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Consistent Tottenham have a chance to break into the Big Four this season
Media Comment: manager Harry Redknapp has introduced a stability to Spurs that has been absent from White Hart Lane in recent years
Tottenham's perfect start to the season, which has seen them notch up three wins on the bounce - two of them away from their White Hart Lane fortress - and has placed them at the summit of the Premier League, is an anomlay for them in recent seasons, Dominic Fifield writes in the Guardian.
"Since Martin Jol began the 2005-06 campaign with one defeat in 11 Premier League matches, they have consistently stalled in the blocks. It took them a tortuous 11 matches last season to reach the nine points they have after three games this term, and 13 two years ago," Fifield writes. "On each occasion, it was November before their points tally lurched into double figures with managerial casualties endured en route."
What Redknapp appears to have achieved this season is a degree of consistency that has been lacking for so long. "The flurry of managers who have occupied the Spurs dug-out in recent seasons have each recruited heavily to shape the team into their own image," to such an extent, notes Fifield, that "each transfer window seemed to prompt wholesale change."
Yet despite Redknapp's reputation as a "wheeler-dealer", and the predictable avalanche of stories about potential targets for Spurs, "they brought in only Peter Crouch and Sebastien Bassong as first-teamers, and the young full-backs Kyle Naughton and Kyle Walker from Sheffield United", maintaining the continuity of their successful end to last season - "when 30 points were won from the last 16 games to hoist the team from 18th to eighth".
While Crouch is yet to score for his new team, Bassong's debut goal helped Spurs topple Liverpool in the season opener that set the tone for success. And a "glance at Spurs substitutes bench shows" their strength in depth, boasting "Carlo Cudicini, Jamie O'Hara, Crouch, Roman Pavlyuchenko, Naughton, David Bentley and Alan Hutton. That much is encouraging for a team that finished last season closer to the bottom than to fourth place. Tottenham may be on the turn." ·
