You mad?!?!!! Don't get me wrong , I like Thud as a player but he is having a mare of a season. By all means don't start with Holtby-but not Tom-he is way too slow, does not get into position and doesn't jump for headers. That's my view.
Jake or Thudd or (anyone we have in our squad) instead of Parker? Mad, completely mad. Parker may not be as good as last season (yet) but he's still vastly better than anyone else we have in that position. There's a lot of people on here pointing to problems and maybe others are just going along with it, and completely ignored any positive contributions he's made. For example saying he doesn't pass forward is to completely ignore the times when he has passed forward! Almost any other PL team would be glad to have him, and yet we are saying he's not good enough? Rubbish.
Who has said Parker isn't good enough? We're (or I'm) saying he's nowhere near the level of last season. Perhaps he's still not fit enough yet, maybe we've rushed him back into a starting spot due to Sandro's injury. Though I do feel he should be near full fitness as he's had enough game time but something just isn't ticking, him and Dembele's form at the moment isn't of the standard of a top half table side, let alone a team challenging top 4. Of course we all know he's far better than Jake and Hudd but similar to Walker's situation, performances have been below par by their standards, hence why I say give Naughton a few games and now why I'm saying give Jake a go and let Parker be eased back in. He looked so knackered against West Brom and Norwich it was really worrying.
The issue with Parker & Dembele is that they are both shy at playing risky passes, they virtually always play it safe, so when you have two players in the centre playing it safe and no one to link midfield to attack, then there is a problem. This is why Holtby stands out already, as now we have a player that wants the ball in a forward area, will play risky passes and attempt to create space, but of course Villas Boas needs to realise the guy doesn't need to be starting from the subs bench,he is ready to start games.
Do not forget that Parker has come back into a very different side playing in a different way. His solidity is still there but he;s bound to be a little cautious as he works out the new players and moves in the team. To also ignore his long lay off smacks of comparing the real thing to a computer game. Take him out of the team and the defence would be more exposed and our midfield less dominant.
To be fair spurf, my issue with Parker is that he has always played it safe, am not just thinking about his recent games, but of course any player returning from injury will take time to get up to speed. However when you have a player getting up to speed and playing it safe, it causes issues, especial;y when we have had Sandro who was better at protecting the back four and also superior in an attacking sense.
Sandro wasn't exactly spraying 30 yard defence splitting passes either. The trouble is that Dembele is not bringing the ball forward as often or as quickly as he was earlier in the season. The two of them need to make sure they're actively looking to get the ball off our defence when they have it, there's been too many aimless long balls trying to pick out Dempsey, Bale and Defoe recently, which stops us from controlling the game. Midfield is where we're strongest so we need to make that count against the opposition, when Dembele shies away from the ball and getting involved in the game we lose some of our composure on the ball and any good side with hardworking players can take advantage as we've seen.
Its not about playing 30 yard passes, not sure anyone has said he was? but he is definitely more forward thinking then parker. When parker was playing it safe before, he had VDV & Modric in the team and they played risky passes or attempted to be creative. In this current team, who do we have that will play a risky forward pass? Dempsey? Sig? Dembele?.....or Holtby? who has just arrived. So for me, in this current set-up, parker doesn't work as well as in the past.
Someone else mentioned the fact that Parker was coming into a team with different players, but in fairness, he joined us last season from a side far inferior to ours and yet settled as if he'd been here for years, I know that he was surrounded by higher quality players last season (Modric and Rafa compared to Mousa and Deuce) but his particular job is to break up opposition attacks and then lay on passes for the more attacking players to do the "glamour" work, in fairness, I've barely seen much of the "destroyer" this season compared to what we were used to last year, too many times the opposition has got in behind him and Mousa and we've had to rely on the defence or Hugo a bit too often for my liking. He said himself that he feels extremely fresh so I'm puzzled as to why he's been so below par. On his day, Parker can rival any DM in the league and dare I say Europe. But thus far, it's been a disappointing return to action in my opinion, like I said previously maybe we've rushed him back ahead of schedule due to the loss of Sandro, it's a tough call to make as Parker is miles better than Jake or Hudd but personally, I think a fully fit Jake should be given a start while Scotty finds his feet with 20/ 30 minutes in the hope that he'll then finally be really ready for a full 90 within two or three games. I'm one of Parker's biggest fans, was one of the people praying we'd sign him last season where as others wanted Diarra of Madrid or someone else of a bigger reputation, he's been absolutely great for us and knowing he's a Spurs fan makes it better, I'm sure he'll eventually regain his form but I think just for now, it'll be better to try and ease him back in because to me, he really doesn't look up to scratch at the moment and the last thing we'd need is for him to over do it, pick up another injury and then that'll leave us right in the ****ter.
I don't want to labour the point but the team he came into last season badly needed his type of play because we did not have the type of organisation that we have now. In other words his role is not so obvious now but it's still there. Dembele does some of the work that Parker did on his own but there is no VDV or Modric as you said, so no one to benefit from his work as there was last season. Holtby may change this and as result Parkers game will benefit or will appear to. The way I view it is simply that without Sandro it's a bloody good job we have Parker, but you have already made that point. I don't think we disagree too much I am not just not ready to criticise Parker yet.
Yeah if anything Dembele probably does a bit too much defending at times. Don't get me wrong I appreciate the work rate but he seems to be too deep to make an impact going forward which is ideally what we need from him. I think that's part of a reason why the combo of him and Parker so far has been inneffective, both are perhaps relying on the other to break up play and get forwards etc so therefore theres a confusion as to who is meant to be doing what at times. I really believe Holtby could become thea catalyst to some much better attacking performances, I appreciate I maybe getting a bit too excited over two cameos but the guy looks class. He can take on aspects and duties left behind by Luka and Rafa in terms of creativity which we've missed so much. Hopefully like you said Holtby's inclusion will benefit Scotty, we need him to be back on form like last season if we're to challenge for 3rd or at least maintain 4th.
My point was that Sandro wasn't providing these risky passes and creativity either. When Parker was at West Ham he had a less restrictive role than under 'Arry which led to him 5 goals and 2 assists to last season's 1 assist. It was the role that 'Arry had for Parker last season that was the reason he played as he did, you only have to look back at how 'Arry was going mental at Sandro when he scored against Chelsea because he wanted him to hold his place in midfield and not go running forward like that. So far this season Parker has had 3 starts since coming back from a longterm injury and is playing with a new midfield partner with a new system and manager. It's far too early to dismiss his ability to work in this system for us, especially when he ran that midfield at West Ham from defending to attacking, which he wasn't asked to do for us last season. In my opinion he's actually doing quite well, especially when you take all those circumstances into account, as Spurcat suggested the otherday, I think Dembele deserves the criticism for recent performances more than Parker does. When Dembele returns to form and Parker's had more than a handful of starts, we will be better placed to judge whether Parker's able to play in the role he's being asked to.
Fair enough YV, we just see it different. However, as for Dembele, that was a point we have both picked up on, as has others and even before his hip injury he wasn't as consistent overall in a game, so am unsure what we can expect from Dembele when he is fully fit, as he was outstanding against Man Utd away (1st half) yet are we expecting him to perform to that level most weeks? as teams around us have central midfield players that are more consistent, so Dembele has to offer then he currently has.
A possible solution, although perhaps a little risky, would be to play Holtby as a deep lying playmaker, the old Modric role, next to Parker, and put Dembele further forwards, behind Adebayor, or Dempsey. I don't think AVB would do this, but I'd be impressed if he did, more so than if Livermore or Hudd start instead of either Parker or Dembele in the CM roles. Dembele and Holtby could rotate positions when necessary. Tiote, Sissoko and Cabaye are a serious midfield three. It's not the time, imho, to be putting Livermore in as the man to break them up. Newcastle worry me slightly at the moment. Especially their midfield. Luckily, Ben Arfa is unlikely to play this match.
I thought Dembele was about as faultless as you can get before his injury and even for a period after. Maybe I was just late to pick up on it but I can't say I'd noticed him playing badly until QPR when Mbia(?) had a terrific game.
Well overall I've been largely disappointed, but again we could just have different expectations of the player, yet I did notice Spurcat mentioning the same about Dembele, however until we have a good balanced team in all areas, we may not fully see how Dembele is going to feature on a consistent basis, plus I'm looking forward to seeing how he works with Holtby.
Yep same here, I was almost shocked to see Dembele struggle against Mbia in that game, but he has not been the same since. All players go in and out of form or maybe he is hiding some discomfort because he wants to play. It's almost as as if he lost his nerve in the QPR game.
I thought Dembele was awesome pre-injury. Stats didn't say much but he bossed the midfield and made us play a lot more fluently, especially as he was bringing the ball forward and ghosting past opposition players. Post injury it's been different, he's sat a lot deeper than usual and hasn't been gliding past players often like he was before. Like others have touched upon, he got dominated at QPR by Mbia and in the recent games he hasn't had much of an impact either. Hopefully it's just a bad spell and he'll snap out of it soon, we really need his drive and skill to support the attacks.
Yv, how old was Parker when he ran the show for Spam?...it was 3 yrs ago mate, he was at his peak, SP is over 30 now, his box to box days are long gone and is why he has not been asked to do that role since. I'm sorry but that is such a non argument what he did then, and is falling into the category of 'Oh, but Hudd was great when we finished 4th'. I agree that its only a few games for him so far, but I wouldn't expect much more than what we see now.
It was just under 2 years ago he won the Player of the Year award playing in that role, I think. I wasn't saying that he'd have to run the midfield for us though, I was using the example to demonstrate how Parker has more strings to his bow than he showed playing in a more restrictive holding midfielde position last season. He has the ability to bring the ball forward effectively, as he's already shown for us this season and he has enough ability to pass the ball well too. To sum up, this is not Makelele who's being asked to play a bigger role in attack, Parker has proven he has enough ability on the ball and Sandro was not creating chances or scoring loads of goals either so I believe Scott can play this role. Before someone misunderstands me I'm not saying he definitely will work out in this role but there's more than enough reason not to write him off after 3 league starts. Again, I guess we disagree on whether Parker has even been particularly bad since coming back too.
