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[idol_wild]

Originally Posted by Alkaline

It's a farce. Why they can't see that Bent was a waste of money and the sooner we bin him to West Ham for £12m the better, i do not know. I'm annoyed that they've taken such a hard line with a player who seems very keen to prove his worth and seems like he's willing to play for the good of the team.

Defoe, Berbatov and Keane are all scoring goals, what more could you want from strikers? Bent is an expensive mistake.

I'm fed up of the situation at Spurs. They are continually blaming the team for bad management decisions where in reality we have one of the best young squads in the country at the moment. If you look at players like Huddlestone, Bale, Zokora, Jenas, Lennon, Taarabt, Robinson, Keane, Defoe, Berbatov, King, Prince-Boateng, Kaboul, Dawson, Chimbonda etc they are all very competant or promising players, many of them are indeed World Class players or have the potential to be.

Why we are consistently pursuing sub-par players like Woodgate, Elmander, Hutton, Emanuelson, Maniche etc is beyond me. They are not going to bring anything to the team that we don't already have in abundance. We do, granted, need a good, solid left back because Bale will take a while to settle in and Lee just isn't good enough.

Spurs need stability and a good leader. King is a good leader, if he stays fit we have all we need really.

I agree about Darren Bent; £16.5m for Bent, £14m for Thierry Henry. There's something gravely wrong there.

Spurs have potential, but the defence is an absolute sham. Sure, King will add stability, but my God that Dawson has proved to be a bit too raw for the EPL. As for Paul Robinson, he's a good shot stopper, but he's useless in terms of positioning at set-pieces and heavy attacks. And given how poor Tottenham's defence is, there are plenty of those.

But actually, Tottenham's midfield is where the problems lie, as far as I can see it. It's possibly the most unbalanced midfield in the EPL. There is some quality, yes, but no balance. The £16.5 for Bent would have been better spent persuing Owen Hargreaves.

[Bigsby]

Originally Posted by idol_wild

I agree about Darren Bent; £16.5m for Bent, £14m for Thierry Henry. There's something gravely wrong there.

Henry hasn't exactly been a great buy either though.

[idol_wild]

Originally Posted by Bigsby

Henry hasn't exactly been a great buy either though.

Sigh. You must get the point I'm trying to make though?

[Bigsby]

Originally Posted by idol_wild

Sigh. You must get the point I'm trying to make though?

I think if you were trying to demonstrate profligacy, there were better comparisons to be made.

[idol_wild]

Originally Posted by Bigsby

I think if you were trying to demonstrate profligacy, there were better comparisons to be made.

Not really, given that the Henry transfer and the Bent transfer happened within weeks of eachother. So we're speaking about the same transfer climate. Sure, Henry isn't exactly firing on all cylinders at Barca just now, but he's proved to be a better buy than Bent already and he's got much tougher competition than Bent has.

Plus, by going on previous performances and form alone, then you can say straight away that Tottenham are profligates.

I think you're nit-picking, but I'll humour you: give me a better example...

[Alkaline]

Originally Posted by idol_wild

I agree about Darren Bent; £16.5m for Bent, £14m for Thierry Henry. There's something gravely wrong there.

Spurs have potential, but the defence is an absolute sham. Sure, King will add stability, but my God that Dawson has proved to be a bit too raw for the EPL. As for Paul Robinson, he's a good shot stopper, but he's useless in terms of positioning at set-pieces and heavy attacks. And given how poor Tottenham's defence is, there are plenty of those.

But actually, Tottenham's midfield is where the problems lie, as far as I can see it. It's possibly the most unbalanced midfield in the EPL. There is some quality, yes, but no balance. The £16.5 for Bent would have been better spent persuing Owen Hargreaves.

I disagree about Dawson and Robinson.

Dawson is still young and formed an impressive partnership with King in his first two seasons at Spurs. His defensive partners this season have both been equally inexperienced in terms of EPL experience. Neither of them speak English either, though Zokora has made an effort to learn the language Kaboul cannot speak it at all. Communication and strength in leadership have been Spurs main problem defensively this season. Granted we could maybe do with another experienced defender to cover for Ledley King's injury problems, but an older defender would be the best idea then and preferably a British one who has played in the EPL for a few seasons at least getting regular games.

Robinson, on the other hand, has completely lost his confidence. Unsurprisingly, when you have the entire nation media and all criticising everything you do that very often happens. He's not the best goalkeeper in the world by any means be he is substantially better than the majority of goalkeepers in the EPL when he's playing at his best.

If you take both of those factors into consideration our defence doesn't look too bad on the face of it.

Our midfield is very backward in the centre, so i don't see how spending money on Hargreaves would have addressed that, Zokora and Jenas are defensive midfielders but both have good distribution and are good at getting forward. And, Jenas offers an attractive array of uses at set-pieces as well. Huddlestone is more than capable of becoming a player of Hargreaves class as well.

[calum]

Originally Posted by idol_wild

This guy is basing a career on two good performances for the national team. I find this incredible. He's not even an outstanding performer at SPL level, so why he'd be effective in the EPL is quite beyond me. Apparently he's great going forward - but he doesn't possess the ability to pick out a pass or cross the ball. His number of assists over the past three seasons he's been playing is in single figures, I bet. Not great for an "attacking full-back".

In my opinion, all he has is aggression and workrate. He's not even lightning quick - he's just relatively pacey. Which all full-backs ought to be. There's no fucking way he's Manchester United class.

Yes. Yes yes yes.

And, Matthew, I don't think Hutton looked too clever for Italy's first goal and his "great block" from Di Natale was actually him getting hit in the back after getting caught ball watching.

I really hate the trend towards "full-backs" who are just failed wingers, or wingers in a team that doesn't use them. If they can be converted into balanced, defensively adept players (Gianluca Zambrotta is a perfect example of this) then I'm all for it, because obviously I can see the benefit of attacking full backs to stretch the game beyond a packed central midfield. Otherwise, though, I think the cost in terms of defensive instability is generally far greater than the attacking gain from players who, like Hutton, are rarely anything special going forward. The drooling over mere willingness to get forward is very, very irritating.

The following are, in my opinion, ridiculously overrated: Dani Alves, Massimo Oddo, Ashley Cole, Fabio Grosso, Wayne Bridge.

[Murrr]

Originally Posted by Alkaline

Why we are consistently pursuing sub-par players like Woodgate, Elmander, Hutton, Emanuelson, Maniche etc is beyond me. They are not going to bring anything to the team that we don't already have in abundance. We do, granted, need a good, solid left back because Bale will take a while to settle in and Lee just isn't good enough.

To be honest, of all the players you've listed there I'd say Elmander and Hutton (does the management not like Chimbonda or something? I think he's a canny player) are the only ones who wouldn't improve the Spurs team. I don't think Woodgate is as good as King but I do think that on his day he's top class; a clean tackler, good leader and a cool head, pretty similar to Ledley in fact. Of course his injury record is pretty abysmal, but he did manage to stay fit for the vast majority of last season anyway. I still rate him highly after his Newcastle spell; he managed to turn around a defence that included Andy O'Brien, Titus Bramble and Olivier Bernard, that's gotta be worth something.

Out of curiosity, why do you think Urby Emanuelson is sub-par? Every time I've seen him he's been absolute class, especially going forward, and he's only 21. If you had him and Bale I think you guys would be sorted at leftback for the next 10+ years.

I was talking to a Spurs fan the other day and he reckoned you guys needed a goalkeeper, leftback, centreback, central midfielder and a left winger, what do you reckon of that assessment? Sounds about right to me, but obviously I'm not a Spurs fan *shrugs*.

You've got a great manager in though, I'm sure Tottenham will be at least sniffing around the UEFA cup places this season.

[Murrr]

Originally Posted by calum

Yes. Yes yes yes.

And, Matthew, I don't think Hutton looked too clever for Italy's first goal and his "great block" from Di Natale was actually him getting hit in the back after getting caught ball watching.

I really hate the trend towards "full-backs" who are just failed wingers, or wingers in a team that doesn't use them. If they can be converted into balanced, defensively adept players (Gianluca Zambrotta is a perfect example of this) then I'm all for it, because obviously I can see the benefit of attacking full backs to stretch the game beyond a packed central midfield. Otherwise, though, I think the cost in terms of defensive instability is generally far greater than the attacking gain from players who, like Hutton, are rarely anything special going forward. The drooling over mere willingness to get forward is very, very irritating.

The following are, in my opinion, ridiculously overrated: Dani Alves, Massimo Oddo, Ashley Cole, Fabio Grosso, Wayne Bridge.

If you're talking over-rated fullbacks here, you might as well throw in the Grand Daddy of them all: John Arne Riise.

[calum]

On an infinitely more important note...

Zander stays! | Aberdeen | News | Club News | Club News

YAAAS.

(I know this probably just means we'll get money for him in the summer, but still)