I felt Fletcher was a very good dominant midfielder for you. He didn't have an aggressive personality but he was more than capable of being aggressive on the pitch, chasing down and putting in some superb tackles. As much as the signings Fergie made were good and it's hard to argue that Kagawa and RVP weren't great value, I don't understand spending nearly £40mill on your strongest area of the pitch. It'd be like City going out and spending £30mill on another 'keeper. I'd be surprised if you went another window without buying a proper defensive midfielder.
Fletcher allowed Carrick to do his job. He went hunting down dangerous opposition midfielders and covering a lot of ground, so that our ex-player could sit, tidy up and pick out passes. Scholes can do Carrick's job at least as well and Cleverly's not far behind, but they don't have a real replacement for Fletcher, in my opinion. Tiote or Fellaini in January would make a massive difference, though they wouldn't approach the role in exactly the same way. As for Utd's injuries, we've had to cope with a lot of changes and it's been totally ignored by most people. Our first XI for the bulk of our games last season was: Friedel; Walker, Kaboul, King, Assou-Ekotto; Lennon, Parker, Modric, Bale; van der Vaart; Adebayor. We've lost King to retirement, Modric and van der Vaart to transfers and Kaboul, Assou-Ekotto, Parker and Adebayor to injuries, yet people keep saying that Villas-Boas inherited a good team. The team had it's heart ripped out and a couple of it's legs broken!
I've worked out why Ferdinand seemed a little distracted during the game: [video=youtube;yH5pBT0ZBlo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH5pBT0ZBlo[/video] He was keeping an eye out for Batman.
Excellent points PNP, we are a team in massive transition, as you rightly point out only 4 out of last year's 'first XI' (for me Sandro should be in that first XI not Lennon, but that's by the by and doesn't change the maths) took the field against Utd, and indeed all 3 of the subs weren't in that first XI either. It's an astonishing achievement to win at OT and indeed be on a 7 match unbeaten run into the bargain. I just hope once again that Levy's transfer deadline loving doesn't screw up our CL hopes. I know we are the poorest of the big 6, perhaps along with Pool, but it is so galling to chuck away these early points.
Vitas Gueralitas (sic) beat Bjorn Borg after losing to him the first sixteen times they played, then came up with one of my handful of favorite sports quotes: "NOBODY beats Vitas Gueralitias seventeen times in a row!"
Just watching a few highlights on the Eurosport site and they claim that Vertonghen's opener was the fastest away goal at Old Trafford in the Premier League era. Is that accurate? They rubbished Ferguson's injury time claim too, saying that there was actually a little too much: http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/football/premier-league/video/
Yep, great win. Shame some of our 'supporters' thought it was a good example to have a go at AVB's tactics over. but that's Spurs 'fans' for you.
I'm not sure what to make of this. I've had run-ins with Ghoddle10 but i believe him to be a true Spurs fan regardless of our disagreements. I can't think what the agenda is. What can you really achieve on a forum? Not a lot. Maybe it was just a bad choice of words? Having swung so massively from "Poor Lloris, AVB hasn't got a clue" to "AVB is brilliant, nobody question his tactics" in the space of 1 game is a bit weird though.
Notso, I see where you are coming from, the last few days his responses have been increasingly strange. I have never seen OS get so irritated by anyone (and I used to avidly read his posts from 606 days when he was just Spurcat). I just think (as was posted on here recently) that GH10 has backed himself into a corner on some of these issues and instead of saying, yeah, I got that one wrong (which we all need to do) he seems to come out swinging. As I have said before, his views don't bother me (we can't all agree) although his tone isn't great sometimes, nor is his insistence on making the same point on every thread. But I do think he is a genuine Spurs man and I wouldn't support banning people based on suspicions. I hope we don't lose people over these disagreements, after all he is quick to use the ignore function and anyone truly bothered by him can also.
Sorry, just seen this. Firstly, I don't believe Ghoddle's a wum. I agree with Spurcat that he has an agenda, he will always see things to suit his own opinion, that's just an observation on how selective he's been over the Lloris affair, 2 defensive mids, etc. Everyone does it to an extent but Ghoddle, a bit like Jayram on the Arsenal board, will use anything he can to hammer his point home, particularly when everyone else disagrees with him. In his defence, he has admitted when he's proven wrong though. Notso, do you seriously think a wum has posted 2700 times over a year pretending to be a Spurs fan, only to give himself up in such a pointless way? Even if he were a wum, we're not the ones being made to look foolish.
