Is it just me and my Tottenham bias ( which I try to curtail when writing these articles) or is Scott Parker not the outstanding candidate? The guy is a virtual prototype of what you look for in the ideal captain.

For starters, he is vocal. Very vocal. If anyone is screwing up or not pulling their weight he lets them know about it, but not in a Roy Keane ‘you f***ing w**ker!’ type way. In fact in the post match interviews after a miraculous second half comeback when he was with West Ham I heard every player put the turnaround down to Scott Parker’s rousing half time speech. They said it was inspiring, and the reason they won (don’t know what Avram Grant was doing at the time).

Just as importantly, Parker leads by example. An all action, body on the line, get stuck in like I am type of example. His man of the match award against Liverpool was richly deserved and shows what an asset he is when the chips are down and every man has to stand up and be counted. He puts me in mind a little of Stuart Pearce in that respect except he is all over the pitch whereas Pearce was confined to left back.

Which leads me to another point in his favour; he plays defensive midfield which is surely the best position for a captain. He is easily in contact with everyone and right in the centre of the action. It’s not vital, but it helps.

Lastly, he usually plays. Steven Gerrard is a good choice for England captain but it’s 50/50 whether he will even be on the pitch most of the time.

There are three reasons being given why Parker should not captain England; Gerrard is a better choice, that he is new to the team and that he doesn’t captain his club. I don’t think any of those reasons are valid.

Firstly I just completely disagree Gerrard is the better choice because I believe Scotty to have more of the qualities required and is more likely to play.

Secondly, being ‘new to the team’ is hardly the case. It may have taken Capello a long time to recognise his qualities but Parker made his England debut in 2003, and has represented the national team at every level from under 15’s to senior. He is hardly a kid, and is well known and respected by the whole squad. Besides, was it not only a little while ago that the ‘old faces’ such as Gerrard, Lampard, Terry etc were being blamed for England’s stagnation on the world stage?

Lastly the fact that he doesn’t captain Spurs. Granted, that would point to there being a possible weakness were it not for the fact that our captain is Ledley King.

There is surely no greater enigma in the Premier League than our Ledley. He doesn’t train, yet plays most Saturdays. He has no knee cartilage, yet outperforms those around him on a regular basis. In fact I believe that although none of the top clubs in this country would buy him because of the appalling situation with his knees, I don’t think any of them would wish to get rid of him if he were already at the club.

Ledley has earned the Spurs captaincy through his sheer dogged determination and dedication to the cause. Through that alone he leads by brilliant example and, although I think Scott Parker would ultimately make the better captain, in my opinion Ledley should keep the role until he hangs up his boots.

You may think this irrelevent. Some say it’s all about choosing heads or tails and not much else. You could be right. All I know is if I’m watching England trying to hang on to a 1-0 lead in some foreign field, with fifteen minutes on the clock and the tide turning against us I’d rather see Scott Parker rallying the troops than Steven Gerrard; quite possibly from the bench.

COYS!

You can follow me on Twitter @RobertReedUK

We will certainly be spending big one way or another before the start of next season. Levy has been saving his pennies to enable him to tempt Harry to stay with a very impressive transfer budget, reportedly in the region of £60 million. If Harry decides to leave all the same then said budget will be used to entice a top drawer manager to the Lane to replace him. The only way I can see us not spending big is if Harry isn’t offered the England job and so no inducement is necessary. In fact knowing Levy he will probably be pondering whether he can trim Harry’s wages a bit.

I’m expecting a shake up of our forward line in the summer. As important as he is Adebayor will go as we cannot afford his salary, and I think Defoe will be off as well. I have a sneaking suspicion that we may go in for both Loic Remy and Leandro Damiao to try and give us the depth to have a crack at the Champions League and perform in the league also.

For the moment though we will have to be happy with who we signed in this window. We got our last minute deal, but Ryan Nelson wasn’t exactly what most of us had in mind. We also got the vital centre forward we needed, but Louis Saha? Hmm. I was ranting about Saha when the window was open but now that it’s shut he is our man and the bile stops there. We Spurs fans don’t publicly slaughter our own players like the lesser half of North London do, so lets look at the positives of the signing.

For starters, poor injury record or no, Saha passed our medical which I understand to be one of the more rigorous so he is certainly fit for purpose for the moment at least. He also plays effectively as a lone striker and can therefore be a like for like replacement for Adebayor. The absence of anyone who can hold the ball up and lead the line in Ade’s absence has been a disaster waiting to happen. Finally, Saha has scored a lot of goals in the past and if Harry can do his thing and get him playing to his maximum he can be a good signing; until the end of the season at least when there is an option, but no obligation, to extend his contract for another year.

Bassong is gone, and as a replacement we have Ryan Nelsen. I’ll admit I don’t really know how good a player this guy is but having been Blackburn’s captain he must have something about him. He’s 34, so again this looks like another stop gap player until the summer.

Elsewhere though, I’m not sure quite where the logic is. We have let Charlie go meaning our first choice centre back, Younes Kaboul, is now our only cover at right back. We have also been trying to sign cover at right wing as Pienaar has been a bit of a disappointment but, having failed to do so, we’ve let Pienaar go to Everton. Bale showed last night how dangerous he can be on the right but Kranjcar is our only cover on the wings now. Modric or Rafa playing wide is detrimental to the team.

What we have done of course is what Harry specifically said we would not do and that is sign players who are not first teamers and do not, convenient cover aside, improve us.

I’m a huge fan of Adebayor and acknowledge that he has revolutionised the way we play with his movement and ability to hold up the ball but more than anyone else he needs genuine competition for a first team place. People keep spouting that he has scored nine goals in now twenty matches which is an acceptable goals to games ratio. The problem though is that with all his goals coming in just six games this season he has failed to score in fourteen games out of twenty, which isn’t good enough for the main striker in an attacking team like ours. I’d rather win three games by one goal than win one by three and draw the other two.

Like I’ve said though, Ade is doing great things for the team and we are still in with a fair shout of winning the league. I think Manchester United will clinch it if I’m honest but when everyone is fit we have a title winning first team. Although in a rather patched up fashion the most dire need for cover appears to have been dealt with in the form of Saha so I am more optimistic than I was about our chances than I was in December. Chin up, and all that.

COYS!

You can follow me on Twitter @RobertReedUK

The all important six pointer against man City is all but here and if rumours are to be believed Harry is going with Defoe leading the line.

OK so it hasn’t worked the last 100 times we’ve tried it but hey, 101st time lucky eh.

I can see all the tub thumping ‘we’re gonna do it’ articles about and I sincerely hope this post comes back to haunt me but I’m now very pessimistic. Our massive strength (in the continued absence of a prolific forward) is our attacking midfield which requires a big guy up front who has good movement and can hold up the ball to bring them into play.

Now our whole game is going to be slinging balls through to Defoe who will be playing in nobody but just greedily snatching at everything because he is so desperate to impress, like he did when he was on his 100th goal and had that T shirt on. The frustrating thing is that we are at full strength and I would actually really fancy our chances, but this will adversely effect the way we play.

It drives me mad that we haven’t prepared for this by buying a striker to give us our first decent, permanent strike force since Berbatov and Keane (even try and buy back Berbatov if need be; we took Teddy back after all), but at least we should be playing Pavlyuchenko. I’m no great fan of the Russian, but he is the nearest thing we have to a like for like replacement for Adebayor. Defoe is effective playing off a big man like Pav or Ade and not as a lone striker.

I feel for Defoe. Van der Vaart hasn’t scored since October and he is still on the bench despite having a good scoring record this season (scorer of more goals coming off the bench than any other player in Prem’ history), but tomorrow is not the time to drop Rafa. He is a big game player and I want him on the pitch, but not behind Defoe. It doesn’t bloody work, it never has worked, and I doubt it ever will work.

If we see out this transfer window with no new, line leading striker and Adebayor gets injured then we will be stuck with this situation for the rest of the season and be fighting tooth and nail to hang on to fourth. Levy has earned a lot of respect from Spurs fans and rightly so, but with no Europe and teams in transition etc we have a genuine and rare chance at the title this season and few will forgive him if we throw it away.

COYS!

You can follow me on Twitter @RobertReedUK

Only three teams can win the league this season. Man City have the squad, Man United have the experience and we (despite Mancini’s protestations to the contrary) play the best football. The brilliant, attacking, free flowing football which can win us the title. The thing is, if our football is so great then how come Man United and Man City have scored a shed load more goals than us?

Our problem is a lack of goalscorers with only Gareth Bale having a decent strike rate for his position. Although they have great attributes Adebayor, Modric, Lennon and recently Van der Vaart have all been pretty woeful in front of goal. We need a prolific goalscorer who can lead the line and there are only a few realistic targets out there. We all know who they are, let’s just buy one already.

Our biggest game of the season approaches, in which we will be denied our vital man up front when we really need him. Nil desperandum however, because as luck would have it this massively important six pointer has landed in the middle of the transfer window enabling us to make a shrewd and much needed purchase in time to save the day!

That of course is the wise and indeed logical thing to do, so why the feck haven’t we done it? Unless we sign someone in the next two days we are facing a VDV and Defoe front line, which has never worked, against the league leaders. Either that or every club’s least favourite part exchange player Pavlyuchenko. Spare us.

As much as I love Daniel Levy, his brinkmanship does more harm than good. How many real bargains have we got with this technique? VDV was a last minute buy who paid off but we nearly always end up as the club without a chair when the music stops.

Our most impressive signing in recent years was Luka Modric. We came flying out of the trap and bought him at the start of the window, catching other interested clubs on the hop. He also didn’t cost a fortune as we offered a fair price to start with meaning it didn’t have chance to turn into a bidding war.

Why do we now keep coming up with derisory offers for players until their clubs get totally pissed off with us? They can see Levy’s double standards from what he expects to be paid for our players; £20m for Defoe? £15m for Pav? Gimme a break. We pontificate until eventually, inevitably, another club comes along and buys the player.

I’m not saying we should be bidding £35/£40m for players, there are few who are genuinely worth that much (Andy Carroll?) and those who are want wages we cannot realistically afford before we get our new stadium. We can however afford between £20/£25m players and that is the sort of money it takes to secure the kind of targets we are looking at.

If we had bid £20m for Loic Remy at the start of the window before he’d scored two goals and destroyed Lille, I believe he would be a Spurs player now. Huntelaar has scored 26 goals in 27 games which is a fantastic strike rate even for the Bundesliga. He is no spring chicken but that is reflected in his rumoured £17m price tag. Llorente is a top player who can apparently be bought for around £20/£25m. Moussa Sow has agreed personal terms with Fenerbahce, don’t tell me we couldn’t have trumped them.

These are all the type of player we are looking for who can lead the line and score goals. They have all been around long enough to rule them out from being a flash in the pan, and none are living on past reputations like Torres. These can only improve our squad or even first team.

Don’t get me wrong. I know Levy is the man, and the best chairman in the Premier League in my opinion. I also do like the fact that he is a hard bargainer and always tries for the best deal for the club. I just wish that on certain occasions when the need is great he could just be a little less ‘Levy’.

COYS!

You can follow me on Twitter @ RobertReedUK

Daniel Levy is the man. We all know that, but sometimes he is just a bit too…’Levy’.

The latest big name we are being linked with is Loic Remy. He is the most important player at his club, Marseilles, who have qualified for the knockout stages of the Champions League and have designs on finishing high enough to qualify next season also. Achieving that and staying in this season’s competition as long as possible will be very lucrative, so how does it make financial sense to sell their best player at this time?

This is a similar enough situation to the Modric/Chelsea saga for Levy to relate to it. He must realise that even if this goes to the wire he won’t get the player for less than something like £20m at least, and with the Man City game approaching with Adebayor ineligible this is no time to string things out.

Our chairman is dreaming if he thinks Pavlyuchenko can be used in part exchange, especially at the ridiculously inflated price he has valued him at. It’s reported that he wants £15m for the Russian who we bought for £13.8m. Bearing in mind that he has been something of a disappointment and doesn’t even get a game now we would be extremely lucky to get £12m for him. Most teams would be looking to sign him for nearer £8m.

I’m not trying to tell Levy how to negotiate, he is a master at it. What I would say though is that if ever there was a time to go against the grain and seek a more expensive deal which doesn’t go to the last day of the season, or more likely not happen at all until the summer, this is it. Remy is likely to star for France at Euro 2012 and if he is as good as a lot of sources are claiming we could end up being priced out of the move anyway.

Is he worth the money? Depends what we can achieve if we sign him. Should we be going for other targets before him? Possibly, but with Adebayor likely to leave in the summer we are likely to be looking for another front man anyway. Perhaps Damiao, although he has a buy out clause of £50m.

Up for that one Daniel? Hmm..

COYS!

You can follow me on Twitter @ RobertReedUK

If reports are to be believed, Daniel Levy is set to try and convince Harry Redknapp to commit his future to the club with a transfer war chest of up to £60 million. I hope he is successful, as my opinion of Harry has changed over the last season or two, as has many people’s I think.

When he came in I thought he was a very safe pair of hands to turn things around. Upon achieving  fourth spot in the league I thought he had done very well, but that a lot of managers could have done it with a squad like ours. When we had that record breaking debut season in the Champions League I decided he was a much better manager than I had given him credit for, but while we should try and keep him it wouldn’t be the end of the world if we did not. It would be an opportunity to try for an even better manager.

This season however, is something else. We are playing at a level as high as I can imagine any manager getting us to and with a consistency which I’ll admit I thought was beyond Redknapp’s capabilities. I am now of the opinion that keeping Harry Redknapp at the club is absolutely crucial for our continued growth, in the short term at least. Not because I think he is the greatest manager in the world but because most of the progress we are making is built around his relationship with the players and his way of doing things.

I gather I’m not the only one who thinks this way, as a deafening silence has descended from the once very vocal Harry Redknapp hate mob. Time was I couldn’t post any article without a bunch of people slagging him off and saying they couldn’t wait to get rid of him. Surely only an imbecile would think such a thing now.

Arsenal fans have also changed their tune. At one time the general sneer was that Spurs had a crap, dodgy manager and we would be found out sooner or later. That one has pretty much died on it’s arse so now the gloat from them is that we are going to lose our manager soon, and will then be found out.

It’s true that if he were to go, Harry would be leaving us in the lurch. We have some very coveted players in our squad and short of bringing in Mourinho ( which ain’t happening, I’m just saying) at least some of those players are gonna be on their way when the manager they know and love leaves the club. Bale and Modric for sure within a couple of seasons.

So is £60 million the answer? It’s a lot of money, but I am virtually resigned to losing Redknapp in the summer. I think the FA (court case permitting) will definitely offer him the England job and I am pretty much convinced that if they do then Harry will um and ah and make all the right noises (not wishing to seem too keen, especially if he wants the job to pay Capello type wages) before saying yes please.

If I were Harry, I would bite Levy’s hand off for that kind of money to add to an already gilt edged squad but I would be flabbergasted if he turned down the England job. It’s something he has clearly always wanted and I think he feels it is the pinnacle of what a manager can achieve. More fool him I think. England will win nothing with him at the helm as we don’t have the players, and he will be remembered as an also ran. If he stays put, there is a very genuine chance of the guy being revered as a Spurs legend in years to come.

A lot can happen in a few months, so who knows. I just hope that we will not wind up being victims of our own success.

COYS!

You can follow me on Twitter @ RobertReedUK

Jude Law Brainwashing His Son Into Supporting Spurs. Good Lad.

I don’t know about you, but I (often for the most spurious of reasons) hate an awful lot of ‘celebrities’ and people in the public eye. If they want to be in my face and make me know them, then they have to be prepared for me to hate their guts.

Every now and again though, I hear or read that one of those ghastly people has the one redeeming feature that in those impressionable years as a wee child they made the right choice and started supporting Tottenham Hotspur.

In such a circumstance, I cannot help but feel a glow of warmth towards whomever it may be and feel a little less inclined to slaughter them whenever they come up on my TV. Or if they are truly awful I may end my rant with ‘but at least they’re a Yid’.

Rupert Grint, the ginger tosser from Harry Potter? Spurs fan. Bryan Adams, Canadian git with a guitar? Spurs fan. Bruce Forsyth, gurning 180 year old tap dancing bell end? Spurs fan. Admit it, even if you hated Jude Law before, you like him that little bit more now seeing him sat there in a Spurs scarf.

So, in case you are giving a fellow Yiddo a hard time without realising it, I’ve compiled a list of our celebrity fans. You never know when this list could come in useful. I shall now want Williams to win in the Grand Prix, and am more likely to choose Easy Jet than another similarly cheap and nasty competitor.

Also in the unlikely and undesirable event that I should find myself taken hostage by a deranged and volatile Charles Bronson, I may take his mind off of simultaniously pissing on me and punching me in the face by enquiring whether he thinks Spurs will finish above Arsenal that season.

CELEBRITY SPURS FANS (excluding players/ex players)

Bryan Adams – Musician

HRH Sheikh Nader Bin Salman Al Khalifa – King of Bahrain’s nephew (cheque book!)

Mike Ashley – Newcastle Chairman

Jamie Bamber – TV actor

Dirk Benedict – TV actor (Face from the A-Team)

Brandon Block – DJ

Jeff Brazier – TV presenter (ish) and Jade Goody’s ex

Kenneth Brannagh – Actor

Charles Bronson – Maximum security lifer at Dartmoor Prison

Pierce Brosnan – Actor (James Bond)

Emma Bunton – Spice Girl (who grew up near me and I never liked)

D’arcy Bussell – Ballerina (posh totty)

John Cena – WWE wrestler

Nicky Clarke – Celebrity hairdresser

Phil Collins – Musician (Genesis)

Peter Cook (Deceased) – Comedian

Phil Cornwell – Comedic actor

Anthony Costa – Singer (Blue)

Bobby Davro – Impressionist

Iain Duncan Smith – MP

Peter Ebdon – Snooker player

Chris Eubank – Ex boxer

Chris Evans – Ginger TV/radio presenter

Rupert Grint – Actor

Colin Firth – Actor

Michael Fish – TV weatherman

Peter Forsberg – Hockey player (Colorado Avalanches)

Bruce Forsyth – Entertainer and TV presenter

Phillip Green – Former BHS magnate

Stelios Hasi-Ioannou – Easy Jet owner

King Harald V of Norway

Natasha Kaplinsky – News reader

Patsy Kensit – Actress

Jude Law – Actor

Ray Liotta – Actor

Linda Lusardi – Ex page 3 model

Trevor Macdonald – Veteran news reader

Stephen Mangan – Comedic actor

Bob Marley (Deceased) – Legendary singer/songwriter

Barry McGuigan – Ex boxer

Michael McIntyre – Stand up comedian

Paul Merton – Comedian

Warren Mitchell – Actor (played Alf Garnett, a West Ham fanatic. Love the fact you can get West Ham T-shirts with his face on them.)

Rhona Mitra – Actress/model for Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider games

Sid Owen – Actor/Rickaaaaaaay!

Roger Lloyd Pack – Actor/Trigger from Only Fools And Horses

Neil Pearson – Actor

Leslie Phillips OBE – Actor

Brad Picket – UFC fighter

Mike Read (Deceased) – Stand up comedian/actor

Salman Rushdie – Author and elusive Muslim botherer

Jerry Springer – TV presenter

Lord Alan Sugar – Former chairman

Shania Twain – Singer/songwriter

Brian Walden – Political journalist

Jo Whiley – Radio 1 DJ

Paul Whitehouse – Comedic actor

Frank Williams – Formula One team boss

Amy Winehouse (Deceased) – Singer/songwriter/musician/celebrity junkie

Terry Wogan – Veteran TV/radio presenter

Anthony Worrall-Thompson – Celebrity chef and purveyor of the Tesco’s five finger discount

Paul Young – Singer

And, as we all know, Osama Bin Laden was a Gooner. More embarrassingly, so is Piers Morgan.

COYS!

You can follow me on Twitter @ RobertReedUK

According to Sky Sports, AC Milan have failed in their attempt to bring Carlos Tevez to the club. It is thought that a last try at reaching agreement with Manchester City has failed, and the deal is more or less dead.

Inter Milan were rumoured to be interested a while back, but it’s thought that was just mischief making to cause a bit of aggro for their local rivals.

Although moneybags PSG were reportedly interested at one point, they haven’t followed up on it. One feels that was just newspaper talk anyway.

So there you go then. He’ll be on his way to us! Nobody else wants him, we can afford £200,000 a week wages and Man City will be just aching to gift another world class forward to one of their closest rivals for the title.

OK, so it ain’t gonna happen. But if it did?

Breaking the bank with a huge signing on fee to supplement more reasonable wages for a player of Tezez’s calibre would make Spurs an incredibly tempting bet for the title. It would have to be a very serious offer, the type which only reckless chairmen make often, but as a one off it would be do-able.

Now I certainly don’t envisage Tevez joining Spurs at all, I’m not ten years old. But he’s a prime example of the kind of big, big signing which would be worth the money to deliver a title to the lane for the first time since ‘61. If we qualify for the Champions League next season as we certainly should, don’t expect us to compete on two fronts and have another tilt at the title. This is a golden opportunity which could feasibly not come around for another ten/twenty years.

We should go for it and throw caution to the wind, just this once. To dare is to do!

COYS!

You can follow me on Twitter @ RobertReedUK

In a season like this there are many players to take the accolades, but one name which doesn’t immediately jump to mind is Brad Friedel.

If you are waxing lyrical about the great performers so far you might well say our success is mainly down to Modric, Parker, Bale, Adebayor or even King. Doubtless Harry Redknapp and Daniel Levy have been immense (for their ensuring a Scott Parker and Luka Modric midfield between them if nothing else) but on the field those are the names you think of. So why not Friedel?

Sure if somebody suggests the keeper then all agree he is a big factor, but he doesn’t get talked about as much because he hasn’t done that much to catch the eye but that, of course, is the key. The better the keeper, the more boring they are.

I can barely remember any particularly great saves he has made this season. One or two, but not many. Heurelho Gomes last season made plenty of fantastic fingertip saves which had the pundits drooling. He also virtually threw the ball in quite a lot.

Great saves do not make a great keeper. Knowing what you are doing, being in the right place, coming out at the right time and reading play so you rarely get in the position to have to make a super save to bail yourself out is what it takes.

Brad Friedel is not in any top ten in the world list, but he is a proper keeper with bundles of experience and has been absolutely vital to us this season. Who knows where we would be with an eye catching alternative like Gomes? I’d go so far as to say 9 points worse of at least, which would have us outside the top four.

So is Brad Friedel our main man this season? Who cares.  He’s boring.

COYS!

You can follow me on Twitter @ RobertReedUK

At last the time has come to even things up. All season we have been ending every other Spurs statement regarding the league with, ‘and we’ve got a game in hand!’

Never has a game been so taken for granted. Although we all know that points on the board are better than games in hand, who can truly state that they haven’t been mentally adding on the three ‘Everton points’ every time they look at the league table? As a result, anything less than a win tonight will be a big psychological blow. It is true though that they have a bit of a habit of knocking the wind out of our sails.

I think we should be OK though, shouldn’t we? No disrespect to Everton who often play better than their wage bill would suggest they can but we are at White Hart Lane with approaching a full strength squad.  Lennon is back, and with him comes  the return of our team shape of two fast wingers with Modric pulling the strings in the middle and VDV operating behind the front man.

That for me is why a signing of the right kind of cover for right wing is vital. We need someone whose game is going past people at speed because that is our strongest game, and having a different type of player (be it Kranjcar, Modric, VDV or whoever) disrupts our rhythm and team shape.

Our best formation and preferred game has propelled us up the league. The two Manchester teams are favourites ahead of us, but the simple fact is that, those first two games apart, we have scored more points than them. Will Man City get stronger in the second half of the season? I doubt it. Will Man United? Possibly, they usually do, but they have a weakness about them this season. If we can buy to ensure we play our preferred tactics in every match, we can win this title.

It all starts tonight though, so lets hope Everton have read the script and don’t selfishly ruin it for us. I’ll go for 3-1.

COYS!

You can follow me on Twitter @ RobertReedUK