Everton vs. Tottenham: 6 Things That Must Change at Spurs

Three consecutive league losses.

Tottenham haven't struggled this bad since all the way back in the 2008-09 season, when they lost three consecutive matches from the 28th of September until the 19th of October.

That was during a stretch which saw Spurs take only two points from their first eight matches of the season, and it was the stretch that spelled the end of Juande Ramos' time with Spurs and the beginning of Redknapp's new era at Tottenham.

Is it time to worry? You betcha. What was once a 10-point lead over Arsenal could potentially evaporate to a one-point lead on Monday. And as Arsene Wenger warned this Sunday, fourth place does not guarantee a place in next year's Champions League.

Furthermore, Roberto Di Matteo seems to have re-energized Chelsea, for the time being anyway, and they presently find themselves only four points behind Tottenham in the table.

Here are six things Harry Redknapp must change immediately about Spurs before things get ugly and they find themselves playing catch-up in a Champions League race they've comfortably led all season long.

Luka Modric's Positioning

Does Xavi ever play as a wide midfielder at Barcelona? Does Schweinsteiger (now, not five years ago) ever play as a wide midfielder for Bayern Munich? Does Xabi Alonso ever play wide for Real Madrid?

The answer to all these questions is no, because their coaches know very well that they are infinitely more valuable to their teams in the middle of midfield.

I don't know who told Harry Redknapp that Modric can function as a backup wide midfielder, because he clearly can't.

If this was Redknapp's plan from the start to play Modric out wide when Gareth Bale was unavailable, then it was completely ridiculous to send Steven Pienaar on loan when he is a top-class wide midfielder and would've picked up many appearances as a backup wide midfielder for either flank.

Modric has very few of the characteristics of a good wide midfielder. His passing is obviously top notch, but his pace is easy for most Premier League defenders to match.

He's not known for his trickery on the ball—meaning he's unlikely to beat his defender with the frequency Bale or Pienaar might—and he's not known for his crossing, which has been very average throughout his career.

Obviously, Redknapp only played Modric out wide because he was put in a situation where it was one of his only choices. However, there were most definitely better choices, which I'll discuss next.

What Redknapp must get through his head is this: The first thing he needs to put down on the team sheet every Premier League weekend is Luka Modric in the center of midfield.

Not out wide, but center. Because playing one of the world's top five center midfielders out wide significantly dampens Modric's influence on the game, and consequently makes Tottenham's potency in attack only a fraction of what it can be.

Niko Kranjcar's Selection

After Everton's win over Tottenham, Redknapp had this to say about playing Gareth Bale on the right:

"

I've got people that can play off the left, Niko Kranjcar and Luka Modric, but there's no one at the club apart from Aaron Lennon and David Bentley that can play wide right so it's a problem.

"

Excuse me? This is exactly why I hold the opinion that Redknapp is tactically inept as a manager.

Niko Kranjcar may not play like a traditional right midfielder, but he's been selected in that position as a starter five times this season for Tottenham. That number increases many folds if you look at how many times he's played in that position over the course of his career, for Tottenham and his previous clubs.

Have you not been watching Kranjcar all this time Redknapp? 

When Aaron Lennon or Bale are unavailable, Niko Kranjcar should immediately be the first player to spring to Redknapp's mind to start out wide. Not Modric, who can't play out wide nearly as well as he can play in the center.

Oh, and for the record, Kranjcar has not once started on the left of midfield for Tottenham this season. Truly ridiculous words coming from Redknapp on this one.

Gareth Bale's Positioning

It's happened a number of times this season: Gareth Bale starts on the left, has a decent game until halftime, gets inexplicably moved to the right flank in the second half, and virtually disappears from the game.

However, since Redknapp apparently does not watch the same games as the rest of Tottenham supporters (judging by his comments on the previous slide), he thought it would be wise to start Gareth Bale from the right flank from the start of the game.

Predictably, the game passed him by, and he did little of note throughout the game, aside from going down easily to a challenge from Leon Osman in the box and poorly marking Leighton Baines in the play that led to Everton's winner.

Like Modric, Bale is a beast in the position he's played all season long: left midfielder. Even if Redknapp claims that Bale plays on the right with Wales, club football and international football are two different things, and makes little sense to fix what isn't broken.

Besides, it seems that Redknapp is once again wrong with his information on positions, as in recent games Bale has played on the left for Wales, with Bellamy on the right.

Center Midfield Partnership

You may have noticed by now that with Spurs, one problem leads to another. 

Niko Kranjcar's benching leads to Luka Modric playing out of position, which leads to Gareth Bale playing on the right since Modric has never played on the right of midfield, and so on and so forth.

Here, Modric's shift to the left forces Redknapp to select Sandro and Scott Parker in midfield.

Why is this a problem? Because they're both defensive-minded midfielders, meaning they provide little, if any, creativity in midfield, and are therefore over-run by midfielders Spurs should normally overpower, such as those belonging to Everton and Manchester United.

Scott Parker and Sandro can work together, but only if they are playing in front of an orchestrator like Luka Modric or Rafael van der Vaart.

Otherwise, as good as they are individually, one of them should be left on the bench in favor of a creative midfielder, such as Modric or Kranjcar.

Strikers' 'Clinicality'

I'll admit it, I was wrong.

I spent so much time vouching for how starting Jermain Defoe would bring Tottenham success, but was proven wrong as Tottenham struggled badly against Everton even with Defoe in the lineup.

To Defoe's credit however, he was the best striker on the night for Tottenham. Adebayor struggled to get into the game, but Defoe stayed active throughout. Still, a little more "clinicality" from the Englishman probably could've made a big difference for Tottenham on the night.

What the game proves, however, is that it's not just one problem or another costing Tottenham in important games; it's multiple tactical and in-game mistakes that the coaching staff and players are making.

Tottenham's strikers struggled because Tottenham's midfield struggled to control the game, and because Tottenham's midfield struggled, so did their defenders.

Because of football's inherently inter-connected nature, one event or aspect of play frequently has a cascading effect on multiple other events or aspects of play. And that's what we've seen with Tottenham lately.

I'm not willing to withdraw my support for Defoe just yet, but I will say this: Tottenham's strikers need to step up their game.

Redknapp is correctly selecting two strikers, and even though they've been denied their usually superb service, they still have not performed at the level you'd expect from their reputations.

They're not getting nearly as many chances as usual, but they are getting chances, and should be burying them, not missing them.

That needs to change ASAP.

Harry Redknapp

I'm sure someone will point out that Redknapp has done so much already this season to take Tottenham to where they are right now, and there's no denying that.

But the fact is, if Redknapp was half as good a tactician as he is a motivator, he'd be at the level of the managerial greats (Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho, Sir Alex Ferguson, etc), and Tottenham would be, at the very least, still in the middle of the title race hunt.

Redknapp doesn't need to make drastic changes by any means; all he needs to do is to sit down, see what has worked in his time with Tottenham, and go back to that.

No more unimaginative center midfield combinations, no more Modric on the left, no more Gareth Bale on the right. None of these ideas or moves were what brought Tottenham to where they are in the league table today.

Every team goes through injuries, and Tottenham have been lucky to have faced such few injuries to their key starters thus far this season.

Redknapp must now look to the bench he's underused through the season, and start giving guys like Niko Kranjcar, Danny Rose, etc., more playing time, instead of moving his best players out of position.

That is how Tottenham will emerge from the funk they currently finds themselves in. And it is how they will return to being the confident, intimidating Spurs they've been all season long.