Premier League Winners and Losers: Match Week 30 – Part 6
Losers continued
Tottenham Hotspur (Continued)
Defoe’s brace against Wolves in their previous league match has been his only contribution in an injury hit season. His fellow strikers have been no good either with Peter Crouch also scoring twice all season from 26 appearances but Roman Pavlyuchenko has
7 goals from 22 matches.
Tottenham have dropped 15 points from 10 games after a game in Europe and astonishingly 7 of those 10 games were played at White Hart Lane. Tottenham’s charge in Europe has resulted in some lethargic and sub standard performances in the league. During the
last month Spurs have dropped points against bottom half teams when they should have got all three.
The only positive they can take is that Manchester City are also faltering but now that City are out of Europa League, they too have fewer matches to contend with. Tottenham have 9 league matches left to play and four of those will be against Arsenal, Chelsea,
Manchester City and Liverpool. Things aren’t really looking great for Tottenham at the moment.
Rafael van der Vaart
He was sensational in the first half of the season but has been pretty ordinary of late but nobody seems to notice that. Plus he stormed past the bench and into the tunnel after being substituted against AC Milan.
Aston Villa
After the arrival of Darren Bent, Villa played some really good football but they were back playing negative football soon after. Most pundits predicted that Villa will be safe and would not be in the relegation fight. However, as things stand they are just
one point of safety in 14th place. Along with the three B’s (Blackpool, Blackburn, Birmingham) and the four W’s (West Ham United, Wolves, Wigan, West Brom) now there is a single ‘A’ as well.
The more worrying sign for Villa fans is the fact that all their relegation rivals are showing real grit and determination and are not going to go down without a fight. Wolves, West Ham and West Brom in particular are playing some good football, with a lot
of heart and passion.
‘You are never too good to go down’ is now what people are talking about. Villa have a squad capable of finishing in top eight or ten but under Houllier, they seem to have lost track and more worryingly belief in the manager.
The turning point now seems to be the surrendering in the FA Cup tie against Manchester City when Villa rested 8 first team players. Confidence is built upon wins and good performances and not losing games without a fight. They need to regroup and put on
some better displays because they have the players to make sure they stay up.
West Brom
After Roy Hodgson took over, many thought that the Baggies will keep some clean sheets and be strong defensively. In fact even after the arrival of a defensive minded manager they have now made a record of 28 games in the league without keeping a clean sheet.
Shameful stuff by the Baggies defenders.
Alan Pardew
“My selection will be based around being strong enough to cope with what they [Stoke] do. They don’t really carve you open with inter-play, it is set-plays and second phases and aggression and forceful play, and you have got to be able to cope with that.
That’s something I will think about when I select the team” – this is what Alan Pardew had to say before the match.
He then went onto the match with 3 centre backs including Sol Campbell, who was substituted after 65 dismal minutes on the pitch. And this is what he had to say after the match when his new tactics failed miserably.
“It’s one of those games you want to forget as a manager”.