An ideal signing for Spurs…an even better one for Wilson

Football FanCast columnist Roy James would welcome the arrival of Sulley Muntari in January.

Gareth Southgate once proclaimed that at half time playing for England they needed a Winston Churchill type speech but in the end they got Ian Duncan-Smith; on Saturday Spurs needed a combative midfielder, someone to grab the game by the scruff of the neck against Bolton to assist Wilson Palacios, but we got Jermaine Jenas.

I don't really need to go into JJ's good and bad points as they have been exhausted in many articles, message boards and websites before, but the bottom line is that JJ is only ever useful in the games when Spurs have plenty of the possession and dictating the proceedings. Against the dogged sides of the Premier League, when really you need to stamp your authority on the game and bully the opposition he becomes a passenger in the middle, afraid to roll his sleeves up, and leaves it to the rest of the team to pick up the pieces. He had an absolute shocker in the first half at Bolton and fortunately a half time rocket appeared to get him going. Harry shouldn't have to that, especially given the importance of the central midfield role in any team, but how many times have we seen Jenas go missing over the years?

I know that JJ does have his favourites among the support and they are probably screaming at the screen at the moment, but do you honestly feel he is the ideal partner for Wilson Palacios in midfield? I have said it for a long time that the problem with the Tottenham midfield is that we get bullied far too often against certain teams and why Wilson has been able to stem a bit of that tide; he cannot do everything on his own. I accept in home games when we do have plenty of the game you could play with Jenas or big Tom in the middle, but on the road we need that strong centre midfield pairing that enables us to dictate the game and can then feed the likes of the Lennon and Modric's of this world to hurt the opposition. We need to find that balance and that is why the prospect of someone like Muntari coming into the club excites me.

Whether it is just rumours, or there is an element of truth behind them, I think Muntari would be a dream partner for Palacios. Here are two players that are cut from the same cloth and both possess similar assets, although the Ghanaian is arguably better going forward. They would both provide a solid backbone to the team and suddenly we would have strength in midfield that will enable us to impose ourselves at the opposition away from home. History has shown that our form on our travels is generally poor and it is what has cost us dear and it goes a long way to preventing us moving up to the next level, it is something that needs to be address and hopefully Sulley Muntari will come in during the January window and go a long way in helping Harry resolve this.