Tottenham Hotspur's Worst XI Of The Decade: Defensive/Two-Way Midfielder

Our Worst XI of the Decade list moves into the midfield as we look at some of the Worst Defensive/Two-way midfielders that Tottenham Hotspur have had over the last ten years. When I started this post I thought there would be a lot of options for you readers, but, if I'm being honest, in the last ten years there really haven't been that many Spurs midfielders that were truly awful.

If this list extended back a few more years we could have players like Jason Dozell, Nicola Berti and Ramon Vega, but it doesn't and so I'm having to reach a little bit. As I look at this there is one player that sticks out as clearly being worse than all the other players on the list, but far be it for me to tell you how to vote.

As always, if you feel like I have unfairly left someone off of this list leave a comment below and we'll see about getting them added to the list.

Nominations and voting are after the jump!

Stephen Clemence: It pains me to list the off-spring of Tottenham legend Ray Clemence here, but I must. Clemence the younger made 109 appearances for Spurs and scored 3 goals before he was sold to Birmingham City for £1.3 million. I'm really surprised that he made that many appearances for the club considering the fact that he was perpetually injured. He was a passionate player and worked very hard on the pitch. He was a boyhood Spurs Spurs fan and generally played his heart out for the club. Unfortunately he wasn't really all that good.

Øyvind Leonhardsen: Why did Spurs ever see the need to purchase a midfielder who played for Wimbledon, who never actually used their midfield? Granted he played for Liverpool for two years immediately before coming to White Hart Lane, but I have to think they were more than happy to part with the Norwegian. Leonhardsen would go on to make 72 appearances for the Club over 3 years and scored 11 goals. He had a good engine and could run around the pitch all game, unfortunately what he possessed in stamina he lacked in quality.

Jermaine Jenas: Some of you, like Jermaine in the picture above, might be confused by his inclusion on this list. My response to you is, really? Are you really surprised? Sure, Jenas has made 201 appearances for Tottenham and scored 26 goals. He's even been capped by England 21 times. Those numbers make my head hurt. Jenas is a prototypical box-to-box midfielder and certainly has the ability to be a top player, but just never seem to put it together. His performances run hot and cold. Some games he bosses the midfield other times he's non-existant. Back in 2009, Spooky, over at Dear Mr. Levy, had this to say about Jenas:

Graham Roberts would run through walls for Tottenham. Jenas would apologetically whisper that he has lost the keys for the door, then sleep in a park bench for the night.

Hossam Ghaly: Let's put aside the shirt throwing incident that effectively ended his career at Tottenham for a second and look at his play up until then. The Egyptian midfielder joined Tottenham in 2006 from Feyenoord and stayed until 2009 when he was mercifully unloaded onto Al-Nassr (with a loan spell at Derby County in 2008). Spurs almost sold Ghally to Birmingham City in 2007, but the deal was cancelled after he insulted the clubs players and training methods. Ghaly played 34 times for Spurs and scored 3 goals. On the pitch Ghaly wasn't much use either. He made some many rash challenges and wasn't much of a passer or a dribbler and his first touch was something worse than awful, but he worked hard and was thus labeled tenacious. In reality, he just wasn't very good.