Can Spurs Afford Another Quiet January Window?
It’s January, as you might’ve noticed; and if you hadn’t I’d suggest those New Year’s resolutions about not drinking anything that really ought to be kept on a shelf in the shed aren’t going all that well. For the rest of you, you know the score. It’s the beginning of the year and that can mean only one thing: the always-good-for-a-laugh-don’t-believe-everything-you hear-better-off-not-opening-any-tabloid-newspapers-or-football-websites-for-a-month-pick-any-name-out-of-a-hat…January Transfer Window. May lord have mercy on us all.
All quiet on the Western Front so far but our taciturn supremo has given us this little nugget:
“Unless someone very special came on the market, someone that could improve the team, I’ll stick with what I have”
Hmm. Is this some kind of sophisticated ruse from Redknapp? A large part of me hopes so. I’m sure we can all agree that it would only make sense to upgrade our stock if the right kind of player were to become available, but this seems to suggest that he’d only consider purchasing if improvements for the first team were up there for our grubby mitts to paw around; rather than the squad as whole.
As the excellent Sarah Winterburn opined on Football365 this week, although we posses a super first eleven (arguably a midfield without equal) there’re certain areas of our ranks where the quality doesn’t run all the way down. For one, there’s an awfully big gulf between that of Adebayor and Pavlyuchenko, and, likewise between Assou-Ekotto and Danny Rose. What happens, say, if Walker goes down with some hair-related malady? Is Corluka up to speed these days? I’m not so sure. It’s all very well saying Niko Kranjčar can slope into a Van der Vaart shaped hole if the Dutchman’s hamstrings start tightening up again- but the Croatian looked positively shattered after his brief cameo on Tuesday. I counted around thirty seconds before his brow was alarmingly sodden. That’s not the type of thing you build title-challenges on, that’s not even the sort of thing you build Lego on. Depth isn’t the only problem. While we have excellent centre-backs in King, Gallas, Kaboul and Dawson, we have tremendous difficulty keeping the b*ggers all fit.
Certainly, then, there’s fine-tuning that can be done in a few places. And fine tuning that should be done. Especially if our current broken list elongates further and we’re entirely serious about challenging for that big hunk of metal they give out in May. I’m fully behind Redknapp but now’s the time to consolidate, strengthen and take these swines on at their own game.
But who the Dickens should we be looking at?
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