Pleat backs youngsters to salvage Spurs’ season

DAVID PLEAT yesterday assessed the crumbling wreckage of Tottenham’s season and backed talented youngster Johnnie Jackson to provide the inspiration for Spurs’ survival battle.

Five defeats on the trot have dumped Pleat’s side in the drop zone and made Christmas 2003 a thoroughly miserable affair for the white half of north London.

Sunday’s 1-0 defeat against Charlton was the latest loss and a group of angry fans were still outside White Hart Lane long after the final whistle chanting for the head of chairman Daniel Levy.

However, those same supporters were earlier cheering the emergence of Jackson - the player Pleat hopes will supply the sparkle sadly lacking in his team.

Tottenham spurned chance after chance against Charlton and Pleat is banking on Jackson’s influence to help his teammates start hitting the net.

The 21-year-old was recalled from loan at Coventry to plug the left side of Tottenham’s injury-hit midfield and has made a huge impression both on his debut, the 2-0 St. Stephen’s Day defeat at Portsmouth, and on Sunday Pleat said: “I think Johnnie’s a big prospect.

“We’ve nursed him carefully, as we have with Stephen Kelly, and have one or two others like him as well. But it’s a tough theatre out there.”

Pleat admits his tenure as acting manager is under threat following the club’s disastrous sequence of results. He needs his players to respond to the situation and is not impressed by Freddie Kanoute’s revelation that he is prepared to accept an international call-up from Mali.

Mali coach Henri Stambouli said at the weekend he was almost certain the former West Ham striker would join up with the country’s squad for the African Nations Cup next month.

Pleat, however, has found solace in the performances of young trio Jackson, Kelly and Rohan Ricketts.

“The young players represent part of the future,” he said.

“I saw a lot of promise in certain places against Charlton and I said to the young boys to keep it going.”