The idea that Crouch is a good option as a lone striker in away games is based on his ball retention and ability to help out when defending set pieces. I would argue that his lack of goals (and shots) negates the positive elements that he may bring to the team.

Against Bolton, the only shot he managed in the 90 minutes that he played was an effort scuffed straight at the goalkeeper. Pavlyuchenko had one shot in his 45, scoring a spectacular goal.

Crouch’s shooting was a 100% improvement on the United game, where he didn’t manage a single effort – Pavyuchenko had two efforts (one deflected narrowly wide) in his 28 minutes.

And in the previous away game against Fulham, Crouch again managed just one effort during his 20 minutes on the pitch, whereas of course Pavlyuchenko started and scored.

Whilst I don’t rate Pavlyuchenko as highly as many, I personally feel that whilst Defoe is out, he is our best bet to start games. We are struggling for goals, and he has managed 3 despite only starting 3 league games. In his 8 league starts, Crouch is yet to find the net, and only has 3 assists. Is that enough to warrant Redknapp’s faith?

Images taken from Guardian Chalkboards.

Oh dear. From the highs of the brilliant midweek victory over Inter Milan, to the lows of yet another poor performance at the Reebok stadium. Is it a mental block? Many say that it can’t be as the players are different, etc, but Bolton certainly seem to be a bogey team for us.

Davies’ first goal.

Sandro, Sandro, Sandro.

Sandro receives the ball from Gallas and, whilst he has limited options, he can either go to Kaboul, Hutton (although he does have a player nearby), or back to Gomes.

Instead he dallies – Bolton pressed us high up the pitch for large periods of the game, and Muamba wastes no time in making a challenge here.

Quick thinking from Elmander – he spots Davies and plays it quickly.

Davies was offside when the tackle was made, and is still offside when the pass is made. It’s a bad decision from the officials, but I don’t think it would have changed anything – Bolton battered us at times in this game.

Davies takes it early, and seems to catch Gomes unaware.

He gets a hand to the ball quite comfortably, but fails to get it around the post – I think he’ll be disappointed with this one.

Steinsson’s goal.

Bolton are very hard done by with the “long ball” tag – yes they use Davies’ strengths, but they also play plenty of football – they even did so under Megson. This goal is a great move, and we couldn’t cope with the passing and movement.

Lee knocks the ball down the line for Taylor, who waits for Elmander to make a run off him.
  

It’s a well-weighted pass from Taylor, allowing Elmander to cross first time. Notice Steinsson at this point – edge of the box and totally unmarked.

It’s a great first time cut-back from Elmander. Assou-Ekotto has spotted the danger too late.

Steinsson takes a touch to set himself, and rifles it beautifully into the corner.

No blame on Gomes for this one – it’s a fantastic strike, lovely technique.

Davies’ second goal

William Gallas – so good in the week, so bad yesterday. It seems he can’t go a league game without being directly responsible for at least one goal. This is horrendous.

It’s a long ball down the line from Zat Knight, and Davies chases. Gallas is well in control, and with two Bolton players nearby, should be putting this into the stands.

He has the opportunity to put it into touch with his right foot, but instead chooses to drop the shoulder and take it on his left.

He passes out with his left without looking – expecting one of our midfield players to be there to receive.

The ball comes out instead to Taylor, who collects and waits for support.

Lee has made a supporting run, and is goal-side of Assou-Ekotto, who has been caught napping.

You just can’t risk these sorts of challenges – Assou-Ekotto goes through the back of Lee, and it’s a clear penalty.

Davies steps up – a nice height for the keeper perhaps, but tucked far enough into the corner.

Petrov’s goal (at 4:16).

After finding two beautiful goals to drag ourselves back into the game, we allow Bolton to see it out comfortably. Bolton take advantage of cheap free kicks to keep the ball into the corner. However, in stoppage time we have one slight opening.

A hopeful ball forward, and Gallas seems to be through – he has the edge on the Bolton defenders.

But he doesn’t have the pace that he used to – something I’m not sure Redknapp has realised – and Holden easily dispossesses him with an excellent sliding tackle.

Cahill looks up, and spots an opportunity to counter.

It’s a well flighted ball out to Davies, and Petrov anticipates that Davies will beat Kaboul, and makes a run inside him.

So intelligent from Davies – he angles the ball perfectly inside for Petrov to run on to.

Petrov’s first touch pushes him inside, and he doesn’t require to take a second before shooting

Instead he just waits for Gomes to make the first move, and lifts it over his legs.

Sandro and Palacios were really, really poor for us in the middle of midfield, and Kranjcar was anonymous wide on the right (where, incidentally, I don’t remember him ever having a good game for us). I am starting to wonder whether Palacios and Kranjcar are really appropriate squad options – neither seem to have the natural fitness of a Jenas or Bassong, and both struggle when brought in for the occasional game.

Crouch once again offered no goal threat and, despite his 3 assists in the league this season, I would still personally opt for Pavlyuchenko in most league games.

Defensively, we were a shambles. There were individual errors from each of our defenders throughout the game – twice in the first ten minutes, for example, Hutton let Taylor get goal-side of him, and get shots away. Gallas was dreadful for much of the game – unable to cope with the aerial prowess of Davies, and direct, powerful running of Elmander.

Thankfully we don’t have long to wait before we are back in Premier League action again, and we have two winnable home games in a row – Sunderland and Blackburn. We must ensure that we get the six points no matter what it takes.

We beat Inter Milan, European Champions, 3-1. Magical, absolutely magical.

Not only a wonderful team performance, but a night of brilliant individual performances, with a number of our players putting in arguably their best ever showings in the lilywhite shirt –  Cudicini, Gallas, Kaboul, Assou-Ekotto, and of course, Bale.

The “Premier League” pace of our attacking approach play was too much for Inter Milan to cope with, and our intense pressing and deep defending against Eto’o largely restricted them to shots from distance, and the one goal that we did concede came from a situation where we backed off – albeit to one of the world’s best strikers.

A lot has been made in the press about Inter’s “weakened” team, but not so much has been mentioned of ours – this historic win came without first teamers Gomes, King, Dawson (or Woodgate), and Defoe, as well as last season’s regular right-back, Corluka.

A simply incredible achievement, and one for which Redknapp should take an enormous amount of credit for. Little is said of Harry’s tactical knowledge and achievements, but in using Jenas in van der Vaart’s role in the second half, he ensured that Modric operated in a pocket of space that he regularly found in the first, and also utilised Jenas’ tremendous energy levels, as he was able to get forward when necessary, but also drop back in as we defended.

I don’t want to linger on negatives, so I’ll keep this analysis brief – I was tempted not to do it at all, but my OCD got the better of me.

Eto’o’s goal.

Sneijder finds Eto’o, who has got himself into a position on Hutton’s shoulder. Hutton isn’t tight enough, but should be trying to show Eto’o on to his weaker left foot.

Because Hutton initially wasn’t tight enough, he tries to make up for it – unfortunately all he does his commit himself, and allows Eto’o to nimbly take a touch to get the ball on to his right.

One more touch, and Eto’o has room.

Sky’s Andy Gray frequently mentions strikers using the positioning of centre backs to curl a shot into the far corner, and this is a good example. Eto’o uses Gallas’ position to his advantage, and looks to angle his shot around him. Gallas arguably doesn’t come out to him quickly enough, but Eto’o moves (and thinks) so quickly.

Cudicini has no chance – it’s beautifully struck, and into the corner, low and hard.

Just to finish, I have a couple of offers to bring you – firstly, the kind people at Early Bath are offering Spurs fans discount on their football related gifts until Christmas – if you enter the code ‘COYS’ you’ll get 10% off. While you’re there, take a look at their blog – it’s a good read, and recently featured an interesting article on Nani’s goal.

In addition, I have teamed up with Picklive, who you may have heard about on The Football Ramble podcast. They offer a sort of live “Fantasy Football” – it’s £1 entry, and the top three players share the pot. However, every Windy’s Blog reader can get a Picklive trial – 3 games free.

A strange game at Old Trafford – largely even, with a frustratingly simple first goal conceded, and a ridiculous second, which should have been ruled out twice over.

Vidic’s goal

Firstly, Kaboul does exactly what he did last week and gives away a free-kick in a foolish position. This week it’s even more ridiculous, as he has dived in to a challenge when United weren’t really making progress and got himself a yellow card.

As we line up to mark zonally (and notably without Crouch, who is an excellent screen), Nani whips in a beautiful cross.

The nearest man to Vidic is Assou-Ekotto – a mismatch if ever there was one. Vidic meets the ball, flicks it goalwards, and it sails into the corner.

So a couple of issues – firstly, the silly challenge from Kaboul, and secondly, the weird decision not to stick one of the centre backs on Vidic, who has a history of scoring headed goals.

Nani’s goal

Wes Brown flicks a ball over the top, into space for Nani to run into.

Nani gets away – Kaboul seems to clip his heels, which knocks him off his stride. He goes down late, due to the nature of the challenge and, for me, it probably is a penalty.

Believing that he will get a penalty for the foul, Nani grabs hold of the ball.

With the penalty not given, Gomes picks up the ball and throws it forward, ready to take the resulting free-kick (for handball). However, the referee has not blown his whistle – there is no free-kick! Gomes should know to play to the whistle.

Nani can’t believe his luck. He just walks up to the ball…

…and prods it past Gomes, before celebrating like he has scored the goal to clinch the Champions League.

A number of issues here too, and I’ll preface this by saying that I generally do quite like Mark Clattenberg as a referee, and I hope that this is just a very bad day at the office for him.

1. In my opinion, Nani probably should have had a penalty – Kaboul did clip his heels.
2. With no penalty given, the linesman should flag for handball (which he later seems to indicate that he has seen). The play should be stopped, Nani should be booked for deliberate handball, and Spurs should have a free kick.
3. Clatternberg seems to suggest to the linesman that he had seen the handball and played the advantage – I am a fan of not stopping play for the sake of it, and this is all well and good until Spurs clearly don’t have an advantage; when Nani touches the ball, Clattenberg should simply blow his whistle, and allow us to take the free kick, as would happen in the attacking third (a player is fouled, play goes on, the advantage clearly isn’t as advantageous as it seems, play is brought back).
4. Nani showing that level of bad sportsmanship and then celebrating in such a manner is in exceptionally poor taste.
5. Gomes cost us with his naivety.

We have history with Clattenberg and his assistants – of course the famous “goal that never was” was not his fault, as he could not see from his position, but it is somewhat unfortunate that he is involved in a controversial decision again.

Like I say, I personally think it should have been a penalty anyway, so I won’t moan too much…