Tottenham's New Dawn (again)

Another season, another opening weekend of disappointment for Spurs fans. The Berbatov problem needs to be the first addressed, but though I read criticisms of the board for their failure to act, what else can they do? They cannot sell him without first securing at least one but hopefully two new strikers. To do otherwise would be a ridiculous act of negligence.

It is finding these strikers that is the biggest problem. As Manchester United, Everton and many other clubs are finding out it is very hard to find top quality strikers. Certainly David Villa would be great but he was never coming to Spurs. I am not sure Pavlyuchenko is going to be a Premiership success, but he would be worth a shot for £10-12m but this deal seems unlikely. Other names like Milito and Owen would work for me but both of these have also been refuted. Kanoute could be a short term solution but he is over 30 and though I am a big fan of Dean Ashton, he cannot be worth more than £10m. A fit Louis Saha would even have been a welcome addition but unfortunately it looks like his whole career is going to be marred by injury.

Arshavin makes a decent Keane replacement but he is not worth €25m and Levy should stick to his guns, even if he comes it does not nearly solve our central striker issue. Klaas Jan Huntelaar is probably the best Spurs can hope for, but again this is very unlikely given that he is being monitored by a host of Champions League teams. I can only assume that we will be bringing in some relatively low profile European or South American striker or else Roque Santa Cruz will be allowed to leave Blackburn.

The best I can see is that Arshavin and RSC join for £35m and Berbatov ships out. On top of this Tottenham need cover at centre-back and right-back where Corluka would be an excellent addition. Having seen his lack of celebration after scoring on Sunday (though this could be to do with Man City's two defeats this week) I am hoping that this deal is completed this month (though I see there is now an extra day as the 31st is a Sunday. On top of that, rumours of Veloso from Sporting Lisbon are still around but I see this as unlikely, especially if Moutinho does leave there for Everton.

All in all, life as a Spurs fan is rather frustrating, especially when we see Cuellar and Coloccini being signed up in the last 10 days by rivals. These were both players linked with Spurs and you would imagine Ramos knows what these guys are about. From what I have seen, either would be an improvement on Dawson at CB, at least on his 2008 form. Barcelona are also now linked with Capel and it would not be a surprise to see him go there, and knowing our luck Arshavin would end up joining him.

As for the match, it was classic Tottenham, not holding on to the ball (even with Modric), conceding at set pieces and failing to get the ball to the striker. The fact that our three best players, King, Berbatov and Bale were on the bench did not help. Saying that, Spurs only conceded after Bale and Berbatov came on. We have to hope for better, starting on Saturday with a win against Sunderland....but I wouldn't bet against Steed nicking a goal. Onwards and upwards.