Dimitar Berbatov is the tour de force in the Spurs attack. As Robbie Keane and Mido play now you see me, now you don’t, it has been left to Berbatov to shoulder the Spurs attack and the former Bayer Leverkusen man has delivered admirably. It has been a straight line from the field to the hearts of the Spurs faithful. And he has done this in less than a season, in a team studded with firepower boasting the likes of Mido, Keane, Defoe, Jenas, and Lennon.
The stoop shouldered languid striker’s multi dimensional play was on display as the Spurs took Bolton by the scruff of the neck and left them dangling on a peg, legs flailing uselessly. He was not amongst the goals but a little cameo captures Berbatov and his intelligent versatility. On the left flank, he scooped the ball over a defender, ran around and then held back just a bit to see whether he could take a crack at the goal, deferred, went in for the better option, laying a perfect pass to a streaming Jenas, whose cracking shot was just parried out by Jaaskelainen. Moments later, Berbatov’s lay on the ground tackled down by two defenders, and in the tangle of legs, he connected with Malbranque whose blast was serendipitiously deflected out by Hunt.
Berbatov hogged so much of Bolton’s time and effort that it freed up other Spurs players to motor down and lay siege with Chimbonda and Tainio indulged in some fancy footwork of their own against beleaguered Bolton.