had the ball in midfield. Modric was the only player in our team that had any hope of creating an opening for Pav or Defoe, but when you have 3 seemingly defensive midfielders behind him in King, O'hara and Zokora - the game is going to swing him by, as he will get outmarked by 1 if not 2 players.

Its clear Modric is our danger man, the one that will make things happen, and its not until we get another - that we can really worry teams by having them focus attention on various players to leave gaping holes open for the likes of JJ, Lennon & Bentley to show us what they are about.

 

[hughy]

Doesn't Malbranque have something like 8 assists, too? That's at least 21 assists from players we sold in the summer! :lol:

 

[Rackybear]

Good point hughy and very true.

Given that most of our defeats are down to losing by the odd goal, those assists are invaluable to us really. The difference between being 18th and perhaps 5th / 6th. Especially when you take into account our 0-0 draws and no goal shows.

 

[ohh_when_the_spurs]

we had a good side but season by season players get sold and we suffer for it!

we are actually shite now......levy should ask himself if the 50 million we received for keane and berbs was enough to pay for relegation!

harry hasnt got a clue, ramos didnt have a clue, you dont have a clue, i dont have a clue how to stop the rot!

are team was reliant* on keane and berbs or before that carrick to provide us with a creative spark. we have 3 strikers who can score goals but not create them....defoe may have been a mistake

 

[gibbs131]

I thought it was clear Modric was brought in to be our creative link and so far has failed to create anything that reflects his transfer fee.

People have been mentioning that Modric isn't getting enough service. HE IS the service!

 

[karennina]

I thought it was clear Modric was brought in to be our creative link and so far has failed to create anything that reflects his transfer fee.

People have been mentioning that Modric isn't getting enough service. HE IS the service!

:up: exactly. His role actually is to create something out of nothing.

 

[General Levy]

I thought it was clear Modric was brought in to be our creative link and so far has failed to create anything that reflects his transfer fee.

People have been mentioning that Modric isn't getting enough service. HE IS the service!

Spot on.

He needs to get on the weights in the summer.

 

[spurs mental]

Berba was always one of the top assisters in the Prem. Hence Keanes amount of goals when he came and they started to click. Think he had about 10/15 last season as well.

 

[AngerManagement]

I thought it was clear Modric was brought in to be our creative link and so far has failed to create anything that reflects his transfer fee.

People have been mentioning that Modric isn't getting enough service. HE IS the service!

I think both Modric and Bentley were meant to be making hatfulls of assists by now. The fact that they aren't and our strikers can not create their own chances is probably the biggest factor that puts us in our current postion.

The lack of clear cut chances we create is alarming, we all too often seem to resort to shooting from distance or creating only half chances and low percentage opportunities to score.

Also it seems that many of the goals we actually do score in the league come from sloppyness in the other team rather then our own talent and creative play.

We also lose the battle in the centre of the park more often then not, and the old saying 'you have to earn the right to play' may also ring true with of current team.

Confidence is a major factor also, I think if we can get a win or two in the league we could once again go on a bit of a streak... let us hope the ball starts rolling against Pompey now (yep I said that against West Brom and Wigan too, but this damn ball has to start rolling soon)

 

[senseispab]

The rot has set in. It may be terminal, alas

EDIT: BTW whose dick do I need to suck to get let back in the transfer rumors forum?

 

[Rackybear]

I thought it was clear Modric was brought in to be our creative link and so far has failed to create anything that reflects his transfer fee.

People have been mentioning that Modric isn't getting enough service. HE IS the service!

:up: exactly. His role actually is to create something out of nothing.

Spot on.

He needs to get on the weights in the summer.

I think many of you might have missed the point in suggesting Modric being our sole creator, and expecting him to take the ball and always do something with it.

Like I pointed out, not only have we lost 50 goals a season from the Berb / Keane partnership, we have lost out on up to 20 assists between them, take into account hughy's point that Malbranque has contributed 7 assists to Sunderland and you can see that the burden was never on just one player last season.

We had fluid football with up to 3 players who were on the same wavelength as each other.

At the moment we have Modric and no-one else of his ability to complement his skills / awareness and ability. If we can get 1, maybe two more players on his level, then you will see a different spurs and a different Modric.

Like I said, when you have one stand out player in your team - its easy for the opposition to pick him out as the key threat. If you stop Modric, you stop Tottenham. Simple as that.

Effectively, by having players of similar class to Modric on the pitch, you take away the focus from him, and it will free him up to have more of an influence and vice versa for the other players.

The rot has set in. It may be terminal, alas

EDIT: BTW whose dick do I need to suck to get let back in the transfer rumors forum?

DO NOT

Question the signing of Arshavin.
Suggest Zokora should stay at spurs when he gets linked to another club.
Suggest Jenas should stay at spurs when he gets linked to another club.

These trigger angry responses. If you follow those guidelines, you're good to go :razz:

 

[joey55]

Modirc hasn't got a single assist in the Prem yet. But it could be argued that this is becasue of poor finishing, but he's also only created 21 chances. JJ has made 27 chances as has the Hudd (in far less playing time). Obviously stats don't tell the whole story, but it is a worry that the final ball that leads to an attempt on goal has only come from Modric 21 times. Lampard has played the final ball leading a a chance 61 times! Fabregas has been out for a while and he's done it 47 times. And it can't just be down to poor movement from our front players.

 

[senseispab]

DO NOT

Question the signing of Arshavin.
Suggest Zokora should stay at spurs when he gets linked to another club.
Suggest Jenas should stay at spurs when he gets linked to another club.

These trigger angry responses. If you follow those guidelines, you're good to go :razz:

I definitely broke the first rule

 

[stemark44]

I thought it was clear Modric was brought in to be our creative link and so far has failed to create anything that reflects his transfer fee.

People have been mentioning that Modric isn't getting enough service. HE IS the service!

I have been soooooooo disappointed in this guy all season,he really needs to step up his game because at the minute he really doesn't merit a starting position in the team.

 

[guy]

yep those signatures are ridiculous, making out that bent is a more effective player, and that we are better off without berba and keane.

utter rubbish!

I agree that we need another player (ARSHAVIN) on the left to take some heat off lennon and modric, allowing more space for everyone to attack

 

[SpurSince57]

He's as effective a finisher. I don't believe anyone's suggested he's in the same class as a footballer, or as a creator of opportunities.

We had a thread before the season really got under way (just after the close of the window, as I recall) in which it was discussed how we'd cope without Keane and the Bulgarian. Bent and Pav would each have to get 10-15 goals, Campbell would have to chip in with half-a-dozen or so, and midfield and defence make up for as much of the shortfall as possible. The creativity would come from the midfield, particularly the new signings. And the defence would be considerably more solid, making it unnecessary to score 60 goals just to get a mid-table place.

Well, that was the theory. Bent's done his share, popping in 50% of his target at a very respectable conversion rate. If the defence has not been as solid as we might have wished, it's certainly improved on last season, when we'd conceded 40 at this stage (in 2006-2007 we'd let in 31). As for everything else…

Pav's still got to click, Campbell's been a disappointment, running around like an eager-to-please Jack Russell but not a great deal else, but, above all else, midfielders and defenders have scored just eight league goals so far, against eighteen last season.

It's also worth pointing out, perhaps, that of last season's 66 goals, 37 came in just nine games—barring the two freak ones against Villa and Chelsea, all in turkey-shoots against teams in even bigger trouble than we were. For the rest of the season we averaged precisely a goal a game.