Analysis of the goal conceded against Stoke (21/3)

For a player who used to be a defender, Gareth Bale is terrible at the back and often at fault for goals. You would expect it from some attacking players, but he should know much better. It is a mental thing as well, as he only needed to show a bit of interest here to get to the ball first.

Saha went off just before the goal right.

While Spurs have never been clean sheet specialists you could generally guarentee only the best would keep a clean sheet against us, and this was largely because we were first to the ball around their box. When we were verging on the unbeatable it again was largely because modric and parker were first to the ball preventing most of the attacks, failing that the speed of walker, the power of Kaboul, the intelligence of King and Benny's affro could all make up for anything that got past the first line of defence.

At some point recently it's broken down, we are switching off and conceding, I would point out that we always did switch off once or twice and not get caught, it's just that the attacks are coming through the midfield a lot more frequently than they did.

In retrospect I would have liked to have seen a lot more tailored rotation for parker and modric, however I do understand that those that would have been rotated (hudd and sandro) haven't been available all through the season, and in a season where the tough games seem to keep coming in clumps it's been costly, Parker seems to have lost that 10% that made him in the first half of the season, with no back up for walker, Rose a left winger for Ekotto (who could well become a decent full back but is still learning) and Dawson/King/Gallas taking turns to be injured we are looking at an overplayed back four.

Lastly, Bale's wandering seems to have left Ekotto more exposed recently, and I've always said Left backs are harder to find than right backs because every team in the world has an attacking right winger. Look back over the last few decades for stand out Left Wingers and you will usually find them in the top two sides. Ergo, left backs tend to face decent opposition the whole time, right backs tend to face left midfielders who themselves are dropping back to accomodate the opposing right winger, having a left winger wander off gives us the worst of all worlds.

Never one to finish down hearted, I would point to Caulker as a marker for things to come, with nelsen gallas and possibly even king near retirement there's going to a place for him soon. Who ever it was that is in charge of getting these youngesters into decent loan moves has definitely made a change for the better that hopefully we will be reaping the rewards from for a long time to come

I thought Friedel could have done a lot better here. He seemed to rock back as Jerome was rushing in, when he could have spread himself forwards and taken/ cleared the ball. Slight risk of fouling Jerome maybe, but worth the risk in that situation.

Horrible to watch us creaking at the moment; take 1 or 2 key players out of our first 11 and our game suffers disproportionately.
Still, Chelsea should be knackered tomorrow (played more than us recently, and are mostly old men), so if we turn up we've got a chance. And as much as he's been our odd man out at times this season, I think VdV could be the man to spark things for us.