Not Waving But Drowning On The South Coast

Desperately trying to avoid getting in any way highbrow here but back in 1972 (just to point out to new fans / ENIC supporters that Spurs won a European trophy that year) a poet called Stevie Smith wrote a very short little ditty called 'Not Waving But Drowning'. It tells the story of a man in the sea, the people on the beach think he's waving from the sea but he's not, he's actually struggling in the water, drowning in fact.

I'm thinking that the current squad, or at least the part of it that's left on the pitch and not in the treatment prison room at the training ground, find themselves metaphorically in a similar position. To someone who's not taking too much notice Spurs are in tenth but they're in the last eight of the league cup and doing OK in Europe. This is despite having half the team unavailable on a regular basis. Even though they've lost six league games, its always by the odd goal. When they win they tend to tonk the opposition, hence a goal difference of +13. Once they get everyone fit, it'll all be OK.

"I know we're in that awful blue kit but please try passing to each other."

Unfortunately when you look a little closer its not quite the case. The performance at Bournemouth on Thursday following on from the disappointing showing against Fulham last time out really rams this point home.

The squad is certainly better in numbers than last season. In the case of Solanke its a marked improvement but the rest of the boosted numbers are with youngsters that are full of what the fans refer to as 'potential' but the board refer to as 'resale value'.  I notice now that some journalists and podcasters who back at the end of August were declaring the transfer window as the best ever are now saying the club didn't bring in enough experience.

Ange of course has made mistakes. The players are making mistake after mistake. Take what turned out to be Bournemouth's winning goal. Dean Huijsen basically walked into the area and headed the cross into the net. By all accounts he was Radu Dragusins man but you'd never have guessed it because he was nowhere near him. It gave Fraser Forster no chance. I was quick to dismiss Fraser but I'm happy to chew on a bit of humble pie and admit since he's been in the team he's saved us from two humiliations.

Fraser makes one of seven saves to keep the score down

Solanke who had clearly not recovered from his bout of illness had already had perhaps Spurs only chance of the first half when he got on the end of a hopeful lob from Maddison and shot over the bar under pressure from the last defender.

In all fairness, Bournemouth have already beaten both Manchester City and Arsenal at the Vitality this season but surely this was the easiest of those victories. As I've already mentioned Forster made quite a few saves, one particularly outstanding one from Tavernier, another close range one from Evanilson after some 'hilarious' pinball involving Odogie and Dragusin. He also stopped a one-on-one from Kluivert after he left Odogie in his dust. Bournemouth had a goal disallowed quite rightly for offside and struck the post in the second half. The nearest Spurs came to an underserved equaliser was a blocked half-volley from substitute Porro. 

Just to add the cherry on the icing on the cake, the man who helps save ENIC a fortune every season (Ben Davies) by coming in during the annual injury crisis to play in just about every position at the back or on the left is now injured himself meaning Ange will now need to find a replacement for one of the out of position replacements. 

Another hamstring gone.

Of course when your team is playing like they've only just been introduced to each other and is ravaged by injury what you really need for your next fixture is a game you always do really well in. Unluckily, we've got Chelsea at home. They're in fine form and after having a couple of windows where they made sure they wouldn't be in the position Spurs are in by basically signing every player in Europe that became available they're looking like they could push for the title. They'll certainly be in the top four chat.

For what its worth, I like to have a go each week at the BBC score predictor on their football website. Its always good to see if you do actually know more than Chris Sutton. This was my stab for Sunday:-

My prediction on the BBC

As you can see, I'm not confident. If everyone was available (lol) then maybe we could give them a game but unfortunately I can't see anything but another disaster. Attention will then turn to Levy again and we all know how that works out. I hope for Ange's sake the team surprise me on Sunday.