It’s hard to know what to make of Spurs these days. A week ago, we were on cloud 9, having beaten the barcodes 4-0 in their back garden. Today, we’re glum having put in a performance of complete ineptitude against Juande Ramos’ Dnipro.

I recently watched this excellent interview from the 70s with Brian Clough, in which he berates John Motson and the media in general for trying to tell football fans what to think.

The trouble is, 30 years later, the average football fan’s thoughts are so manipulated by the media that we tend to regurgitate the ill-researched nonsense they churn out.

For example, the media is currently determined to find a huge difference between this season’s Tottenham under Sherwood compared to Tottenham under AVB. They keep churning out stats like “7 wins, 2 draws and one defeat from 10 matches”, ignoring the fact that City completely destroyed us and turning a blind eye to the struggle for footballing fluency under both managers which is apparent to any season-ticket holder at the Lane.

The fact is, we are the best of the rest, by dint of the rest (meaning those outside the top 4) being not very good, not because of any fantastic play by us. There’s very little difference between AVB’s side and Sherwood’s, except under Sherwood Bentaleb and Adebayor play, and under AVB they didn’t. While I’m grateful to him for introducing these players, he’s hardly earned a knighthood. We still lack penetration and opposition teams continue to cut through us like a knife through butter. Yesterday, Brad kept us in the game. Lloris has done it routinely all season in the league.

This lack of fluency and penetrative play stems from the squad being completely unbalanced. We are trying to shoe-horn 11 players (including those on loan) who prefer to play as central or attacking midfielders into a starting XI. Count ’em:

Paulinho, Dembele, Sandro, Capoue, Holtby, Bentaleb, Sigurdsson  (has said he prefers playing in the hole to the wing), Chadli (same as Sigurdsson), Eriksen, Carroll, Livermore

Against Newcastle, we played Dembele on the right wing, alongside Capoue, Bentaleb and Paulinho. This meant leaving out Eriksen, another player who prefers to go through the middle, and playing one winger, Lennon, on his less preferred side.

We only have one player who prefers to play on the left- Danny Rose. Now, Danny is great going forward, but even Paulo Di Canio could see that he needed to work on his defensive play when he was at Sunderland. All the other players who can play on the left prefer to play through the middle or on the right. We have 3 right backs (Walker, Naughton and Fredericks) and 3 who prefer to play right midfield (Lennon, Townsend and Lamela). We are paying the price for a scatter-gun buying policy, and frankly Franco Baldini, Daniel Levy and AVB are to blame for that. When we sold Bale and shipped BAE out on loan, we should have been buying players who want to play on the left wing to cover.

That said, I do believe that the XI that started against Newcastle is a better balanced side than any other picked thus far by Tim Sherwood. Playing Capoue as a number 4 and Bentaleb and Paulinho as two number 8s gave better fluency to the midfield, and provided a bit more of a shield to our defence. When Sandro is fit, he would take Capoue’s place in a strong starting XI. Dembele’s introduction on the wing worked surprisingly well, as his ability to go past people yielded rather more when he only has to beat one or two players to get a cross in, as opposed to having to get through a battalion in the middle.

The biggest lift for me was the reintroduction of Kaboul. I have long lamented our over reliance on Michael Dawson, who turns more slowly than a battleship in shallow water. Again, in the summer, we strengthened where strengthening was not needed. Steven Caulker, the heir apparent to Dawson, was sold, apparently because he upset the daughter of our illustrious owner, and we bought cover for Jan, in Chiriches. Chiriches has a lot of potential, but can’t play alongside Jan, so we need Kaboul fit. If- and it’s a big if- we can keep Kaboul fit for the league matches, then the player who has started a handful of games over the past two seasons- easily playing less than Ledley did even at the end- can help us solidify and remain in touching distance of fourth place until the cruel end.

I doubt we will make the Champions League this year, but it says a lot about how weak the rest of the division is that we are still in the race after this turgid nonsense of a season. Unfortunately, while the board’s player recruitment policy continues to be six of one, half a dozen of the other, and none of what we need, I can’t see us improving on it.