3 Points Away, Another Clean Sheet And Outfield Signings? Tel Me Another....

I suppose its in keeping with the way this season is going that the team that has lost at home to both Ipswich Town and more recently Leicester City should go with a still depleted side to Brentford (the side who've scored the most home goals) and come away with all three points and a clean sheet.

Of course the general narrative is that our defence is rubbish. They have kept more clean sheets than both Aston Villa and Chelsea this season but we won't let little things like that get in the way of a good narrative. Lets hope they improve when more than 20% of them are available at the same time.

Anyway, in my opinion Brentford are in possession of one of the best front three's in the league in Wissa, Mbeumo and Schade. All three are pacy, intelligent and interchangable in attack so looking after them is always going to be testing. The fact is Spurs did this despite the additional loss of Radu Dragusin who was injured in the win over Elsborg . Its subsequently been revealed he has an ACL injury and will miss the rest of the season.   

At the heart of this was the often maligned Ben Davies who led the defence in what if he was the teams captain would have been called 'a captains performance'. Alongside him again in the centre was Archie Gray. I'm finding it very difficult to find the words to describe this young man. Whatever you think of the Premier League with regard to its set-up and obvious problems on and off the pitch you cannot deny its place as the hardest league to compete in in World Football. The fact that he continues to excel in his first year at this level in a position he'd never played in before is nothing short of remarkable. I prey that eventually he costs Spurs the full £40m because that will mean the team has been sucessful. If its possible for a footballer that cost that much money to look a bargain I think Gray will. 

While Davies and Gray were fantastic, the POTM awarded by the broadcaster was Djed Spence. Again, despite playing out of position he looks so confident, laid back and most importantly competant. Spence has had his problems but to me it looks like he's grown up and at 24 looks set for a long spell in and around the starting XI.

Spurs went ahead in the game when another one of Sonny's inswinging corners from the left caused a problem for Brentfords debutant keeper Valdimarsson, the ball ending up in the back of the net after hitting Janelt on the back. 

We scored from a corner....again

If I'd have known that in the build up to the match Jamie Carragher had predicted that Spurs would concede at least three times then I'd have been fairly confident of the win because he's another one of those experts thats never had the guts to have a go at the management stuff himself. Gary Neville may have been an absolute shambles at Valencia but at least he had a go at it. Its an amusing fact that Jamie Carragher played over 500 games for Liverpool, his only club, but scored more goals for Spurs.

Anyway, Bergvall replaced a tired looking Mikey Moore at half-time and Pape Sarr came on for Bissouma about half way through the second period. Brentford were pretty much peppering the Spurs area with crosses and long throws so much so it was a bit like one of those wet Wednesday nights in Stoke when Tony Pulis was in his pomp.

During our best Premier League period under Poch we obviously has some great players but they could also be a complete bunch of bastards when they had to. I mean how could a team with Erik Lamela in it ever be anything different? That lot knew when to make 'tactical' fouls or waste time. For once , the present lot did this well in the second period. Kinsky taking the piss a little by delaying his goal kicks would be an example. Sonny (one of two survivors from those great days) was booked for a cynical foul. I love it.

Last Thursday nights hero Dane Scarlett replaced a shattered Richarlison with around ten minutes remaining and a few minutes after that 'Angeball' reared its head just to add a bit of icing to the victory cake. A period of possession which included passes made by all 11 players ended with a lovely throughball from Son to Sarr who poked the ball first time through the keepers legs and into the net. 

"Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle All The Way....."

Of course this weekend brought the end to the January transfer window. I'm not going to go into why I think things could have been done sooner and with slightly diffent priorities. Thats pointless because nothing will change on that side of things until there's a change at the top.

The net result was the early arrival of Kinsky, the signing a couple of days from the end of centre back Kevin Danso on loan from Lens and the biggest name to arrive Mathys Tel, a 19 year old forward again on loan, from Bayern Munich. 

With Danso they have an obligation to buy in the summer for around £21m, with Tel its an 'option' at approx £50m. I have heard this evening that there is an agreement with Tel already in place for a six year contract. The irony of the Tel move form me is that for a decade Spurs never paid the going rate for a back up for Harry Kane yet now they've kind of agreed to pay a colossal amount of money for Harry Kanes back-up.

They also made a humongous by Spurs standards bid for Marc Guehi, the Crystal Palace and England centre back, said to be £70m. My thoughts on this:-

If I were being cynical I'd say the club did this to show the fans they're willing to pay that much for a centre back but knowing that Palace wouldn't say yes at this stage. But why leave it until the end of the window? Perhaps if you have that money and you want that player and you're willing to pay it, why not offer it of January 1st and not February 1st?

The club have also been active making some signing for the Academy. Three players in this window and a record signing made for a summer arrival. There's Dan Batty an attacking midfielder from Manchester City, Luca Furnell-Gibb a centre back from Liverpool and Reiss-Alexander Russell-Denny from Chelsea. The big one though is Mason Melia a 17 year old centre forward who will cost the club £1.6m from St Pats in the League Of Ireland. 

This all carries on the clubs clear policy of signing as many talented youngsters as possible. This is of course a clever idea but they must not lose sight of the main priority, the current Premier League squad. Keep that strong and evolving and everything else will look after itself.