FIVE things we learned from Tottenham last night

FIVE things we learned from Tottenham last night

Date: 25th November 2010 at 1:21 pm | Written by Karl Sears
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Tottenham secured an historic passage into the Champions League knock-out stages last night by easing past Werder Bremen by three goals to nil. The whole night went to plan (well, almost) and the goals were all scored at perfect times to confirm Tottenham’s dominance. After two dream results in the space of five days, what did we learn from Spurs after last nights showing?

1. Keeping a clean sheet is easier when the opposition isn’t trying very hardIt’s been the main concern for Spurs fans for quite a while now, but finally we’ve stopped a team scoring a goal. Quite what kind of an achievement this is is debatable, Bremen managed only a single shot on target, but to keep a clean sheet of any kind will do confidence a power of good. William Gallas and Younes Kaboul’s partnership was good yet again and importantly they kept switched on for the entire 90 minutes, but in truth it’s hard to analyze the back-four too deeply when they were barely tested. Still, let’s dwell on this for a few days and hope and hope the feat can be repeated on Sunday.

2. The Aaron Lennon and Alan Hutton debate continues
I’d like to start by saying that Aaron Lennon was fantastic. After a few weeks of taking flak that he’s lost his touch and that he disappears in games he looked back to his best, setting up two goals and generally making an nuisance of himself. But I felt that last night raised the question once more as to whether Lennon and Hutton should be on the same team. On too many occasions they seemed to be trying to occupy the same space and make similar runs, both are good attacking options but they don’t appear to compliment each other. Potentially they could make a good partnership, but some hard work needs to go on on the training ground for it to work properly.

3. Gareth Bale can miss a penalty and still come off to a standing ovationWe all know how good Mr Bale is - but last night he showed that he is at least human. His penalty last night was pretty tame, but that fact that his performance over 80 minutes meant that nobody cared about his miss, or even seemed to remember it showed just how well he played. He hit the crossbar twice and gave his full-back a good work out before being replaced by Niko Kranjcar with minutes to go. Job done.

4. Luka Modric’s game has come on leaps and boundsMuch like the Inter game, Luka Modric quietly went about his role as Tottenham’s midfield engine. We all know about his strengths as a good passer in the final third, but last night Luka was all over the pitch making tackles and winning the ball. Back in his first season we were told that he was too light weight to play in the Premier League, and in truth it looked like he was. But this season he has truly become the workhorse of the Tottenham team and his goal was a classy end to a good move.

5. Peter Crouch’s Champions League form is pretty handySay what you like about the failings of the man, but the stats show us that Peter Crouch has scored six goals in six Champions League games this season including a hat-trick against Young boys, arguably Spurs’ most important game of recent memory. It’s interesting to see that Crouch’s England and Champions League records are fantastic but his league form is pretty dire, does he have problems motivating himself for lesser games? That’s a question for another day, but in the meantime it seems as though Peter Crouch is becoming vital in Tottenham’s Champions League adventure.

it shows crouch needs 5 chances lol and pav has for goals in only 2 starts in the champions league.

wp had hes best game in a long time. lennon getting a bit of confidence back.

hutton seems to have nailed that right back spot now

I thought bremen we're very poor indeed , i dont think they gave us a game it was like an exibition match to be honest. i think we had to much space and time on the ball , they made us look like Brazil

you can only beat what is put in front of you, how many times have we struggled against so called poor teams, yet we harly got out of second gear and won comfortablly, the sign of a good team.

As for the Hutton/Lennon, all good full backs get beyond the winger, they are both still learning each others games and i'd rather have Huttons pace at the back then Charlies, also Hutton has made some good covering challenges when Gallas and Kaboul have been taken out of the centre in an attack.

HotspurRoper wrote:Brazil? Lobo, Id say more 70's Holland............. TOTAL FOOTBALL!!! LOL

I was talking Alan Brazil , 70's Disco was better