Defoe's goals must be rewarded to maintain healthy competition

SPURS fans may have got the hitman they wanted in the summer but the selection process has to be fair or motivation will become an issue.

Roberto Soldado scored four goals in his first three games since arriving for £26million in the summer but his impact has waned in recent weeks.

That is not to deny his quality on the ball or in bringing others into the game - his awareness to set up Gylfi Sigurdsson's goal against Chelsea on Saturday was right out the top drawer.

But Jermain Defoe now has six goals in three cup starts and has to be banging loudly on the door for a Premier League return.

Many Spurs fans had written him off from having any sizable impact on the new campaign, so loud were the calls for TWO new out-and-out strikers. 

But the arrival of Soldado and his immediate success seems to have jogged our England hitman into life. 

And the manner of the strikes is just as impressive as the number.

Defoe's reputation is for explosive, powerful finishing but his goals this season have shown far more composure and maturity.

From a placed effort against Dinamo Tbilisi to delicate a chip versus Tromso and selling Aston Villa's keeper a dummy.

Not to mention a cheeky header earlier in that same game - the Londoner is starting to look a more complete striker than ever.

He has hit similar early peaks in the past, scoring five in the first five games of the 2009-10 season, including a hat-trick in a 5-1 away win over Hull.

That season, Defoe went onto score 17 Prem goals and last season he hit four in the first five games. 

But for some reason, he still failed to hold down that No 1 striker position.

However, with Soldado brought in, Defoe is clearly playing for his place and that is exactly what we all want.

But that determination to fight tooth and nail for a spot on the weekend will soon disappear if it becomes evident that a step up is out of reach.

Besides which, there is a lot of pressure on Soldado and he too needs protecting as he settles in.

The negative statistics are starting to creep into the frame for the Spaniard; no goals in four games, no league goals from open play.

Some will argue that the figures are warped in Defoe's favour as it is easier to get goals against weakened League Cup sides and Europa League minnows.

If that is the case, then give Soldado a chance to rediscover his shooting boots against Anzhi this Thursday and let Defoe loose against his former club West Ham on Saturday.

Competition for places is what we had lacked until this season but, in order to keep everyone at the top of their game, those on the sidelines need to know that those on the pitch are not untouchable.

Give Defoe a shot on Saturday and this rate he'll take it in style - and it could force Soldado to rediscover his scoring form as well.

Villas-Boas' new habit is more than welcome at Spurs

TOTTENHAM'S reliance on late goals and 1-0 wins were not the only trends highlighted by Paulinho's 93rd-minute winner against Cardiff.

Since Andre Villas-Boas' arrival in summer 2012 we have won all eight Premier League games against newly promoted opposition.

To the outsider, that does not sound too impressive, but Spurs fans know it is all too significant.

Soccer scribes and pundits are still questioning how we did not score more of our 29 attempts on goal on Sunday. 

But Spurs' most irritating problem in recent years has not been our failure to kill off the division's minnows early on but a failure to kill them off at all.

And more often than not, that has resulted in heartache come the end of the season.

In Harry Redknapp's three full seasons in charge - not including the season he arrived to steer us clear of relegation, it would be unfair to count that - we managed just six wins in 18 games against Premier League debutants.

The season we qualified for the Champions League, we took just seven points from Burnley, Wolves and Birmingham collectively.

We repeated that feat the following season in 2010-11. So despite reaching the Champions League quarter-finals, we could only take one point off Blackpool all year.

And it's not just under Redknapp that we have been plagued by these lower-league lapses.

Martin Jol took us to the brink of a top four finish in 2005-06, missing out on the final day having only won two games against Prem new boys Sunderland, Wigan and West Ham.

Obviously, circumstances always play their part and these games are never as easy as they sound. 

But just say we had taken all 18 points from divisional new boys as a matter of course, we'd have finished 3rd in 2011-12, unaffected by Chelsea's European Cup win, and runners-up to Manchester United in 2009-10.

In fact, we would have qualified for the Champions league for five of the last eight seasons.

As chance after chance went begging on Sunday, the press was edging our early top-four credentials towards the bin marked Not Yet Ready.

And, before Paulinho's last-gasp backheel broke Bluebirds hearts, the words "same old story" were forming in the frontal lobes of fans and writers alike.

But Villas-Boas' encouraging back-to-basics trend indicates that this is anything but the same old Spurs.

Lamela has to wait as the old guard state their case

WE all went to see our record new signing Erik Lamela but what we got was a master class from some of our forgotten talent.

Jermain Defoe, Sandro and Mousa Dembele all shone in another patient

and organised performance as Spurs swept unthreatening Tromso aside.

Defoe now has four goals in two European outings and must be back in contention for an England spot at the two vital October World Cup qualifiers.

The staunch competition for a Spurs starting place seems to be having the desired effect because both Defoe's instinct and his finishing were razor sharp as he put the Norwegians to the sword.

His two goals came from short through balls that left him little time to think. The first he dinked over the keeper, the second he slid calmy into the corner.

It was a welcome sight for Tottenham fans, who have become accustomed to seeing the White Hart Lane favourite opt for power above accuracy and fire countless gilt-edged opportunities straight at a keeper.

But if Defoe continues to show the sort of composure he did against Tromso then he'll be pushing Roberto Soldado every step of the way to lead the front line.

And he'll be soaring up the scoring charts in the process.

Sandro's impact on Thursday night was of a different nature, but still impossible to ignore.

For years, Spurs fans have rued the absence of a "midfield general". 

Well Sandro is that general and he's marching off to war (if you don't get that reference, then you need to do your homework).

The Brazilian has filled out since last season's injury but it has made him no less mobile.

Equal parts power and grace, the part-Spartan, part-battering ram swung around the middle of the park winning every ball and not once surrendering possession.

The fans have even taken to calling "Beaasst!" when he charges into a challenge and it is no coincidence that Spurs have not conceded this season while Sandro has been on the pitch.

Mousa Dembele, meanwhile, never charges - he glides. His close control has come on in leaps and bounds and the way he makes the ball do all the work is a fine example for younger Spurs generations. 

He has grown up a lot since his debut season last term but he still shoots from distance too often - and too inaccurately.

His possession play and movement will win him more than his fair share of starts and, if he can nail that final ball, then he can be every bit as dangerous as the rest of them.

Lamela, the man we all came to see, wasn't bad either.

The Argentine showed glimpses of wizardry, a turn of pace and got a clever assist for Defoe's opener.

He may not have raised the roof - but you sense it is only a matter of time.

Spurs' Norwich win down to hard work, not just creativity

YOU'LL do well to find a Tottenham article that didn't focus on Christian Eriksen over the weekend.

And well they might. The Dane came in to provide some creation in midfield and two goals from open play swiftly followed.

However, anyone who saw the 2-0 win over Norwich will have noted that individual hard work played just as big a role as creativity - particularly in the latter stages.

Protecting a lead, the final 20 minutes are often somewhat of a concern at Spurs. 

Apprehension sweeps the crowd like wildfire and panic spreads from player to player like an airborne epidemic.

Simple passes become stray balls and defensive positioning begins to look like a freeforall.

But on Saturday Michael Dawson and Jan Vertonghen remained firm and focused and Danny Rose put in as robust a last quarter as you are ever likely to see from a left-back.

Sandro sat on the bench for the best part of 80 minutes but, bang, he was straight to the top of his game when he came on - chasing, harrying and switched on to all runners and potential hazards

Even light-footed sub Erik Lamela chased back and mucked in, winning the ball in the final minutes.

It wasn't a case of being first to every ball but more a case of, "If second to the ball, win it back anyway."

Of course, Spurs fans will still hail Eriksen's performance - he had a blinder.  

Roberto Soldado had been looking increasingly isolated before we found somebody capable of linking the play between the frontman and our solid midfield.

But while the invention and style may be the cake's icing, or the cockerel's doodle-doo, it all has to be underpinned by concentration and unwavering work rate from every player in the side.

Countless times in the past we've done the difficult bit and got our noses in front only for a keeper to make a howler, the midfield to fall asleep or the attack to stop pressing.

Then we're left ruing dropped points that, like May just gone, would prove vital come the end of the season.

Creativity might win you games but it's the groundwork that wins titles and, without that focus from the first minute to the last, regular trophies and top-four finishes are a pipe dream.

Until our tenacious display on Saturday, Norwich had scored nine goals in their first four games of the season. But we reduced them to just a single shot on goal for our fifth clean sheet in six games.

It might only be a start, but it's a bloody good one.

Don't underestimate Spurs legend Chris Hughton

Spurs fans always have time for club legend Chris Hughton but we could soon be sick of the sight of him.

We host his Norwich side on Saturday afternoon hoping that our old player and coach does not continue his good run of form against us. 

Hughton was unbeaten over three meetings last season and the pressure is rising for Andre Villas-Boas to break that trend this weekend.

Just three games in, Norwich at home is billed as "a must-win game". As if, somehow, any dropped points could cause the club to ditch the new stadium plans, flog off the assets and call it a day.

True, if we want to be competing for a top-three spot then it is the sort of game we should he winning. 

But presuming we're entitled to three points does a massive disservice to the plucky Canaries, and Tottenham favourite Hughton.

As left-back, coach and No 2, Hughton gave us 27 years of dedicated service.

He played 398 games for us between 1979 and 1990, winning the FA Cup in 1981 and 1982 as well as the UEFA Cup in 1984.

Hughton served under ten different Spurs bosses including Ossie Ardiles, George Graham, Glenn Hoddle and Martin Jol.

It was only right that, having more than overpaid his dues, he tried his hand at full-time management.

Arriving at Norwich last summer following stints with Newcastle and Birmingham, Hughton took the club to an 11th-placed Premier League finish.

His Canaries side twice held us to 1-1 draws in the league and knocked us out the Capital One Cup. 

On the face of it, that's not a good return for a "must-win" game but when you look at some of Hughton's other results it brings some perspective.

He masterminded 1-0 wins over Arsenal and Manchester United and ended last season with a 4-0 Carrow Road win over West Brom and a 3-2 away victory at Manchester City.

Hughton has worked with polar opposite styles and temperaments. He has seen good and bad, successes and failures, kings of men and lords of idiots.

With this melting pot of experience it should come as no surprise that he can mix it in management, or that he has the tactical know how to flick between gameplans. 

Norwich are just as capable of hammering a team out of sight as they are of grinding out a result against top opposition.

In fact, at 54 years old, it would be little surprise if Hughton went on to become one of the top flight's star gaffers in the coming years.

As for Spurs, we're hardly in a bullish mood having used up all our bull in a frustrating 1-0 loss at Arsenal - where the usual pre-match guff talked us all into believing we had won the game before kick-off.

With the international break in the way our raft of new players have hardly had a chance to settle let alone gel together.

We all feel like a win would set our season back on track after a rowdy transfer window. But this Norwich side will be no pushover.

Hughton will always be welcome at White Hart Lane, we would just prefer it wasn't in the away dugout.

Talking about my generation... Spurs fans' first-game memories

Tottenham Hotspur Football Club celebrated its 131st birthday last week, so we asked a number of Spurs supporters from different generations to give an account of their first-ever Spurs game.

Here's what they came back with...

Spurs 1-1 Wolves - FA Cup 4th round, Jan 1996  By Taxi For Maicon

It was freezing and, to put it kindly, Spurs were genuinely terrible. We were right at the back of the upper shelf - although the  lower north-east corner was to become home until Paxton Road was expanded.

I remember panicking during the week, firstly that it would get called off over snow, and secondly that Chris Armstrong would play (this was totally unfair as Chris Armstrong did well for Spurs, scoring 48 goals in 141 games, but I was a huge Jurgen Klinsmann fan and unless his replacement was, well, Jurgen Klinsmann, then I was always going to be an unfair critic.)

Anyway, Dean Austin misplaced a backpass for their goal and I'm pretty sure Clive Wilson brought us back to 1-1. Don't quote me on that, as my memory is terrible.

The rest of it is hazy other than my dad refusing to "stand up if you hate Arsenal", getting top-class chips from a chippie on Tottenham High Road and playing Sensible World of Soccer when I got home.

Spurs 5-1 Oldham - League Division Two, Oct 1977  By Hounslow's Finest (via Ja606.com)

We were in the players bar after the game as the bloke I went with's niece was married to Neil McNab.

We came out of the ground in Neil's wife's Austin 1300 (how times have changed).

We went up that season to Division One after finishing third behind table-toppers Bolton and  Southampton.

My 35 years of watching spurs has cost me loads of money, my fringe and a good few wind ups from my mates but I wouldn't change it for the world.

Spurs 5-1 Crewe Alexandra - FA Cup 4th round, Jan 1961 By ThePieKing (via Twitter)

We parked up at Wingate trading estate, which isn't there any more. I think it has made way for  the development of the new stadium.

I remember it being full. Around 60,000, mostly standing although funnily enough I was sat down.

Cliff Jones and Dave Mackay were among the scorers but my lasting memory from the game is Bobby Smith hammering a shot wide from close range.

The ball arrowed straight into the crowd and hit someone down the front. It looked nasty and there was some sort of commotion - maybe a stretcher, but I can't be sure.

We never did find out if they were OK afterwards.

Bolton 2-2 Spurs - Premier League, Oct 2009 By LancslassinLdn (via Twitter)

Living up north, we didn't get to many home matches, and started going to the Lancashire away games.

We waited by the coach before and after the game and Peter Crouch was doing well for England at the time, so he stood out.

Afterwards, my partner pointed out one of the Spurs youngsters stood away from the crowd - it was Gareth Bale.

He was tiny! He hadn't played and nobody really went over for his autograph and he was picked up by two people, probably his parents. 

Who would have thought he would become the world's most expensive player!

Spurs 2-1 West Brom - Premier League, March 2006 By Spurs boy (via Ja606.com)

Curtis Davies opened the scoring and we left it late to get back in the game.

Robbie Keane chipped an equaliser and then Mido scored only for it to be disallowed as Jermain Defoe had been brought down in the box seconds beforehand. 

Mido was furious! Keane scored the pen.

Arsenal's Ozil move doesn't put Spurs in a Mes

SMILES. Smug smiles. That's about all you'll get from Arsenal fans this week. 

But it's not just because they've signed Mesut Ozil from Real Madrid and finally spent some money, it's also because they think they've got Spurs fans rattled.

What's worse is that some of us are proving them right.

Until Ozil's deadline-day Goons switch, our chairman Daniel Levy owned the transfer window but it seems sharing the limelight with our old foes is just too much to bear.

And the irony that it would never have happened without Gareth Bale's Real move makes it all the more cruel.

Well, sorry, that doesn't wash with us. 

On Sunday morning, we were like a boy racer revving his new car at the lights. We were nailed on for fourth place and it was sure to be at Arsenal's expense. 

By Monday evening (yes, that's a long time to be at the lights but just go with it) they rolled up with a Lamborghini and our balls wilted.

What did everyone expect? Arsene Wenger would just sit by and let us speed off into the distance? Hardly.

We've heard it all from Spurs fans this week. "We still need a left-back, why didn't we get Ozil?" and most deluded of all "that was a poor deadline day for us."

All of it is ridiculous.

There's no denying that Ozil is one of the best players in Europe. In the past five seasons, he has created more chances and made more assists than any other elite player in the continent.

But it helps when the man you are passing the ball to is Cristiano Ronaldo.

The simple matter is the German playmaker would never have come to Spurs. He has to perform against the best and we cannot offer Champions League football.

Arsenal's need in the transfer window was much different to ours, they know they already have a squad capable of regularly finishing in the top four, so it only needed a respray. 

But one signing won't win them the title and it does not take away from what we did in the market.

In Erik Lamela and Christian Eriksen we have two of Europe's most renowned young talents. Add to that a reinforced midfield of Paulinho and Etienne Capoue. 

It's a lot of players to gel in very little time but the previous squad had proven three years in a row that it could not keep pace for the whole season and enough was enough.

True, none of the new guys are proven in English football but it shows major ambition and if even four of our seven signings live up to their massive potential then it gives us a fighting chance of withstanding another late-season collapse.

If it's Premier League experience you're after then look no further than Danny Rose, one of last season's key left-backs on loan at Sunderland.

What's more he's English, he's prepared to fight for his place and refusing to sell him on could yet prove to be one of our best moves of the summer. 

The other option was Fabio Coentrao, and even Manchester United failed to prise him from Real.

The view that we are typically shrewd on transfer deadline day is a myth as well.

In the last seven of them, the only real coups have been Hugo Lloris and Rafa Van Der Vaart. And Rafa only because we were in the Champions League.

Other than Clint Dempsey - who replaced Rafa with limited success last summer - our ONLY other deadline-day signing since 2010 has been Louis Saha.

The real crux of the matter, which has jilted folks' perspective, is that we lost the North London derby at the Emirates. 

We didn't create much but it's a game that we've lost 5-2 for the past two seasons, so it's an improvement.

We have never been this consistently close to Arsenal since the Premier League began.

Yes they are still in front but it's not Spurs who have 17 straight top-four finishes to protect.

It's not us who are crying over not winning a trophy for eight years.

And it's not us who had to sing "spend some f**king money" on the opening day just to get some transfer activity.

Frankly, it's not us who should be rattled, it's them.

Taxi for Bale... or should that be limousine?

GARETH BALE the promising prodigy is a thing of the past. Will Bale the galactico please stand up?

Seeing Real Madrid unveil the world's new most expensive player hammered home what we've known for weeks - his Tottenham days are done... Taxi for Bale!!

Yet you can be sure it wasn't a taxi that took him from Madrid airport to his new theatre stage, those days are done as well. 

A limousine is more like it, although if the reported contract he is on is accurate, Bale never needs to be driven anywhere again.

Between private jets, helicopters and yachts, his feet only have to touch the ground when he's playing football. 

And his new employers would probably prefer it that way because, when Real pay that sort of money for someone, they aren't just buying a footballer but investing in a superstar.

The confident well-preened young man out there speaking Spanish and doing tricks in the middle of the Bernabeu was no longer the wide-eyed youth whose every touch bore more potential than the last.

It was GB11, the brand - a globally public figure expected to appeal to millions of fans and generate squillions of euros.

Former managers and mentors all say Bale is a homeboy at heart and will not be blinded by the bright lights or sell out to celebrity.

But, like CR7 (Cristiano Ronaldo) and DB23 (David Beckham) before him, Real expect his entertainment value and image rights to more than pay for his astronomical transfer fee.

The sky is no longer the limit for Bale mark II, it's the minimum requirement.

There will still be Spurs fans annoyed at the way the transfer saga played out. 

But the groundswell of opinion is that the man responsible for all the great memories, the amazing goals and the explosive excitement deserves his crack at the bigtime.

The innocent lad who found his feet in front of the White Hart Lane crowd and grew into one of the finest Premier League talents has more than earned his dream move - especially when you look at the rack of replacements he has effectively paid for. 

And if that means Bale has enrolled in a future of backwards baseball caps and personalised sportswear then so be it.

He'll still be welcomed back at Tottenham and, if he does remain a homeboy, then there'll probably still be Spurs fans waiting for autographs when his yacht sails back up the Welsh coast.

So, for one final time... Taxi, well, private jet for GB11.