Three points at home against QPR was no more than the fans expected but the national press exaggerometer is already swinging wildly out of control. Suddenly, not only are we a shoo-in for fourth place but we're the team the neutrals love to like.
If you add Sunday's 3-1 victory over our newly promoted neighbours to battling victories away at Wolves, Blackburn and Wigan then maybe they have a point.
One of the banes of Martin Jol's reign as boss was our inability take points off "the big four" with any regularity; a step which was seen as essential to make that final push towards Champions League football.
This term we have already beaten Arsenal and put four past Liverpool but last season we took only three points in total from our post-San Siro fixtures against Blackpool, Wolves, West Ham and Wigan and that's why the QPR result is so important.
Optimistic Spurs fans will now be etching a big '3' on their prediction sheets alongside Fulham, Aston Villa, West Brom and Bolton, whereas cynics will be counting the banana skins - but a good win with some terrific football is exactly the sort of preparation we needed.
The arrival of Gareth Bale into goalscoring form is more than welcome as Adebayor seems to have lost his compass. The big man fluffed a few chances on Sunday but is linking up well with Rafa Van Der Vaart and his (current) work rate more suits our style of football than Jermain Defoe or Russian whinger Roman Pavlyuchenko.
Scott Parker goes from strength to strength and Saturday proved once again just how convincingly he and Luka Modric can control the centre of the park. I had backed Bassong for a start and, whilst it can only be to his benefit to secure a run of games, you always want your strongest 11 on the pitch and it's now clear that Sunday was our strongest line-up.
One niggling concern tapping away at the back of my mind is that we'll have used up four of our five home games against the big sides by Christmas (we face Chelsea at the Lane on December 22).
In early 2012, we have away games at Eastlands, Anfield, the Emirates and Stamford Bridge all within an eight-game stretch and one of the home ties sandwiched between those is Manchester United.
It makes for difficult reading and highlights the significance of making our current good form count. With the youngsters filling the Europa League line-ups, the senior names can be kept fresh and hopefully we can rack up some points before the going gets really tough.
Regardless of shoo-ins or banana skins, the next six games will define our season.
2 comments:
Good article. The points from the big teams was a problem under Jol, which seems to have been rectified under Redknapp, at the expense of taking points off the lower teams. These next few games will need us to show we can take points of the lowly teams and get some points in the bank before the cold sparse point filled winter months.
I am a pessimist but I'm not cynical; well not very.
Parker played well against QPR but wasn't that good in the previous two games.
At least you avoided the 'new Dave Mackay' hype.
Good overview.
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