Published: 29 April, 2012
SPURS EYEWITNESS by DAN CARRIER

IN a season that has all too often been about Tottenham’s "Galacticos" – the superstars who could command massive transfer fees in the summer with moves to Champions League regulars – today against Blackburn (click here for match report) we saw the less celebrated players show their team-mates that it’s not all about Bale being Barca-bound or Modric moving to west London.

Sandro, the understudy to Scott Parker, has not been given too many opportunities this term. With Parker nowhere to be seen today – and let’s face it, the poor bloke has been immense this season but the slump we’ve experienced has coincided with Parker looking exhausted – Sandro stepped up and said: “No nonsense, three points, please!”

He turned in a man-of-the-match performance, playing the enforcer wonderfully, and even gave us something Parker does not: getting forward and creating penalty box havoc, getting off a strong shot and generally giving us a buccaneering edge.

The second player who said they’d had enough of this poor run was the full-back Kyle Walker. He has been ever-present, and was awarded the PFA young player of the year award this week. Known primarily as an attacking threat because of his pace, he showed another side of his game today.

On 75 minutes, as the doom-mongers were beginning to expect a last-gasp Rovers equaliser, Walker stepped over a free-kick and curled an absolute peach home.

Watching the flight of the ball, it was quite an extraordinary bit of skill.

So when push comes to shove, and we need to draw on the last bit of effort to take us over the finishing line, it’s grand to see the less celebrated members of the squad step up and show those who may not be here next season how it is done.

Harry Redknapp has been criticised for having favourites, for being scared to mix things up – but the fact is this team game needs all 11 to perform, and this simple truth was underlined by Sandro and Walker this afternoon.