Lots to do - signing Dean would be a start

Ian Chadband13 April 2012
Tottenham 2 Southampton 0

They shouted "Judas" and "Stand up if you hate Hoddle" lustily enough but, try as they might, the Southampton faithful could not rouse this supposed grudge encounter out of the bloodlessly mediocre.

"What stuff ?" Glenn Hoddle, the not so long departed Saints manager, smiled, feigning ignorance when questioned about whether all the baggage surrounding the fixture had affected him during the week. "Other managers have gone back to play their old clubs, there's no story there. Football's all about tomorrow."

If so, then Hoddle will forget about the patchy quality of Tottenham's victory over his old charges, who look destined to another season scrambling around in the nether regions of the Premiership, and just see the first three-point haul of the season, however laboriously gleaned, as the springboard for his loftier ambitions.

Early days, of course, and since the team's injury list stretched to eight first-team candidates yesterday, dangerous as yet to speculate too much about Spurs' potential this term. From the manner of this win, though, you had to concur with Hoddle's conclusion: "All in all, there's a long way to go, a lot of hard work to be done."

Certainly, the first impressions of this 2001-02 class have been that they will have their work cut out to join the promised land inhabited by the Premiership elite. They were not too bad, and could take heart from encouraging performances, particularly from Simon Davies and Teddy Sheringham, but the White Hart Lane fans still await any hard evidence that their former maestro is shaping a team capable of taking them into Europe.

Hoddle sounds upbeat enough, though. Their mid-table position, he suggested, would already be looking healthier if they had not been unfairly reduced to nine men at Everton when he was sure they would win. The draw against Aston Villa, too, now looked better value in the light of their subsequent performances against Manchester United and Liverpool.

Yet to beat this still pointless and goalless Southampton outfit? Well, it looks as if any Premiership team worth their salt should do that. Spurs, even while rarely leaving the driving seat, made heavy weather of it before finally breaking the visitors' resistance in the last 14 minutes with two expert finishes from Christian Ziege and Davies.

Hoddle could argue that the game could have been sewn up long before if the profligate Les Ferdinand had converted two glorious first-half opportunities - he hit the bar with one and booted thin air with the other - yet, equally, he must have been alarmed by the defensive frailties in the first 45 minutes which allowed Dean Richards to rise unmolested for free headers in their box from long throws and for Kevin Davies to maraud unchecked down the right flank.

Hoddle will doubtless be urging his directors to now go out and double their £4 million offer for Richards after he produced another towering performance at the back. He never went missing, which is more than can be said for the Spurs defence when one run and cross fired low into the box by Davies caught them flat-footed.

Fortunately for them, Southampton could not apply the finishing touch, which was hardly surprising when Uwe Rosler and Marian Pahars cut just about the least threatening strike force in the Premiership-right now. Had Southampton-possessed any self-belief, Tottenham might have been embarrassed in that first period.

Hoddle did instil confidence in them last season but it appears to be evaporating under Stuart Gray. Once they had finally capitulated to Ziege's left foot - Munich must have been a lot less fun for the German than shooting to the top of the Spurs scoring charts - and then really crumbled, you were reminded why an ambitious coach like Hoddle was always bound to have jetted away to work with better raw material.

Not that sometimes you could have guessed where the real quality lay, especially during a pitifully incoherent 15-minute spell at the start of the second half when both sides kept giving away possession.

Thank heavens for Sheringham, then. He may have only been 75 per cent fit but his brain was 100 per cent sharp - on occasion, even too fast and creative for his team-mates - and he was finally rewarded for his ability to rise above the mundane as one exquisite little flick in the centre circle in the 86th minute set Davies free to yomp through and slot home.

Three points got Hoddle thinking all about tomorrow. He had told the industrious Davies, supposedly Gus Poyet's understudy, that he would now "have a big part to play here this season" and reckoned he was looking forward to seeing Stephen Carr back in light training within 10 days following his injury. Then, as he talked about scouring Europe to find a new centre-half in the Sol Campbell mould, you just knew he still was not looking any further than Southampton.

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