How good is Coulibaly? Obviously if he never turns up may be hard for you to answer but I've never really seen any of him. The only reason I ask is on Football Manager his "potential" is ridiculous & yeah I know football manager isn't real but they must have seen something in him?
The question was due to a Net search showing only one off the beaten path football site listing him as on loan to Arouca (well done to the contributors to that site ) . Coulibaly : thought must of us assumed the homesickness thing was insurmountable and he would be sold ASAP. But to do that is very poor form indeed.
For home games, the club stays overnight at an hotel in Canary Wharf, just round the corner from where Benny lives. Club rules state all players in the squad are to report to the training ground in Enfield to be taken by coach to the hotel. Benny fails to see the logic in this so simply walks from his apartment to the hotel. I believe he got into double figures, the number of times he was fined for this last season.
To be honest I'd assumed he was probably trialling at other clubs in the early part of the season. I guess he'll be be doing that soon enough anyway now. Bit of a shame he's causing these problems for himself but if he doesn't want to turn up, let alone put in the work needed on the training ground then I can't say I care if he has to go. Is Lancaster still with us? I know he's had his injury problems but it'd be good to see him get some games with the under 21s.
I have to say he looked amazing in the famous 7-1 stuffing of Inter Milan, but that is now 2 years ago and he never really performed like that again. Every game he showed glimpses of genuine talent, but also in every game he showed worrying poor first touch and a naive sense of positional play. For example he wold often drift out wide to hug the touch line when he was supposed to be in the middle. Some young players need more coaching than they do playing time. Others need more playing time. I always felt Coilibaly needed a lot of both.
Will i get in trouble if i say that it does sound like a daft rule? If my work told me to commute in so i could commute back home for work i'd tell them to go and do one too.
Ditto, it seems very draconian to impose such a rule. Why would Benny trek across from East-West London, simply to get on a coach to traipse back to where he travelled from. Not to mention the return leg! This is what I do when similar events happen at my work. I'm with Benny on this!
The premise is that the team will all arrive together, on time / late / not at all. I have had visits to clients on the continent where I've been dragged into Heathrow (my most hated of airports) with the rest of my colleagues, when it would have been far more convenient for me to have travelled solo via Stansted.
Its still a stupid rule though. As long as he arrives on time to the hotel i don't see what the problem is at all. They all sit with their headphones on in the bus anyway. Benny bought a smart car because he cared for the environment but the club want him to make 2 pointless journies every 2 weeks! My work told me to go to Germany once to do an install of a system. I told them it was a waste of time, money, effort for something i could do remotely with a little bit of effort. They saw sense and they're REALLY unreasonable, so i don't see why Spurs couldn't allow Benny that one sensible "luxury".
I am not going to defend the rule and I am not going to criticise it either, although I am with the club on this one. The rule was actually introduced by Juande Ramos and Jonathan Woodgate took the same action as Benny did and also received fines for his actions. Harry thought the rule was daft and so scrapped it, only for Villas Boas to arrive and reintroduce it.
The obvious problem with giving Assou-Ekotto an exception is that other players will also live closer to the hotel than to the training ground. If you let one guy do it, then everyone will be asking.
whats the problem with that? My work colleagues live all over the place, but if we're at work by 9am or earlier then there is no big deal. For a football team its the turning up to the ground on time which is ultimately the most important thing which is why congregating somewhere else first makes sense. But why congregate at Spurs lodge (or wherever) only then to relocate to congregate somewhere else? Why not say "be at hotel at 9pm at the latest, there will be a bus put on from Spurs lodge if you want a lift"
Football clubs aren't run in the same manner as other jobs. Presumably the management team see it as important, for whatever reason. It's not down to the player to just reject their requests. I don't think that this is the only rule that he's broken, either.
I can only go on the info i have. And the info i have (eg, no reason why this is done) makes it daft, so until the time (if it ever happens) i get more info i have to side with Benny on disobeying this dumb rule. If everyone just followed like sheep in life we wouldn't get very far.
thats a bit of an extreme counter argument. He's not missing training, feigning injuries, getting drunk, getting fat, missing matches. He's turning up to a set location, presumably on time by a different transport means. If the club has a good reason for this then fair enough, but i haven't heard it.
Pretty sure he was doing other things wrong, actually. Persistent talk about indiscipline. We've all seen what he can do on the pitch, so it's probably one of the reasons why nobody else came in for him and he's ended up at QPR. There was also some talk about failing medicals in France, but I've no idea how accurate any of that is.
"The obvious problem with giving Assou-Ekotto an exception is that other players will also live closer to the hotel than to the training ground. If you let one guy do it, then everyone will be asking." Or perhaps they're staying somewhere that weekend closer to the hotel than their home is etc. And so it goes on.
