A pat on the back

It is always pleasing when you watch a Spurs performance and listen to experts who make the points or inform us of events that you yourself have been making.

It vindicates your opinion, it shows your readers you know what you are talking about, that you are not just a supporter taken in by a show pony, a flashy eye catching display, that you can look deeper, the way a coach has to.

Time to pat myself on the back then. Our last 2 performances have seen TV experts expressing my opinions.

I watched Etienne Capoue in his half hour cameo against Crystal Palace on our opening game and commented that this was going to be the next Patrick Vieira, yes an Arsenal player I know, but a quality one. Move one game forward and Graham Roberts on Twitter is making the same point followed by TV experts saying the same thing. He doesn't just play in midfield, he commands it. If Sandro is a beast, this guy is a tank. We are well blessed in defensive midfield.

Moving on to Andros Townsend and when half our own fans were fawning over a 'show' display, but with some substance, against Dinamo Tiblisi, I raised points he needed to work on to play on the right ahead of Aaron Lennon. Much to the annoyance of some I might say I said he had to learn to stay wider, to attack outside his man and cross with his right foot. From a wider position not only does he stretch the defence providing gaps for others, he can go outside or inside at a lesser angle towards the goal.

He had, indeed has, a tendency to turn 90 degrees from the touchline and cut straight into the centre of the pitch 40 to 50 yards from goal, which quite frankly is a waste of time, there is never any end product to it. A defence will happily let you do that all day. I made the additional point that he thought he was Gareth Bale as he has a me me me game where he looks to shoot all the time rather than pass. We have a £26 million striker who needs crosses along the floor, ala Nacer Chadli for his second goal in the first leg of this tie.

Cue Spurs coach Les Ferdinand who tells is Andros has said he wants to be the next Gareth Bale and that he is learning to go outside his man and use his right foot. Music to my ears.

Jermain Defoe divides opinion, he's a bit like marmite, love or hate. OK hate is probably a bit strong but you get the message. The main problem I could see with Defoe was that he never scored tap-ins, he was never in the 6 yard box. I estimated he would score an extra 6 to 8 goals a season if he did.

What does our Les tell us, well he has a chuckle when he sees Defoe score a tap-in telling the audience you never see him there and a striker would score 10 to 12 goals a season from 6 yard box tap-ins. It's the reason we have had to go out and buy Roberto Soldado. How many times did Gareth Bale flash the ball across the 6 yard box and our forwards were nowhere to be seen? Defoe is always pulling back to the penalty spot getting in the way of late arriving midfielders.

From 12 tap-in, 8 would possibly be in the league which would make him a 19 goal striker. It's a no brainer.

People will say anyone can score a tap-in, well you can't if you are not there. Robbie Keane never used to do it but at Spurs he realised this and worked to add it to his game, better late than never so could we have some more please Jermain.

Let's pat our coaches on the back, lets pat our players on the back for spotting areas of their game that need improving and working on them. Ferdinand has taken stick from a section of our fans wondering why he hasn't taught our strikers the 6 yard poach, clearly he must have done but for some it doesn't sink in how important it is. I await the next Defoe tap-in.

And so finally to last night's game, a 3-0 win against a poor Georgian side. The whole team played well quite frankly, excellent movement, interchanging and passing. Kaboul had another training game to help his quest for match fitness. Like Holtby and Sandro he is unfit, by that I mean not match fit yet having missed some of pre-season.

Sandro had an excellent first half, he threw himself into the game and played the way we know he can, the commentators were certainly impressed and even started using our phrase, telling us he was a beast in midfield. He coasted through the second half but the outing will have done him a power of good.

Lewis Holtby caught the eye but his performance had substance as well. His footwork was excellent as he put in probably his best display for us. he saw passes, made some lovely flicks in areas where it mattered and played a sweet reverse pass to create the first goal for Defoe. Congrats on the debut goal and thanks for the Klinsmann tribute dive.

The Daily Mail wrote a story about him being loaned to Ajax with a view to buying as part of the Eriksen deal which personally I don't believe for a second. Listening to AVB afterwards he doesn't want him going anywhere and Holtby seems quite happy where he is.

Arsenal next, bring it on.

---