Most people on here exclude Dawson when picking their "team for Saturday" preferring partnerships which have never played together before and blindly believing Kaboul is fully fit and is in the form of his life. As for AVB, there is a certain mod who absolutely jumps on anyone who says anything anti AVB as if it is treason to criticise the man and an even worse crime to remember what Harry achieved for us. It doesn't make me or anyone else a lesser fan to think otherwise.
I take on board what Spurcat has to say. Two sluggish wins against poor sides covers over the cracks. Except for 20 mins in the second half today, over 2 matches we have played very ultra bland football. Better than before but it couldn't be any worse . I must say on the plus side this was Walkers best game in a long while.
*hovers over ban button* Only kidding, I don't have a ban button... Seriously though I don't mean to come across like that, I just disagree with a lot of the criticism.
Dawson's a good option to have, but he's by no means an automatic pick, so I don't see the problem whether people have him in their side or not. It's great that we've got some good options at centre back this season
Great player but I just think his best days are behind him and other CB's are in/ nearing their best years. Have no problems if he starts though, especially while Younes seems to be the new Ledley, each week I think "surely he's fit now" but nope, no he isn't. To prove I like Daws, I'm on my 3rd season with Spurs on FM2014 and he's still captain and featured in 40+ games in the 14/15 season (about 20 in the league), he literally just had a testimonial game too in a match against Blackburn and actually scored. Plus lets not forget (back to reality) I was pretty much campaigning last season for AVB to bring Daws back into the team. I just rate Kaboul (when he's ****ing fit!) and Vertonghen higher. Chiriches' early form also suggests he'll be a fantastic player too. Anyway, onto the game, felt our second half performance was up their with our best performances of the season (not that there's been many of them!). Walker was outstanding, Dembele, Lennon, Chadli (C'mon Boss, admit it, he was good today! ), Paulinho and Holtby (basically the midfield) ran the show. Defoe had an abundance of chances where the game should've been killed off around 70 minutes, though apart from not scoring I felt he done everything right, worked himself into some great positions and worked hard for the team, if he can maintain this sort of performance while adding a goal then Soldado might as well get used to the bench. Capoue also deserves a lot praise, I remember when we signed him reports claimed he could fill in at CB but **** me I didn't realise how good he'd be there. I think his DM instincts helped him play in the high line AVB likes, think I counted 4 great interceptions. Only person that disappointed me was Hugo, he was at fault for the goal and needs to cut out these mistakes he's been making lately.
What is reassuring is coming from behind, not only to score once, but twice. A few games ago I would not of thought that possible. What would be good now is to score first. I love the Europa, but I agree that need to rest as many as poss given the December fixture list.
December is a huge month for us in so many waysâ¦. Not just our results but results elsewhere. So come January, I think we'll see where we really stand as a team. Arsenal have a really tough month as we know. We play Liverpool in what is a crucial game for us to resurrect our top 4 ambitions. 'Pool follow that match with games against Cardiff, City and Chelsea. Chelsea have a couple of potentially tricky matches and on recent form, they're not dead cert wins at all. Everton or Newcastle could be this seasons dark horses. Man United are having a torrid time of it of late and a few more defeats could totally write off their season; plus we play them on New Years Day. Long way to go lads. I know I have had a dig at AVB lately with our dull brand of football and who hasn't but ifâ¦. if he can get the balance right, I still have this niggling feeling things might just start to click. I really hope so. We're not out of things by any stretch.
He probably had some coaching to help his marketability. It's strange, that, a lot of non-English players learn English whether or not they're playing in the Premier League. "Strange" in the way that english players moving to non-English leagues don't bother to do likewise, that is...
Not strange when you consider our history of imperialism and spreading English world-wide whether through war, colonialism, literature or simple sport. We're never taught the real "need" to learn foreign languages so never bother. Just take a look at your average foreign resort and that tells you everything you need to know about us Brits! Also, living on a little island in the North Atlantic without sharing any foreign borders also doesn't help.
Take football out of it and it's the same all over the world. It's a 20th century development that happened with America's rise to prominence, we got lucky that they adopted our language rather than French or Dutch which were both pretty common in the early days of colonisation. Children all over the world are taught that if you want to make anything of yourself you need to be able to speak English. What we as a country should be doing is encouraging all our kids to learn Chinese, as that's clearly going to be the language of power for the next century. Why French is still the one compulsory foreign language in schools is utterly baffling.
No, 5m people will suddenly remember that if they vote for independence their taxes will no longer go towards paying for the Daikatana Stadium down in Stratford.
Can't see it happening or should I say, be "allowed" to happen by the power brokers. And besides, since when did the Scots speak a foreign language? No gags!