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PREMIER LEAGUE: SPURS 2 FULHAM 0

EYEWITNESS report from WHITE HART LANE

By DAN CARRIER

 

GARETH Bale gallivanted forward, running like a colt, not really in complete control of the ball but prodding it into the space ahead of him and away from the chasing pack. It was 59 minutes in to a flat league performance: Spurs were a goal up, but not particularly dominating. 

 

Fulham defender Chris Baird stuck out a peg, Bale went down. 

 

Free kick, edge of the box: David Bentley stood over the ball, had a crack, and got lucky. The head of Brede Hangeland sent the shot spinning off the wall and into the net.  Bentley had crowned his return to the first team with goal.

 

Lucky? Perhaps. Vital?  Definitely.

 

Bentley is a player shorn of all confidence, some one whose career has not so much stalled, rather totally broken down. Any little filip must be taken with both hands, and for Bentley, it is vital to find positives some where. His start was unexpected, but Harry Redknapp needed to give things a shake, so he brought in the one-time England winger for Jermaine Jenas. It was Bentley’s second start of the season. He has been a £16 million millstone round the club’s neck, a player whose appearances have been so rare since we bought him two summers ago that they have cost ten‘s of thousands.

 

And it is not as if you can call him the forgotten man of the Lane. Bentley’s price tag and promise (remember that goal? Course you do…), his out-of-work antics…they all mean every time he takes a seat on the bench, bootlaces undone, aware that he is never get a game, the spectre of the poor transfer decisions that brought Juande Ramos’s reign to a swift end haunts us.

 

With no January offer coming in for Bentley, Harry has to make the most of what he’s got and use his managerial nous to cajole the form out of Bentley that showed at Blackburn. 

 

Bentley’s inclusion was another attempt by Harry to solve the issue of how Spurs fill in until Aaron Lennon’s groin is tickety-boo. It has been three weeks and counting without the nippy winger. We have seen Luka Modric and Niko Kranjcar on the flanks, Alan Hutton and Gareth Bale told to push on to fill the need for width. Young Danny Rose has also had a run out - and none of these options can be called a soaring success.

 

The loss of Lennon has coincided with a threatening blip. Before Fulham showed up, Spurs were with out a Premiership win in four, and no goals scored in three of those games.

Bentley spent the first half wide, but while Lennon likes to come towards Corluka when he is in possession to play the give and go, Bentley lacks the whippet-pace required to make such a tactic work. All too often Corluka would be forced inside to find a team mate, leaving Bentley looking forlorn, wearing a why-won’t-anyone-pass-to-me-face,  like the last kid to be picked in the playground.

 

His right boot was billed as Beckham’s natural heir, but his first four crosses in 25 minutes were easily dealt with: the first  too deep, number two failed to beat the first man, the third wafted nicely for the centre back and then finally number four was too close to the keeper.

But on 26 minutes one of his hit and hopes was only semi-cleared by the keeper under pressure from Crouch: Modric collected, turned it back across the goal and Crouch finished it off. You can’t give Bentley too much credit, but he did play a role, of sorts.

 

His next real contribution was on 41, a corner from the left that prompted a scrambled clearance: otherwise it wasn’t a first half showing that would have Lennon worrying for his place.

His first effort of the second period saw him put a good ball on to Wilson Palacios’s head, and then a moment later, as if the cross had warmed his toes up, he threaded a move across the pitch. Then there was his goal just before the hour, which pepped him up momentarily. 

 

Fulham are no slouches: Hodgson has the demeanour of one of those men who re-enact the Battle of Waterloo using lead soldiers, and he arranges his teams in a similar manner. Danny Murphy sits deep and plays his side-rule passes, while his fellow central midfielder, the leggy Kagisho Dikgacoi, does his scurrying for him. Neither full back goes further than the half way line, and it meant Bentley was often crowded out. Yet it is up to him to show he is worthy of a starting place, and in reality, as tonight showed, when Lennon is fit, he is playing.

 

 

Hero: Welcome back, Tom Huddlestone. Missing for two games with a knee problem, the Hud reminded us with his no-nonsense passing that football is a simple game.  

 

Villain:

While Peter Crouch worked hard, scored a goal, and did nothing wrong, there is a feeling that his height offers an easy option and encourages the long ball. It’s sometimes just not that pretty.

 

Move of the Match: Luka Modric’s Cruyff turn in the fist half, which won him space to play Gareth Bale in behind the Fulham defence.