ONE simple statistic needs addressing if Tottenham are to climb out of danger and challenge the top four in the long term – Spurs midfielders have scored just eight goals between them all season, with only half of those coming in the league. Elsewhere, M

ONE simple statistic needs addressing if Tottenham are to climb out of danger and challenge the top four in the long term - Spurs' midfielders have scored just eight goals between them all season, with only half of those coming in the league.

Elsewhere, Manchester City's Stephen Ireland has six goals in the Premier League by himself, while Chelsea's Frank Lampard has five and Arsenal's Samir Nasri has four, as does Bolton's Matthew Taylor.

Meanwhile, at White Hart Lane, Jenas has two league goals to his name and Bentley and Lennon have one each - and all but one of those four goals came in the same game against Arsenal.

The absence of a constant threat from midfield has been largely hidden since Redknapp arrived because Darren Bent, Roman Pavlyuchenko and Fraizer Campbell have scored 14 goals between them.

But on Sunday it was painfully obvious that, with Pavlyuchenko and Bent struggling to find space up front, there was little to no chance of any goals coming from behind them.

Admittedly Tottenham were missing both Luka Modric and Jermaine Jenas through injury, two players who - on a good day - offer a threat in central midfield.

But on Sunday Harry Redknapp had to rely on Didier Zokora and Tom Huddlestone, an enforced set-up which produced the obvious results.

Zokora is essentially a holding midfielder who has famously never scored in any of his 107 apperances for Spurs, while Huddlestone also likes to operate from deep and is less effective at the business end of the pitch.

Just five weeks ago, the strikers were the problem at Spurs. Now it's the midfield.