Jol is blaming the latest signings

[bandini]

I see that Jol is blaming the fact that they went out and signed Bent and guys like Kaboul, Taarabt and Boateng instead of focusing on properly strengthening and balancing out the midfield. In truth he does have a point. Most of us were shaking our heads at the Bent deal and the midfield (especially on the left) is clearly lacking. As long as they address it now we should be fine. I feel sorry for Jol, but Ramos is the man now and hopefully he will get the necessary changes made. Still doesn't seem right that they were losing so many games with a side that was not very different from the one that has been doing nicely for the past couple of years.

[NJ10]

For me, a lot of Spurs' signings under Jol/Comolli and even before that under Arnesen & Santini, have been dubious. There was an awful lot of players who came, fell out of favour and were sold pretty sharpish- Pamarot, Davenport, Mido, Davids, Andy Reid, Danny Murphy, Edman, Naybet, Sean Davis, Pedro Mendes- to name a few. And there were/are plenty who still havent established themselves as first teamers, or proven themselves to be worthy of a first team slot- Wayne Routledge, Stalteri, Zokora, Huddlestone, Boateng. Thats a high turnover of players, lets be honest here, Spurs top players over the Jol era were King/Dawson, Carrick, Berbatov & Keane, with Lennon showing glimpses. Jol may not have had full control over who he was signing, but surely he had some kind of say, and was approving some if not all of the signings....

Ramos firstly has to sort the defence out, even the other night against Blackpool it looked shaky, they had enough chances to score. Dawson & King are a good partnership, but whether King will be fit for a sustained period is debatable. Kaboul is obviously a talent but so far he has looked very dubious defensively, flat footed to the extreme and positionally weak. Assuming Bale is going to be used at LM, it still leaves a problem at left back as i dont think Lee Young Pyo is particularly good or solid, he costs more than he produces. And then you have the centre of midfield....Huddlestone is a good player, but strange in that he is neither a destroyer, nor a goalscorer. He is perhaps similar to Michael Carrick, and therefore i think its hard to know what type of player to partner with him- whether to go for a Gerrard/Lampard-type, or a Makelele/Mascherano/Gattuso type. The other centre midfielders have no real outstanding qualities, Zokora is poor imo, Jenas gets a few goals but isnt great, Malbranque has talent but no consistency, doesnt even know his best position, Tainio is average and is Ghaly still there???

It will be an interesting one for Ramos and his reputation. I think he will do a decent job though.