If the wheels haven’t completely fallen off yet, the Tottenham bandwagon has been jacked up and is sitting on bricks outside the house. Might as well have a look at the exhaust while we’re about it – Spurs are badly misfiring and in need of an overhaul.

That job-lot of Brasso we picked up for the end of the season can be tucked away under the stairs because it’s the team that need some polishing after another lacklustre performance. In most respects it looked the same – the same players that had dazzled the Premier League for several months, large periods of possession otherwise known as the second half punctuated with thrilling moments of brilliance like Bale’s shot that left the keeper flatfooted but dipped onto the wrong side of the bar.

Good vibes and positive thoughts for Fabrice Muamba, the miracle man. I’m delighted for him and his family and will continue to wish him well in the long months of recovery ahead. The t-shirts were a fine gesture but the suggested applause on 41 minutes didn’t materialise. A song from the Park Lane marked the moment.

The fans were preoccupied with more immediate matters: the anxiety for three points in a game that wasn’t going our way. I don’t believe this display was unduly affected by Muamba’s heart attack. Granted we took a while to settle but the players appeared motivated and focussed. Being a professional doesn’t mean that the feelings go away, it’s just that you learn to leave them behind in the dressing room and pick them up after business is over.

Also, there were marked similarities with the recent Everton game. In both we toiled in the second half, shuttling sideways back and forth across their box unable to make a dent in their massed ranks of defenders. There’s been a lack of punch and pizazz up front for several matches now, not to mention a lack of goals since the Newcastle feast. This is no longer an aberration, it’s a trend.

So what’s not working? The formation had a welcome familiarity about it. Defoe is unlucky to not be starting. Despite his deficiencies he’s been bright for much of his time on the field. Saha can offer something to lead the line in place of Adebayor, who Newcastle notwithstanding has been in and out since Christmas. In theory. In practice, he played like an alien only recently introduced to football and more specifically the concept of passing. His inability throughout the game to pass the ball accurately over 5 yards was infuriating. His early ball placed carefully at the feet of a Stoke player when under no pressure was incredible and we were fortunate at that point in the match that Stoke wasted several good opportunities. Saha neither posed any danger bar one excellent shot that was well saved or proved able to keep possession.

Kranjcar is a talented player who is best deployed in an advanced role, playing off the main striker where he has few responsibilities when we don’t have the ball. Problem is, Van der Vaart does that best, so to deploy him on the right creates a potential problem, especially if he is as indifferent as he was yesterday. More significant is that the way round this, Walker pumping up the wing to provide width while the man on the right drifts in to offer more in the centre, does not seem to be an option any more. For several matches Walker has not been overlapping regularly. The full back has taken a few knocks lately and works prodigiously hard but he doesn’t seem to be injured. Late on, he’s so motivated that he tried to get forward even as he limped from a hard challenge that incensed the Shelf.

I don’t want to be negative about Gareth Bale who did more than anyone to try to win it. His crosses were met with indifference by the strikers in the first half and there were times when it need a hard low ball rather than the curler. However, after the break he should have stayed wider more often because width was the key to unlocking the Stoke defence. As expected they did well but our lack of movement made it easy for them. Time and again they snuffed out the space as we came down the middle and we never shifted them out of their comfort zone. Instead, our forwards hovered around the edge of the box. The long shots were decent but much easier to handle. In the second half for all our pressure and possession we made few proper chances.

Stoke fans watched most of the second period with the aid of binoculars, so far from the action were they. When they scored, they were probably cheering because the ball was up their end. We know what to expect at set pieces, once again we failed to win the ball and were muscled out of it at the finish. Friedel had little else to do except argue with the ref, although the easiest opportunity fell to Stoke as well, an apparently innocuous ball falling out of the sky close to our goal which skimmed the forehead of their man (Walters?) and plopped into Friedel’s arms.

Tactics or formations, if players are off-form there’s little to be done, and the spine of our team, Modric, Parker and King are not at their best. They are all doing well enough, it’s just that their standards are so high you notice if they are even a tiny bit off. Parker has not been the same since he missed a game or two after a kick on the knee, while Luka’s passing is less consistent than usual. I’m never going to be the one to write off the mighty King, a man who has my unending admiration but yesterday he was limp. Early on he failed to clear a couple of easy balls – there seemed to be little bounce or power in his kick.

Add this up and there’s a lack of drive and inspiration. In realising what we have missed, it’s illuminating to see how much they gave us when at their best, but that’s a hollow exercise given our lack of points, goals and bite in recent matches. With it has gone our tempo, creativity and leadership.

It’s hard to see what Redknapp can do in terms of freshening up the side. Daws and Lennon would do the trick, both are injured. Sandro did well at Stamford bridge last season but he’s still short of match fitness and our geriatric alternatives to King, who also lack match practice, does not fill me with confidence. We don’t have anything more up front to challenge Manu. Livermore and Sandro may yet have a role to play. They could shore up that defensive midfield and let the others play. And maybe give Luka a week on the beach. Perhaps that’s what he needs.

Earlier after that sticky beginning when Stoke could have scored twice, we stuttered into life. Modric was not at his best but was good enough to keep the tempo up and link with Bale for a couple of good opportunities. At the time the disappointing finishes nevertheless held the possibilities of better things to come but in fact that proved to be our best spell.

Redknapp’s bold half-time substitution, bringing on Defoe to create an ultra-attacking line-up was nullified not so much by Stoke’s worthy muscular defending but by a collective drift into the centre where defenders could easily snuff out the one-twos and through balls. We were drawn to the penalty box ‘D’ like so many druids gathering for the spring equinox. Defoe hardly had a touch.

if Rafa’s header softened the blow, the relief such as it was lasted about as long as the walk to the car. The CL and FA Cup remain viable goals and are more important than any local rivalry. 4th will do whoever finishes above us, but the news that Ar****l had overhauled that big gap was hard to stomach. Gone is the flowing football, the bounce in my stride, the sense that at last the balance of power had shifted. Logically, Redknapp could be right, this could be an important point come the reckoning, but today that sounds as if he’s protecting his men from the consequences of a poor display. This one feels like a defeat.

The blog I don’t want to write.

No one knew what had happened as we were watching the ball slide off for a throw but straightaway realised it was serious because both sets of physios dashed onto the field. The player lay face down and still. I wondered out loud if the urgent attention paid to his head meant he had swallowed his tongue but quickly he was on his back. The crowd softly moaned when the first chest compressions were applied.

The players, battle-hardened tough guys, were visibly shocked. Defoe pulled his shirt up over his mouth and crouched on his haunches, wanting to be there for support before tearing himself away. Rafa turned to the Shelf and prayed. A few, including Owen Coyle, came to be close, most were uncertain and kept a reverential distance, drifting back together by the benches for mutual comfort.

The stands were eerily silent. Then, some voices began to shout in encouragement, that particular mixture of anxiety and hope when your team is behind and you want to, have to, lift them. Those moments when they are struggling and you, only you the fans, can inspire them. The moments when the team needs the crowd. More spoke up, louder now, becoming an instinctive roar. ‘Come on, come on!’ For the player, perhaps for the man calmly and firmly pounding his chest. ‘Come on!’

From high in the corner of the Park Lane, the ragged bunch of loyal Bolton fans started to sing Muamba’s name and the whole of the Lane joined in. Then respectful, bewildered silence again, followed by successive bouts of cheering and chanting, standing to applaud every step as he was carried off, the pounding pounding continuing all the while.

My sincere and heartfelt good wishes to Fabrice Muamba and his family, extended to any Bolton supporters who may come across this. Full credit to Howard Webb whose authority was never in doubt. Much maligned and often deservedly so, football fans came together in a remarkable and touching way to respect a man who needed us and to respect the game we all love with a passion. Fabrice Muamba is one of us.

Football fans accept that defeat is part and parcel of the game, even if we never quite get used to it completely. We chunter over the recriminations, bellow at the heavens or kick the cat knowing that it’s an element of the unchanging natural order. If there are winners, it follows there must be losers too.

There are two types of defeat, however, that we simply cannot abide. One is where the players don’t try hard enough, and whatever you say about this current Spurs team, that doesn’t apply. The other is where the manager makes bewildering selection choices that fail to bring the best from the side because he chooses either the wrong individuals or the wrong tactics. Often it can be both.

Insiders tend to dismiss the fans’ knowledge of the game. Granted we are capable of spouting silage like geysers erupting in Yellowstone National Park but most have a sound feel for what suits their team. Yesterday, it felt like the manager got it wrong.

I’m a self-diagnosed sufferer from scepticemia, which means I seldom takes things at face value. I never believed Harry’s hype, the cuddly good ol’ uncle figure who just had to put his arm round a player’s shoulders to transform him into a star. I prefer evidence, and as I’ve said many times now in these pages he deserves enormous credit not only for taking Spurs from the bottom of the league to where we now are but also altering his tactics along the way, adapting to the strengths of the increasingly talented squad at his disposal and to the demands of top class football. All the more incomprehensible then why he should change things now.

Tottenham have demonstrated a few formations this season but they have the following in common. Parker and Modric form the core of the side, playing centrally. The movement of both is exemplary but Parker tends to stay deeper. Bale is an attacking left side man, latterly coming off his wing to surprise defenders in the middle. Walker overlaps down the right. This offers width even if Lennon is absent because that is essential to our style. Adebayor roams up front, saying in touch with the midfield. Someone works the space between the opponents’ midfield and back four, dropping back when we lose the ball and getting up into the box when we attack. Van der Vaart does this best, Defoe if he’s out. Thus we have width, pace and above all the ability to pass the ball at a high tempo.

I am therefore baffled as to the reasoning behind yesterday’s set up. Modric on the left is a total waste, just as it was last Sunday, just as it has always been since he came to the Lane. Whatever the injury situation, build the side around him. Shifting Bale to the right temporarily during a game might unsettle a defence but stationing him there for almost the entire 90 minutes nullifies his assets. He tried right footed crosses or the outside of his left foot but how much better they would have been if he had been able to hit it left-footed regularly. At a stroke we did Everton’s job for them and took two of our best players out of the equation.

Rather than stick to the flexible five in midfield, in the last three league matches Harry has decided to go for it with two up front. Yesterday Adebayor was detached from the rest, too far forward, and was rightly withdrawn but however well or poorly he performed, two strikers unbalances our midfield and left us outnumbered. Again this plays to Everton’s strengths, in particular their excellent organisation and effort in midfield. They lack creativity but once they were a goal up, they didn’t have to be. The onus was on us and we played right into their hands. Add to this Parker’s uncertainty as to his role – was he supposed to push forward, in which case he’s better starting from the back – Sandro’s lack of match fitness and Walker’s reluctance for the third game running to get forward consistently, you  have the shapeless mess that was Tottenham Hotspur for much of the match.

I’m struggling to work out why this is happening. Perhaps Redknapp feels sufficiently confident in his side to go with two up front and get at defences. He did the same at the Emirates, of course, and look what happened then. Bale has been criticised for coming off his wing but at least that’s produced some goals. He didn’t do much of that yesterday when we needed something different. Coleman and Neville handled Bale well last season at Spurs, which if I remember included kicking him repeatedly. Moving him right upset that plan and also blocked Baines’ attacking instincts. However, as I’ve said, we compensated by weakening his game and doing Everton’s job for them. Also, we should be confident in our abilities to break down a side rather than altering our tried and tested balance for the sake of their anticipated defensive set-up. We should be worrying about them: they should be worrying about us. Walker seems to have been instructed not to go forward as often as he was. He’s had injuries but this doesn’t appear what’s holding him back.

Defoe’s movement was generally good yesterday, operating as an out and out striker. Picking up balls into channels were our best opportunity of making and taking chances and he came the closest until Saha hit the post near the end. However, bright as he was, the old faults resurfaced, blasting away when passing was a reasonable option and that pesky offside law, just gets in the way of a striker trying to do his job, eh JD? Assuming VDV were fit, I would have started with him.

After a sedate opening period, we allowed Everton to come at us but dealt with their efforts until another piece of poor defending let us down. Kaboul has largely cut out his rash tendency to get sucked into a tackle but here he sold himself and Osman was away. The real problem is how suddenly and completely exposed our defence was. Yelavic took his chance well but we should not give him that time and space at the edge of our area. No midfield, Ledley came across to cover after Kaboul’s’ error, Benny was miles away. Once again, it’s defending that will shape our final position, once again we were found wanting.

This gave them a goal and the incentive to battle it out for the rest of the time, which they duly did. Credit to them for  restricting our opportunities with their two centre halves rock solid. However, we did little to move them around or draw them out. Everton seldom got the ball near our goal and when they did Kaboul did a fine job of sweeping up the danger. The second half was all Spurs in terms of possession but we achieved precious little. Conceding when not under pressure is proving to be a fault. It does wonders for the opponents’ confidence. It’s transformed A***nal’s season after all. We have to remember that we are the big side, there to be shot at, and opponents like nothing better than to mount a last-ditch defence of their lead.

By the finish we were treated to the undignified spectacle of our keeper going up for a late corner, such was our desperation. Friedel should know by now that all our set-piece routines are laughably weak. Even our current favourite corner, where Kaboul is the target, is designed to give their goalie as much time as possible to see the ball coming from about 14  or 15 yards out. Assuming it gets over the first defender that is. No team in the land, whatever league they are in, are as poorly prepared for set pieces as we are.

Baffled and bewildered, the fans can only look on, powerless. Despite this defeat, it’s still the case that the run-in of tough but winnable games after Chelsea will decide our final place. Being a sceptic, I’m not convinced that the England business is directly harming Redknapp’s decision-taking. If his mind were elsewhere, he’d allow them to carry on as before, which is basically what I’m advocating. Also, our best period came when he was under the intense pressure of preparing for a high profile court case. He handled that so should be able to postpone the less immediate and personal threat of the national team.

I suspect he’s trying too hard, feels a few changes are required because the league knows what to expect from Spurs. However, again this unsettles our pattern and the whole point of the pace and movement is that even if they know what’s coming, the opposition can’t deal with it for the entire match.

Or possibly he performs best under pressure, and when it falls away, he has too much time to think. Individuals create a strategy to handle intense stress. For many, this heightens their focus and levels of determination remain high. This can be sustained over short periods, during which time performance is enhanced rather than harmed by stress. However, once the external factors creating the pressure disappear, so does the motivation. The target of getting through a difficult situation has now gone, it’s been achieved. This is not a conscious process but it’s common. Maybe you have got through a bereavement or problem at work, you’ve coped and dealt with pressures others might succumb to and go under, but it only hits you once the funeral is over or work has been sorted. I wonder if that’s why Redknapp is trying too hard. Stick to what you and the players know, HR, and we’ll be fine. Like I said last week, hold your nerve. That goes for us too.

After a first half as ragged as the stream I was watching, Spurs muddled through against impressive Stevenage thanks to two superb goals by Jermaine Defoe and a generous referring decision. And that’s good enough for me. Playing lower league teams, that’s the way it so often is. Don’t really know why – something in the back of the team’s collective psychology that knocks them out of their rhythm plus the disruptive changes in personnel. Little things in themselves but history decrees this is how it shall be. We won with a second half that improved almost as much as my viewing pleasure. The only lasting significance of all this is that in future I’ll use my wife’s laptop.

Despite rightly fielding a very strong team, Spurs were uncertain for most of the first half. Stevenage prevented us from establishing any tempo or pattern but nevertheless we should have been bolder and more determined to impose our will on proceedings. We weren’t helped by conceding the early penalty. Nelsen has been bought to add experience but showed the naivety of a schoolboy so early in the match, stretching for a tackle that he was never going to make. Nelsen the New Zealand Naybet? Nay.

We may be seeing more of him. Dawson’s injury is a sickening personal blow for a fine, wholehearted leader: I feel desperately sorry for him. For the team, it could a turning point, the difference between success and failure this season. We could score more goals but chances are, between now and May we’ll probably score enough. Defence is the key. If Led is out, we knew Daws was there, a strong reliable international defender to step in. Now, it’s Led’s knee, Nelsen’s portly figure struggling to remember what it was like to play every week and Gallas’s dodgy ankle. For now on in, every single match is high pressure. Their experience will be invaluable, providing they are fit. There’s no guarantee and it will hang over us until season end.

Defoe brought us level with what is fast becoming his signature goal, long

range, low and looping slightly into the bottom corner. John Barnes, bless ‘im, proved how little football he watches these days by confidently asserting that JD hits the target 8 times out of ten. If only… Less the fox in the box, more like plenty from twenty. His second and the clincher was a terrific effort, freeze-frame the image from behind the goal as he pulled the trigger, all athletic power fizzing into the bottom corner past a despairing dive.

In the first game, Harry changed the tactics to match Stevenage’s long ball and big blokes up front.  After last night, I wonder if he’d scouted the wrong side. It could be the influence of their new manager but Borough move the ball extremely well and we were fortunate they weren’t as sharp as Defoe in front of goal. Highly impressive and good luck to them in the future. They were unlucky with our penalty. Cliches include ‘I can see why the ref gave it’, ‘he had no alternative’ and, while we’re about it, a ‘good time to score’ but to me Bale kicked the player accidently in the act of trying to cross. Manu, I’m pleased that you scored but really, you didn’t have to make quite so much of a fuss.

Stevenage did not close us down as the game went on, understandable as they pushed men forward. Bale and Defoe took full advantage of the extra space, Bale’s crossing and choice-making were high quality, plus that incredible shot that was so powerful it came back off the bar nearly as far as the edge of the box.

Otherwise, no one else had much of an impact but equally most did their bit. Once again Cudicini looked alert and sound. Defoe was clearly man of the match but we learned nothing new. Give him an extra half a yard and he looks a world beater. He should start ahead of Saha and behind a fully fit Rafa, but I said that in Sunday’s comments. Last night had nothing to do with it.

Muddling through is the way of things in the Cup. In ‘91 we were poor away to Pompey and then Notts County in the 6th round at home before Gazza saved us on both occasions. It’s fine by me. Here we are, now take Bolton on and Wembley beckons. It’s a fabulous opportunity. Don’t waste it.