Redknapp has striking need of reinforcements

Tottenham 1-1 Wolverhampton Wanderers

Tottenham striker Jermain Defoe reacts to a missed chance (Getty Images)

Harry Redknapp admitted he would like to have been playing golf in the South Coast sunshine yesterday. Instead he travelled to France to watch the Marseilles forward Loïc Rémy, whom the Tottenham manager could more easily have scouted when he played at Arsenal in the Champions League two months ago.

"It's difficult to find someone better than what we have," Redknapp had said after Saturday's disappointing 1-1 home draw with a resolute Wolverhampton Wanderers side, which is one of the problems for a club operating at close to optimum level on the resources and budgets they have. Another one, as the manager has pointed out, is that players like Jermain Defoe, Roman Pavlyuchenko and Niko Kranjcar cannot get into the team as it is. The uncertainty in the mid to long term is that Emmanuel Adebayor, who tends to blow hot and cold, is merely on loan from Manchester City, which means he is ineligible for next Sunday's meeting between the clubs, when Spurs will attempt to avenge the stunning 5-1 home defeat in August.

Adebayor, although unlucky to have a goal disallowed on the thinnest of offside decisions, was in one of his cooler moods on Saturday and Defoe's one chance after coming on as substitute brought a sharp save from Wayne Hennessey, none of which prevented the widespread grumble among Tottenham fans that "we need a striker". Their frustration was compounded by the fact that an Arsenal man, Emmanuel Frimpong, had been at least as influential as the Wolves goalkeeper in preventing Spurs joining City and Manchester United on 48 points. Frimpong, the energetic and physically fearsome Ghanaian, was both a destructive and creative force in midfield for almost 70 minutes until Mick McCarthy withdrew him for fear that Mike Jones – who, among Premier League referees, shows the highest average number of cards – would produce a second yellow one. "I thought they gave a free-kick against him which was a really poor one and I knew full well that the next one he could get a [second] booking," McCarthy said. "It's not easy for him to come from a team that generally has about 60 per cent of the possession to a team that's getting probably 40 per cent, even less in some games. He was terrific."

The possession statistic was 43 per cent on Saturday, Frimpong managing to pass the ball around and Steven Fletcher performing manfully in holding it up as well as opening the scoring, before Luka Modric equalised. McCarthy believes that using Fletcher as the only striker with two wingers suits Wolves and has enabled them to draw at both Tottenham and Arsenal recently. Now they need to show they can break teams down at Molineux, starting this week with the derbies against Birmingham City, in the FA Cup, and Aston Villa.

Bookings: Tottenham Assou-Ekotto. Wolves Frimpong, Henry, Johnson

Man of the match: Fletcher

Referee: M Jones (Cheshire)

Attendance: 36,194