I agree with that DH and that's why we have not had good control of the midfield in the last few games in fact I just said something similar in my last post. But it doesn't make Winks a bad player does it. It just means we are short of a Dembele in the middle.
Eriksen is generally at the root of everything positive. He’s an absolute magician in my eyes and probably our best player. As I said to Colin during the game, despite Eriksen playing below-par, he’s one pass or one shot away from something special and he showed that with that delightful ball to Alli for the equaliser. I don’t think it’s a surprise that Real and Barca are looking at him as potential Modric/ Rakitic replacements respectively. I think it was Brian that said Winks is a water carrier and I think that’s a fair analogy but I don’t think Spurs need a water carrier in this type of side, we need someone who’s gonna throw the water up the field to keep people hydrated, if you catch what I mean.
He probably is our most creative player but he's not a replacement for Modric whose work rate is far higher.
A bad player perhaps not but he’s a bad player for our system. We’re never really going to revert to a three-man midfield on a regular basis while we have so much quality in attacking midfield. We can’t sacrifice one of Son/ Alli/ Eriksen (when all fit) etc to accommodate Winks a more suitable role in the side.
Like our recently departed beloved Mousa, Eric became a hero for me at the battle of the bridge. Another favourite memory of mine regarding him is his winning debut goal against West Ham.
Oh for sure, Modric worked a lot harder but the creativity between the two is/ was similar and it’s the creativity we could do more of with in the middle of the pitch as we have guys like Dier/ Sissoko who are happy to do the dirty work.
I was at that game. Still remains my favourite ever away day. Going down to ten men after Naughton’s red, Noble missing the penalty, them then going down to ten, Hugo making an unbelievable save from Downing to then seeing Dier, who’d been playing as CB and then RB, running through on goal from a Kane through ball and slotting it away on his debut in the last minute. The celebrations were just mental, my cousin ripped his shorts, my mate fell down about two rows, it was chaos yet fantastic.
Not expecting Poch to slate him in public, but to offer a more balanced constructive view that will give him some food for thought. He was poor and we could all see it. Praising him offers no benefit IMO. He's too slow. His reactions were poor. Finishing abysmal and positional play all over the place. For a 33 year old with his experience, I find that incredible.
I think we have to trust that Poch knows him best and his comments may be the way to boost him to better performances. I think we are being unfair on the player, it can't be easy coming in with so little playing time. May be yesterday was the game he needed and he will improve over the next few games. By the time he is unceremoniously kicked out of the team for Kane's return he could be bang in form. Llorente is a good player and the coaching staff must believe he isn't in physical decline yet.
Narrative of the Day: "Pochettino bringing [N'Koudou] off the bench appeared to be a clear message to spendthrift chairman Daniel Levy that more signings are needed." - HITC It's also a sign that less injuries are needed...
Just wanted to chip in with my reactions to the game, and to comments made on here. 1. Don’t agree that it was a poor game. There was plenty of commitment on both sides and some exciting passages of play. 2. Didn’t think Llorente was as dreadful as most people have suggested/asserted. His own goal was clearly because he was trying to bring the ball under control rather than give it some welly. An error of judgment through lack of playing time. His missed chance was really no worse than Kane’s or Son’s last week. And I thought he tried hard to work with the players around him. I thought he was mediocre rather than disastrous overall. 3. Fulham deserve some credit for disrupting our patterns of play. But they failed to capitalise on promising situations for them. Lack of confidence, I guess? 4. The difference when Lamela (ok - I admit, I’m really not a fan of his) went off and Dier came on was remarkable. Not “like for like” substitution as the awful commentary team seemed to believe! (But they said that when Lamela came on for the injured Sissoko last week!!!)(I laughed at that for quite a long time!). Hope Moura is available on Thursday so we don’t have to watch Lamela poncing about and then passing it to the opposition again. 5. Let’s see more of N’Koudou! That cross for the goal was delicious! 6. Winks did not have a perfect game - his passing was not 100% accurate by any means, but he was not so unambitious in his approach as he has sometimes been ( the main reason he’s been criticised, dismissed, even, on here) and you can forgive a player who tries to bring off an imaginative pass, even if it sometimes fails. As with Eriksen. 7. Talking of Eriksen, is he possibly carrying an injury? He’s been pretty subdued recently. 8. Rose! I take it all back! 9. I agree with comments made about the dreadful performance of the ref. And the commentators. 10. I think there was too much of a negative reaction on here during and after the match. We won, for heaven’s sake! It’s a good job the players didn’t react in the same way!
I think Lamela needs game time too audrey, he was under or over hitting the ball yesterday and that's just lack of game time. Like the whole team had to come to terms with the sight lines at Wembley when we first started playing there. As you rightly talk about Llorente many seem to expect players to walk on the field after a lay off as if they were never away. I don't think Eriksen likes playing against the harder physical teams this is where he falls short for me, having said that we would miss him enormously if he wasn't there. Including yesterday where his very special pass enabled Dele to score.
As I have long asked : Does Pochettino give the hairdryer treatment to the squad in private ?? If players think they are beyond reproach for their performances, then IMHO that breeds laxity and contempt. Sometimes they need to feel the force of the iron fist inside the kid gloves.
Two things in particular are sticking with me this morning about the game-not about the players but about the ref and media, and Poch. Small details I admit but little annoying things. Liverpool score with the last kick to win against Everton and Klopp runs onto the pitch to celebrate, apologizing that he can't help himself and gets a £8000 fine. Nuno does the same on Saturday after Wolves score against Leicester and gets sent to the stands. We score with the last kick yesterday and Poch and his team manage to celebrate without going onto the playing area. Does this mean Poch is always under control or has he not got strong enough emotions? The other thing which is really annoying is how we now , thanks to the media, have a reputation of diving. Just like Stoke got the tag of playing long ball football, we now have that tag and refs and the media see it as fact. It takes years for such a tag to stick and maybe it started when we bought Klinsmann. Bale , as we all know got tarnished with the brush unjustly and now it just seems natural for refs to dish out yellow cards when our players are clearly fouled. Rose was clearly fouled and even if the ref thought it wasn't enough to go over, he cannot deny there was contact which should have put enough doubt in his mind and not made it worse by giving a yellow. It wasn't even in the box. And then , although I don't think the hand on Llorente's shoulder was enough, how was it any different than the hand on Salah's shoulder. And why wasn't Salah booked on Saturday for his dive? Which everyone saw as a dive and the ref didn't give a foul which means even he saw it as a dive. ( this is also why we've got the reputation, because we get yellows and then when people look back at stats, it shows that we 'dive' ). Some players perfect the act of diving and constantly get away with it. Salah-defender's hand touches him he falls back; Vardy perfected the technique of planting his foot behind the defender's foot and then 'tripping' over it. Rant over.
Whether or not he does or doesn't, I do not understand why people think that the sign of a great manager is them bawling at their players at half time in every match. Colin ****er bawls at his players at half time in every match, yet has he ever managed to keep a team in the Premier League for more than a season? It's almost as if Alex Ferguson having a much better squad at his disposal is more important to his success than him yelling at players when they were crap in the first half
That is your opinion and that is why Poch is a top manager and you're not ( as far as I know ). {P.S. Don't take this harshly.}
