SPURS: IT'S EARLY DOORS

I know it's preseason and the players aren't a) fit and b) bothered about winning - but early indications from the 180 minutes of football I've sat through recently are that Spurs are set to carry on from where they left off. Periods of attractive interplay and hardon enducing runs by Gareth Bale are swiftly followed by extended spells of me shouting abuse at my TV.

Observations currently include:

• Players with the ball continue to look up and not see anyone in a white shirt within 30 feet of them with alarming frequency. When we are playing well we get this right.
  
• We look decidedly average without Bale, Modric and VDV - *gasps*!
• Kyle Walker must surely be our first choice right back by Christmas, probably sooner
• Brad Friedel can only have been signed for his coaching skills
  
• VDV can indeed take a free kick that doesn't hit the wall

Quite a few players are getting a run out, which is good for taking a look at the squad as a whole. Let's face it, we don't have the pulling power of Real Madrid, nor the money of Man City, so for me Bentley, Kranners and even Jenas still make decent enough squad players. Rose looks a capable understudy at left-back and Lennon is his usual overrated self. But you can't deny that it's our strikers that continue to worry - everybody except the opposition goalkeeper that is.

Now I used to despise Adebayor, but I'll tell you what, if we get the chance to ship Crouch out and him in I'd be biting someones arm off for it. Defoe, for all his busy breaks down the channels, still seems incapable of getting on to the end of one of those glorious low Bale crosses and Pav... Oh dear God he is so frustrating! Four out of every five shots are miles off target, he lacks pace, he lacks the vision to put other people in and he loses possession - a LOT. I want to believe in him so much it hurts, but the truth is, no matter how hard you try, you just can't polish a turd.

That said I expect us to keep the Russian, and as outlined in this post his ratio is ok (if you class 1 in 3 as ok) - even if acheiving it is going to drive me round the bend, but if he still constitutes the best of a bad bunch by the end of next month then hopes may start fading a little.

One thing that is worth talking about though is old Bobby Keane. I have to say it, I think the man looks sharp. Not stick-it-in-the-onion-bag sharp, but his build-up play in and around the box is looking good. He's keeping possession when under pressure and looks the most inventive of all but VDV. Unlike the other 3 plonkers, he actually looks dangerous (well, sort of).

Is there a way back for the Irishman? You know what, don't rule it out. Keane and Adebayor up front could well be a very good partnership for occasions when we revert to 4-4-2. If he can get back to his best and produce one more season I'd be delighted. We have plenty of European games for him to prove himself in.

There's me already talking like we've signed "Big Ade" though, and we're clearly a long long way from that. I can't see us doing much at all in terms of bringing people in. Average players are going for silly money, we can't offer CL footy and too many rich clubs are scrambling for too few top quality strikers. Anyway, if you assume that Harry will be off to the vacant England job next summer, maybe Levy is right to hold back this year so he can offer our new man a massive "war chest".

Remember, these are (mostly) the players who got us into the Champions League, and these are the players who would have done it last year too if it wasn't for throwing away silly points against poxy teams. I think I'm prepared to downgrade my transfer hopes, I just don't feel like this is a good window for us to do business.

If we can swap the Beanpole for Adebayor I'll be happy. Well, happier than if I'm forced to watch Pav blast them into row Z for 9 months at any rate.

STRIKING STATS: Current vs Targets

In all this clamour for a new striker, has anyone stopped to actually think about this, or have the "18 goals between them" statement clouded our rational thinking? Here I aim to explore the stats and draw some conclusions. If that sort of thing doesn't float your boat then look away now...

So let's just talk about the league as it's less complicated, and arguably more important. I've just taken a look at Crouch, Pav and Defoe's stats for 2011 vs 2010 season ends and what it shows is that Defoe's goals were the most sorely missed:

Player	goals/apps 2010	goals/apps 2011
JD	18/34	4/22
Beanpole	8/38	4/29
Pav	5/16	10/29

So, bearing in mind that Defoe was injured for a good chunk of the season, and then struggled with form, and that I think a fair few of these appearances would have been from the bench, can we forgive him? All 3 have had to adapt to a new system with the introduction of Rafa, but Crouchie's 4 in 29 is not far short of laughable! Pav seems fairly consistent at 1 in 3 - do we underrate him?

In contrast do we overrate Defoe? The problem with JD is that if you look at his earlier Spurs career as well you see he's only ever gotten himself into double figures in the league 3 times (04-05 with 13 and 10 in 06-07). Even if you factor in some squad rotation, you have to say that's poor.

What's worse is that Beanpole has only ever managed it twice - once for Liverpool and once for Portsmouth. 1 in 6 last year has actually shocked me a bit. I guess he had a fair few assists, but for me he has to be the first name out of the door. That is simply not good enough. Not to mention the negative affect his inclusion often has on our play (No Daws, please do NOT lump it up to Crouch!).

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect all your forwards to hit double figures. Just for completeness, Rafa managed 13 in 28 in his debut season. Robbie Keane managed double figures every year since 2003, right up until his "dream move" to Liverpool and Berba managed it both years he was with us.

So here's the number of league goals a few of our targets have managed over the last few years (goals/apps, again - league only):

Player	2011	2010	2009	2008
Gyan*	10/31	n/a	n/a	n/a
Rossi	18/36	10/34	12/30	11/27
Adebayor	6/22	14/26	10/27	24/36
Vucinic	10/28	14/33	11/27	9/33
Llorente	18/38	14/37	14/34	11/35
Falcao	16/22	25/28	13/32	11/27

* Wikipedia doesn't know more than this

I guess I'd better ramble towards a conclusion here...

I think what I'm saying is that double figures has to be the minimum requirement. Crouch and Defoe have proved time and time again that they are just not up to the task. Defoe had a great season 2009/2010 and we all hoped he'd push on from there. He didn't. Crouch has failed miserably to hit this target throughout his career. These 2 BOTH have to go.

As much as I'd like Falcao and Rossi, it's pie in the sky. So if you look at Gyan and Adebayor as the most plausible like-for-like replacements from the above list of candidates, then you have to say maybe they wouldn't be so bad - something I never thought I'd say about Ade in particular (I am a self confessed fan of Gyan though) - with the added bonus that I think both seem capable of mastering the one-up-front role that we are almost certain to persevere with.

I'm all for loyalty, and it pains me to advocate the ditching of loyal, if not overly accomplished servants, but, as Mr Levy will hopefully prove, football management has to be about keeping your best and ditching the rest. So with time running out and nobody "realistic" coming through on the ITK grapevine, it's time to start thinking about settling. With every passing day we get more and more likely to end up sticking with what we have.

If that ends up meaning Adebayor and Gyan you might be underwhelmed. I hope I've proved that if nothing else, they'd be an improvement on what we have right now.

LEVY vs MODRIC: A MEXICAN STAND OFF

Oh dear Luka, what have you done!

We fans have short fuses and long memories, and these most recent set of degrading kiss and tells for me represent the point of no return - the "Berbatov moment" if you will. Luka has been given the benefit of the doubt by his loyal admirers: "agent manipulation", "bad advisers", "head turned", "he's confused" are all phrases trotted out from the usual outlets recently. But it's time to wake up and smell the coffee. The boy means business and obviously thinks he can win.

If you ask me we need to treat Modric like a child having a tantrum in the supermarket - ignore him. Make him realise that no matter how he behaves he's still coming home with us, and that if he's a good boy, shuts his mouth and apologises, he might get a lolly in the car on the way home.

He's already lost the respect of the fans, how much longer before we're actively resenting him? Do you see an apology on the horizon come September the 1st? Do you see the Chairman backing down? Each outcome looks as unlikely as the other, so you have to wonder where this is going. What is the end game?

Someone has to blink, and if Daniel Levy has the stomach for a fight this time round then it's going to have to be Modric. I just don't think he's realised that yet. Any more outbursts and even a grovelling apology isn't going to wash, this dumbass is backing himself into a corner that he's going to find it increasingly difficult to escape from. At what point does he break and think to himself "I've really fucked this up"?

If the league kicked off this weekend would he play - could he play? There'd be booing - surely there'd be booing. How can there be any way back into our affections for him? Perhaps he and his "advisers" need to actually consider the very real possibility that he genuinely isn't going anywhere - and think about the consequences of that. Luka may be playing the textbook trouble making card, but even he can't be that stupid that he'd risk making his Spurs career irretreivable.

I wouldn't threaten him with a year on the bench, I'd threaten him with 5 years on the bench. See how many players want to risk missing the best years of their career because they think their contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on - then see how many other employees slag us off to get their own move in the future. In reality though it won't come to that, the boy loves to play too much. He'd get 10 games in and crumble. This isn't Winston Bogarde we're talking about here.

Anyway Luka, you want to move on to an established CL team, that's understandable, you want £120k a week, also understandable - but why didn't you think of that a year ago? Too late to go crying to the press about it now. You've made your bed, now frigging well lie in it. We HAVE to prove we won't be pushed about otherwise Bale will be at it next year, as will every other world class player we ever stumble upon.

If I was the Chairman (and maybe I would be if I'd won the EuroMillions the other night :-) ) I'd be down the the lodge today for another meeting. The result would be a "what part of not for sale do you not understand" lecture followed by a fine of 2 week's wages. Then, when the penny eventually drops, I'd craft a carefully worded apologetic statement from the player and publish it on the club website. Of course, we'll still know it's bollocks, but the pretence of reconcilliation will at least mean he could play again.

If Daniel Levy genuinely isn't backing down, this has to be the ONLY way it can end with a modicum of pride intact on all sides. Modric must be made to realise that he's damaging himself - not irreparably yet, but it's getting damn close.