We can be confident at last

Mauricio Pochettino has suggested that Danny Rose could make the starting line-up against Crystal Palace which will alarm many a closed minded fan with a deep seated dislike of him.

We can be confident at last


Such views are rather irrational given his vastly improved performances this season and there was a subsequent over reaction to the performance of Ben Davies against Everton, who were having joy there in the last 20 minutes.

I doubt that Rose will play and suspect he'll have to wait his chance now but Davies will have to produce each week to retain his place and that means offering an attacking threat, something Rose has been vastly superior on so far.

Roberto Soldado scores a winner so is dropped, he has to be restored against Palace, we can't go into games with Harry Kane as our only attacker, he is only learning his craft so there are elements of good and bad in his game.

He has tenacity and only sees goal, shooting whenever he can which is both a strength and a weakness. Against Everton for instance he had a weak shot from which we scored an another weak shot with his left foot from outside the box when a ball to his left would have put Soldado in in the same position he scored from.

Jan Vertonghen has been coming out with some feeble rubbish suggesting his form is a result of Tim Sherwood undermining his confidence. That quite frankly is pathetic. If you are that mentally weak then you have serious problems. His defending against Chelsea was terrible, it was so bad against Remy that I though it must have been Vlad Chiriches I was watching for  moment, I had to watch it twice just to make sure.

If he wants to know why he hasn't been playing as much as he would like then he needs to watch re-runs of Remy's goal. His position is safe however as we are particularly weak in central defence, a problem we will look to put right in January by returning for Hector Moreno, who will will have been in regular contact with since the summer.

DeAndre Yedlin will arrive soon and Walker should be back in January so the defence will begin to take shape next year, while in front of them at the moment the Bentaleb Mason partnership looks the one we should persevere with. Capoue is just too slow on the ball and Dembele simply wants to slow everything down by dribbling, it's another area we need reinforcements in.

Reports suggest Aaron Lennon is not a problem and has got his head down, he wants to stay at Tottenham to play rather than collect his wages and I suspect he'll be given chances in December to change Pochettino's mind about him. He is derided by fans who often don't understand a wide man's role or recognise a striker missing a chance he creates in not his fault. He could produce more but equally he is not as bad as some make out.

Christian Eriksen is a bit of a problem for me because he creates very little, he scores and people rave but apart from that when the game is with a crushed defence he struggles. Our play crushes defences so he is regularly going to encounter this. This is his second season in the league so he needs to kick on, he is stagnating rather at the moment. If he doesn't then we need to look for a new creator.

It's been a while since we can look forward to a game with confidence and it's a welcome feeling so let's hope that confidence is not misplaced.