BOLTON RANT & PLAYER RATINGS

Right, that was horrible. It was an awful, lily-livered throwback to when our players were feeble, sickly fancy dans, incapable of mustering enough effort to pass the ball six yards to each other, let alone a wholehearted challenge. Even the faux-comeback was irritating. Humiliate the fans by going three down to an incredibly average Bolton side, demonstrate classy goals aren’t a problem when you can be arsed to get us caring again, then crumble at the last. Cheers, Spurs.

Tottenham are often the sporting equivalent of a pricktease. She looks amazing, ticks all the boxes and every so often she’ll give you one of the nights of your life. But the second you relax, she’ll let you down from a thunderous height. I know most us were anticipating an anti-climatic performance post-Inter, but that was like watching a particularly mean-spirited one have full sex with your best mate.

Player Ratings

1. Heurelho Gomes Why can’t he kick properly? Still? It’s becoming similar to Sunday league when your little ‘keeper has to let his oafish defender do his kicking for him. Had no real chance with the goals, but something still feels off with him. 5/10

2. Alan Hutton It’s difficult to locate positives after that spineless capitulation, but at least Al’s marauding attacking confidence has returned. It was a lovely finish, and he made a few timely tackles from dangerous crosses, too. 7/10

13. William Gallas

4. Younes Kaboul

Arguably our best players for spells, but a woeful lack of concentration befell them both. I don’t think I’m ready to talk about the sloppiness that marked all four goals. 4/10 & 5/10

32. Benoît Assou-Ekotto Showed the overwhelming and obvious downside to a professional footballer having a self-admitted lack of passion. He didn’t care one jot today and it was painfully obvious. He often makes you feel stupid for even caring (or writing ranty blogs…) 2/10

21. Nico Kranjčar Once again proved he’s nicer in theory than in practice. Particularly marooned out on the right. Lack of gametime can be blamed, but when we now have a Van der Vaart to build around, his inconsistent, passionless (he flinched out of every tackle presented to him today) talent feels redundant. 3/10

12. Wilson Palacios

30. Sandro

We all know Wilson has been touched by a personal tragedy so extreme most of us can’t comprehend, but he’s a terrible footballer right now. His core skills – tackling, energising his teammates, ability to keep it simple – have evaporated to the point where he’s an utter hindrance to the team. And the development of Sandro, too. Our befuddled but talented Brazilian needs to play with Huddlestone or Modrić, not woeful Wilson. Their sloppiness and lack of urgency rubbed off on each other and the rest of the team. 2/10 & 5/10

3. Gareth Bale Naturally, this entirely predictable comedown performance will take most headlines. And, yes, his was a muted showing, but he still exhibited enough to hopefully dodge a lot of supporters' ire. And let’s face it, if he puts in the odd average game, we might have him for a bit longer. 6/10

14. Luka Modrić Occasionally flitted into the game with a purpose, but far too often shouldered off the ball in dangerous positions and guilty of several woefully underhit passes. Perhaps sitting deeper is his real calling. 5/10

15. Peter Crouch Bullied out of the game by both Zat Knight and Gary Cahill. Won very little and not a sniff of a chance. He has his uses, but accepting his limitations (inability to progress forward with the ball, shoot, quite often simply standing up) can be tough.  4/10

Substitutes

6. Tom Huddlestone When even Big Tom’s pinging the ball absent-mindedly to the opposition, give up. 5/10

9. Roman Pavlyuchenko His strike was sublime, but both he and Crouch’s lack of pace and movement nullify any threat we may offer through the middle. 5/10

5. David Bentley That he's put on as a gesture when the team’s three down at Bolton painfully sums up where “the new Becks” is right now. We did a column with him at Zoo for a while and he’s a proper Spurs fan who wanted to become a hero at White Hart Lane for his family and all his Tottenham mates. He was genuinely heartbroken by how it’s worked out. 5/10