zin
Anthony Gardner
After 53* games, 216 different voters and 18012 votes I give you the ratings for the season from the Glory Glory and The Fighting **** forum members.
* no votes for Carlisle in the League Cup
The Team
Many would say that the first half of the season was better than the second and with an average of 6.42 compared to an average of 6.25 the ratings seem to back this up. However, the points gained at the end of December were 36 in 20 games, we earned an additional 36 points in 18 games by May.
Undefeated in September and December, we also qualified out of the group stages of the Europa League however consistency wasn't quite there though, with some of our best and worst results coming in November and we were knocked out of the League Cup at Norwich in October.
A 14 game undefeated run came to an end in January away to Leeds in the FA Cup, the end of our interest in the competition and our worst performance of the season, however we pushed on and were undefeated in February and then beat Arsenal followed by our best performance of the season against Inter Milan at the beginning of March.
Then the middle of March came, we lost the return leg to Inter Milan at the San Siro, almost getting knocked out of the Europa League in the process, and followed that up with a poor defeat to Fulham at the Lane. This was however our last defeat of the season, if we exclude the penalty shoot-out loss to Basel in the Europa League in April, an April which was our worst of the season due to only winning one game and drawing all the remaining four 2-2.
A good May was not enough to see us get fourth, finishing the season with a record 72 points for a fifth placed finish, 1 behind Arsenal who had managed to get 40 points in their remaining 19 games, having gotten 33 in their first 19.
The Players
Let me begin with Bale. Yes, player of the season, yes UEFA team of the year etc... etc... but the ratings tell us one thing most people ignore or don't realise, he wasn't our best player in the first half of the season, he wasn't even in the top 3. In fact it wasn't until the 7th game in, in our victory at Old Trafford, where he finally got a rating over 7 and it wasn't for another few games, until his comeback from injury against Southampton at the very end of October when we started seeing the kind of form we got used to in the second half of the season.
But even then, his first MOTM performance wasn't until the Liverpool game at the end of November, he then got injured in the next game against Fulham and didn't return until the festive period when he got his hat-trick against Aston Villa. The rest we know, plenty of goals, 11 MOTM awards and a total of 16 over 7.50 ratings for the season.
Our main player for the first half of the season was however Mousa Dembele. A rating of 7.15 for the first half of the season, even more than Bale's 7.12 for the second half. Our most consistent player in the first half of the season with an excellent 0.38 standard deviation and was always one of the top 3 players in the 14 games he played. Unfortunately an injury followed by loss of form meant his second half of the season was nowhere near as good and was one of the reasons our team ratings suffered.
Another reason for that was Sandro's injury, him and Dembele bossed the midfield and it's no surprise our better performances came when those two were on form. Had Sandro managed to play more than 2 games in the second half of the season there's every chance he would have been our player of the season, as it turns out his rating of 7.00 in 26 games only narrowly loses out to Bale's rating of 7.01 in 44 games.
Scott Parker as his replacement for the second half of the season saw us lose a rating of 0.98, quite a significant drop. Having been player of the season the season before his 9 under 5.50 performances will likely see him moved on. Same goes for Tom Huddlestone, who a couple of MOTM performances aside performed as badly as Parker did, if not worse at times. It has also been a very average season for our January signing Holtby but we should see more of him in what he describes as his preferred position if as expected we revert to 4-3-3 and we also look forward to Paulinho next season. Small mention to Tom Carroll who performed when called upon in his cameo appearances, especially when compared to Livermore who played the same amount of games.
Going back to great performers Jan Vertonghen had a great first half of the season in which he gathered 7 MOTM awards. Unfortunately Jan wasn't particularly consistent througout the second half of the season and being shifted out to left back on occasion probably didn't help but he won his place in the PFA Premier League team of the year and got us 7 goals for the season. Not bad for a debut season!
Staying with the defence a mention should go out to Vertonghen's regular center back partner Michael Dawson, supposedly on his way out at the beginning of the season he ended up playing 30 games, getting an above average individual rating for the season and most impressively was our most consistent player for the entire season. Although he didn't excel often he also very rarely played badly.
Of our other 2 center backs, Steven Caulker had a very good first half of the season but less so in the second half, only getting 8 games. Regardless of this he was another consistent performer which unforunately couldn't be said of our 4th center back William Gallas. Terribly inconsistent throughout the season he wasn't particularly bad to compare to others initially but it's just as well he only got 6 games in the second half of the season and was released at the end of his contract. We look forward to Younes Kaboul next season.
With Assou-Ekotto being out for most of the first half of the season we were left in a situation where Rose was loaned out and Vertonghen having to fill in at left back with Kyle Naughton, neither player's natual position. Naughton initially performed ok but the second half of the season was mostly forgettable for him, as was Assou-Ekotto's. There is a lot of discussion about how we should save our money and not buy a new left back, the ratings for the season seem to suggest otherwise.
As Naughton was filling in at left back Kyle Walker ended up playing in 49 of the 53 games at right back. A very poor first half of the season from him but he managed to turn it around in the second half of the season with an above average rating. More of the same next season would be welcome and it will be interesting to see who will be covering for him come August.
Another slow starter was Gylfi Sigurdsson, in almost an identical path as Walker in terms of getting better as the season progressed, with a 4-3-3 formation he should continue improving even more. Interestingly Gylfi seems to get more grief from supporters than Aaron Lennon who performed worse than him in the second part of the season.
Aaron has been around for a while now and his season, contrary to what a few people have been saying has been average and inconsistent. His ratings for each half of the season were slightly above and slightly below the team average, he managed to have 9 sub 5.50 performances, only 6 over 7.50 performances and yet somehow managed 5 MOTM awards and only 2 worst player on the pitch awards. It's this variety of performances which has some of us wanting an upgrade on him and having him as an impact sub instead. He did manage the 3rd most amount of games this season though which is very impressive for him considering his injury record.
A quick mention to the goalkeeping situation. We have a world class keeper in Hugo Lloris who was one of the most consistent performers for the season and had the 3rd highest season rating behind Bale and Sandro with his performance against Lazio in Rome being a stand-out memory. Friedel's performances were nowhere near as good and having played 20 games in the season I strongly doubt he will reach double figures in the next.
Right, now to the shower of brick that is our forwards. Most inconsistent players? Clint Dempsey and Jermain Defoe. Defoe first, having scored plenty of goals at the start of the season to mask his low average rating and ramp up support for him proceeded to lose all that support (one assumes by the lack of plaudits now) by not scoring for a ridiculous amount of games and getting, by far, the lowest rating by anyone in the second half of the season with 5.43 and received the most sub 5.50 performances of the season with 15 as well as the worst player on the pitch the most times with 10. To be the worst player every 4 games takes some doing.
The reason why he didn't have anymore worst player performences was partly because of Clint Dempsey. His average rating for the season is even lower than Defoe's and with a standard deviation of 1.20 had the highest inconsistency than anyone else. His only saving grace was scoring some important goals (such as the winner against Man Utd at Old Trafford) and the number of goals he has scored from essentially a midfield position. Whether Dempsey is kept on is unclear and Defoe may end up being more of an impact sub should we finally buy a striker.
Having saved the worst till last I'm not sure what to say about Adebayor. More worst player on the pitch performances per game than Defoe, a sub 5.50 rating almost every other game, lowest average rating of the season by anyone and yet he's capable of putting in a performance as the one he produced against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. I for one look forward to our new striker(s) this coming season.
I truely believe the only way is up with Spurs and that our squad doesn't need a complete overhaul like those lofty days in the 90s and early 00s. It's exciting times and I for one am looking forward to it all. Yes we missed out on Champions League football but we're headed in the right direction. COYS!
Going over the final ratings I've not told anyone much they didn't already know. It's been interesting for me but it's also been time consuming, even this post alone has taken me 3 days to prepare. I hope some of you have enjoyed the information and if any of you wish to take over please feel free as I shall not be continuing this next season.
* no votes for Carlisle in the League Cup
The Team
Many would say that the first half of the season was better than the second and with an average of 6.42 compared to an average of 6.25 the ratings seem to back this up. However, the points gained at the end of December were 36 in 20 games, we earned an additional 36 points in 18 games by May.
Undefeated in September and December, we also qualified out of the group stages of the Europa League however consistency wasn't quite there though, with some of our best and worst results coming in November and we were knocked out of the League Cup at Norwich in October.
A 14 game undefeated run came to an end in January away to Leeds in the FA Cup, the end of our interest in the competition and our worst performance of the season, however we pushed on and were undefeated in February and then beat Arsenal followed by our best performance of the season against Inter Milan at the beginning of March.
Then the middle of March came, we lost the return leg to Inter Milan at the San Siro, almost getting knocked out of the Europa League in the process, and followed that up with a poor defeat to Fulham at the Lane. This was however our last defeat of the season, if we exclude the penalty shoot-out loss to Basel in the Europa League in April, an April which was our worst of the season due to only winning one game and drawing all the remaining four 2-2.
A good May was not enough to see us get fourth, finishing the season with a record 72 points for a fifth placed finish, 1 behind Arsenal who had managed to get 40 points in their remaining 19 games, having gotten 33 in their first 19.
The Players
Let me begin with Bale. Yes, player of the season, yes UEFA team of the year etc... etc... but the ratings tell us one thing most people ignore or don't realise, he wasn't our best player in the first half of the season, he wasn't even in the top 3. In fact it wasn't until the 7th game in, in our victory at Old Trafford, where he finally got a rating over 7 and it wasn't for another few games, until his comeback from injury against Southampton at the very end of October when we started seeing the kind of form we got used to in the second half of the season.
But even then, his first MOTM performance wasn't until the Liverpool game at the end of November, he then got injured in the next game against Fulham and didn't return until the festive period when he got his hat-trick against Aston Villa. The rest we know, plenty of goals, 11 MOTM awards and a total of 16 over 7.50 ratings for the season.
Our main player for the first half of the season was however Mousa Dembele. A rating of 7.15 for the first half of the season, even more than Bale's 7.12 for the second half. Our most consistent player in the first half of the season with an excellent 0.38 standard deviation and was always one of the top 3 players in the 14 games he played. Unfortunately an injury followed by loss of form meant his second half of the season was nowhere near as good and was one of the reasons our team ratings suffered.
Another reason for that was Sandro's injury, him and Dembele bossed the midfield and it's no surprise our better performances came when those two were on form. Had Sandro managed to play more than 2 games in the second half of the season there's every chance he would have been our player of the season, as it turns out his rating of 7.00 in 26 games only narrowly loses out to Bale's rating of 7.01 in 44 games.
Scott Parker as his replacement for the second half of the season saw us lose a rating of 0.98, quite a significant drop. Having been player of the season the season before his 9 under 5.50 performances will likely see him moved on. Same goes for Tom Huddlestone, who a couple of MOTM performances aside performed as badly as Parker did, if not worse at times. It has also been a very average season for our January signing Holtby but we should see more of him in what he describes as his preferred position if as expected we revert to 4-3-3 and we also look forward to Paulinho next season. Small mention to Tom Carroll who performed when called upon in his cameo appearances, especially when compared to Livermore who played the same amount of games.
Going back to great performers Jan Vertonghen had a great first half of the season in which he gathered 7 MOTM awards. Unfortunately Jan wasn't particularly consistent througout the second half of the season and being shifted out to left back on occasion probably didn't help but he won his place in the PFA Premier League team of the year and got us 7 goals for the season. Not bad for a debut season!
Staying with the defence a mention should go out to Vertonghen's regular center back partner Michael Dawson, supposedly on his way out at the beginning of the season he ended up playing 30 games, getting an above average individual rating for the season and most impressively was our most consistent player for the entire season. Although he didn't excel often he also very rarely played badly.
Of our other 2 center backs, Steven Caulker had a very good first half of the season but less so in the second half, only getting 8 games. Regardless of this he was another consistent performer which unforunately couldn't be said of our 4th center back William Gallas. Terribly inconsistent throughout the season he wasn't particularly bad to compare to others initially but it's just as well he only got 6 games in the second half of the season and was released at the end of his contract. We look forward to Younes Kaboul next season.
With Assou-Ekotto being out for most of the first half of the season we were left in a situation where Rose was loaned out and Vertonghen having to fill in at left back with Kyle Naughton, neither player's natual position. Naughton initially performed ok but the second half of the season was mostly forgettable for him, as was Assou-Ekotto's. There is a lot of discussion about how we should save our money and not buy a new left back, the ratings for the season seem to suggest otherwise.
As Naughton was filling in at left back Kyle Walker ended up playing in 49 of the 53 games at right back. A very poor first half of the season from him but he managed to turn it around in the second half of the season with an above average rating. More of the same next season would be welcome and it will be interesting to see who will be covering for him come August.
Another slow starter was Gylfi Sigurdsson, in almost an identical path as Walker in terms of getting better as the season progressed, with a 4-3-3 formation he should continue improving even more. Interestingly Gylfi seems to get more grief from supporters than Aaron Lennon who performed worse than him in the second part of the season.
Aaron has been around for a while now and his season, contrary to what a few people have been saying has been average and inconsistent. His ratings for each half of the season were slightly above and slightly below the team average, he managed to have 9 sub 5.50 performances, only 6 over 7.50 performances and yet somehow managed 5 MOTM awards and only 2 worst player on the pitch awards. It's this variety of performances which has some of us wanting an upgrade on him and having him as an impact sub instead. He did manage the 3rd most amount of games this season though which is very impressive for him considering his injury record.
A quick mention to the goalkeeping situation. We have a world class keeper in Hugo Lloris who was one of the most consistent performers for the season and had the 3rd highest season rating behind Bale and Sandro with his performance against Lazio in Rome being a stand-out memory. Friedel's performances were nowhere near as good and having played 20 games in the season I strongly doubt he will reach double figures in the next.
Right, now to the shower of brick that is our forwards. Most inconsistent players? Clint Dempsey and Jermain Defoe. Defoe first, having scored plenty of goals at the start of the season to mask his low average rating and ramp up support for him proceeded to lose all that support (one assumes by the lack of plaudits now) by not scoring for a ridiculous amount of games and getting, by far, the lowest rating by anyone in the second half of the season with 5.43 and received the most sub 5.50 performances of the season with 15 as well as the worst player on the pitch the most times with 10. To be the worst player every 4 games takes some doing.
The reason why he didn't have anymore worst player performences was partly because of Clint Dempsey. His average rating for the season is even lower than Defoe's and with a standard deviation of 1.20 had the highest inconsistency than anyone else. His only saving grace was scoring some important goals (such as the winner against Man Utd at Old Trafford) and the number of goals he has scored from essentially a midfield position. Whether Dempsey is kept on is unclear and Defoe may end up being more of an impact sub should we finally buy a striker.
Having saved the worst till last I'm not sure what to say about Adebayor. More worst player on the pitch performances per game than Defoe, a sub 5.50 rating almost every other game, lowest average rating of the season by anyone and yet he's capable of putting in a performance as the one he produced against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. I for one look forward to our new striker(s) this coming season.
I truely believe the only way is up with Spurs and that our squad doesn't need a complete overhaul like those lofty days in the 90s and early 00s. It's exciting times and I for one am looking forward to it all. Yes we missed out on Champions League football but we're headed in the right direction. COYS!
Going over the final ratings I've not told anyone much they didn't already know. It's been interesting for me but it's also been time consuming, even this post alone has taken me 3 days to prepare. I hope some of you have enjoyed the information and if any of you wish to take over please feel free as I shall not be continuing this next season.
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