How to stop your team from scoring goals

Rival fans may have laughed at the fact that Tottenham finished eleventh last season after talking up their top-four credentials but one area where you couldn’t fault them was their knack of scoring goals. Their 66-goal haul was the fifth best in the league last season and even better than Chelsea’s. But Juande Ramos and Gus Poyet clearly weren’t happy with this free-scoring nature and set about enforcing a five-point plan to change things:

1. Get rid of Jermain Defoe
Juande logic: He might have scored 64 goals for the club from starting 110 games, but who needs Jermain Defoe when you’ve got Robbie Keane and Dimitar Berbatov? By selling him to another club with European aspirations, Portsmouth, there’s no way it’ll come back and bite us. If anything, he’ll help drag them down to our level.
The reality: Defoe has scored thirteen goals in eighteen league starts for his new club and scored against Tottenham this weekend.

2. You don’t win anything with left-wingers
Juande logic: We may already have Jamie O’Hara, Didier Zokora, Tom Huddlestone, Jermaine Jenas and Aaron Lennon here already but what we really need is more midfielders who prefer playing in the centre or on the right. Bring in Luka Modric, David Bentley and Giovani dos Santos, it’ll be fun trying to figure out where to play them all. Who cares if Bentley got into the England squad for his performances on the right, let’s sling him on the left or behind the strikers. Luka Modric is known as the exciting, attacking impetus of the Croatia team but there’s no harm playing him as a holding player. Maybe I could throw him on the left too!
The reality: Spurs ended up starting Gilberto, who hasn’t looked too convincing in his preferred position of left-back, as an attacking left-winger against Portsmouth.

3. Sell one of the best strike forces in the Premier League
Juande logic: Robbie and Dimitar scored 46 goals between them last season for our bottom-half side, and the fans voted Robbie as player of the season but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t be able to cope without them. They both say they want

Today’s gossip, rumours and damned lies

The man guilty of the worst miss since Ronnie Rosenthal embarrassed himself, is once again striking fear into the hearts of Spurs fans everywhere, threatening to join Juande Ramos in North London. Diego Forlan has revived his career in Spain, enjoying successful spells at Villarreal and currently Atletico Madrid, but his disastrous stint at Old Trafford will linger long in the memory. Still, the Uruguayan has scored a goal every other game in La Liga, and could prove an excellent asset for an imminently Berba-less Tottenham.

Mikael Silvestre to Arsenal
The want-away defender has been linked with most of the Premier League this summer, but appears to have finally settled on a move to Arsenal. Wenger revealed months ago that he was in the market for a powerful centre-half and though Silvestre will be a surprise choice, the experienced French international may prove a shrewd addition to his young squad.

The Spoiler Truth-o-meter: Looks like a done deal

Stewart Downing to Liverpool
Rafa seems to have given