Part 5 - Spurs need Gareth Bale's attitude

Spurs Need To Go Mental - Part 5


In Part 4 of the Spurs Need To Go Mental series I looked at transfer targets and why a Sports Psychologist should be employed to assess a player prior to purchase, resulting in more Gareth Bale's and less David Bentley's.

In Part 5 of the Spurs Need To Go Mental series I am going to look at Gareth Bale and his winning mentality. I'll look at the current crop of midfielders we have and ask do they don't have his mental approach.

Gareth Bale epitomised the right mental approach to other Spurs players. He strove for continual improvement, he never gave up and he rescued us again and again and again.


Spurs need Gareth Bale's attitude


Forget the skill but look instead of his attitude, his hunger to win, to be and to play his best. He was head and shoulders above the current crop of new recruits mentally.

You have to fill your side with as many people with that mental attitude as you can, those that don't have it, who only give their best when everything is going well or only against the top teams are players who need to be moved on. They are not winners.

Midfield in that respect is absolutely vital as most game are won and lost by which team controls the centre of the park. If you start to look through our central midfielders it is worrying how few winners there are.

Sandro and Nabil Bentaleb stand out as examples of what we need. Gylfi Sigurdsson doesn't have it mentally, Chadli is showing signs he may acquire some of it but isn't really good enough for central midfield.

Christian Eriksen is only playing out wide because we have no left wingers with the right mental attitude but he would join Sandro and Bentaleb as the three major pluses. Mouse Dembele plays within himself, there is a far better player in him but where is the desire to bring it out?

Tim Sherwood questioned Etienne Capoue's mental approach but he's one i'd sit on the fence with at the moment. Paulinho is waiting for the World Cup but how many games he will see as big games next season is open to debate given his admission of laziness.


Recent Posts - The Spurs Need To Go Mental Series
Part 4 - Spurs need to assess players better
Part 3 - Spurs players should learn from Harry Kane
Part 2 - The mental shift Spurs must make to be successful
Part 1 - Spurs need to go mental

Also - Spurs don't want Moyes
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I'll get slated for saying so but out on the right Aaron Lennon shows more mentally than many of his teammates, he doesn't switch off and neglect his defensive duties and is always looking for work the opportunity for a pass to be made to him inside the full-back. He needs to play with the right teammates and currently he isn't.

Erik Lamela has shown no sign that he has it between his ears, indeed he has shown a mental weakness failing to learn the language.

As I say forget skill, but just look at the mental attitude and compare what we have now to the never give up, never stop improving Bale attitude because it is that attitude that makes great players.

If you have quality players with that mental attitude why would they want to stay if they can see not enough of the others players have it? They will naturally want to move to a bigger club who have more players with the right mentality.

Until we assess players mental ability better before we buy them we will always keep losing the high quality players who stand out.

In Part 6 of the Spurs Need To Go Mental series tomorrow night I will suggest £20,000 could have prevented the Erik Lamela fiasco.



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