An Alternative View On The Sandro Situation: Chill The Eff Out

Everybody climb back down off the ledge.

Yes, Sandro Ranieri looks to have gone down with a very serious injury which at this stage looks very likely lay him off for the rest of the season. Yes, this is an extremely sad thing to have happened to arguably our most consistent player thusfar this term. No, it does not mean the end of the season has come for us in January.

See, just before 'Ol Harry departed from our company to seriously test his managerial abilities (and the willingness of everyone in the world to think that he's still sane) by trying to keep QPR up, he introduced a wonderful little quirk into the setup at Tottenham. It's called a Scott Parker. It's this brilliant thing that's a bit like a Sandro, only a bit less young. But it tackles just as hard, makes just as many interceptions, and is one of the most reliable tools for maintaining possession available to any manager in the League.

It is genuinely incredible to me that a mere seven or eight months or so after Scott Parker was named our Player of the Season after a year of demonstrating incredible tenacity and desire to play for the shirt, and even in light of a spell of excellent cameo appearances which have suggested that he is fully fit and raring to start, everyone has written him off as yesterday's news, like some unwanted hangover from the Redknapp era that is hassle to find a place for in this side. Scott Parker is still a good player. Better than that, he's awesome, and would do a brilliant and vital job for any team in the League right now, no questions asked. Even more importantly, he will play through fatigue and some small measures of injury if it means getting outings in front of the Tottenham fans. This is very important because it means we can use him in several different competitions and rely on him to at least put in a dependable shift in time.

Even if Parker can't do the business week in and week out in Europe and at home to cover for Sandro, there's also the small matter of Jake Livermore's career at Spurs and where exactly it is headed to factor in. We've accepted he's good enough to feature for us in some respect this season (just not in late cameos to hold the ball, please), but we didn't want to see him start for us in the middle of our hot run in the League. Moment has come, boys. Jake can now step up and try and cement a place for himself in this generation of Tottenham players by being a go-to guy for the Europa League and the FA Cup.

Tottenham are not going to crumble from this point onwards. I have every confidence Scott Parker will strike up an excellent partnership with Mousa Dembele and we can find our rhythm in the League again. We have Livermore to put in European shifts for us if Scotty needs a rest. We will not start losing games or burning out our players because Sandro is going to be sidelined for a bit.

Seriously, you can come down off the ledge now.