just so there's not as many midfielders, I guess. Especially as it's looking like 442 will be our preferred formation. Maybe he's been assessing Lamela and believes he can play the type of role Holtby does, but more effectively?
My main beef with 442 is that I think players generally have good attacking skills or good defensive ones but rarely a mixture of both. In 4231 you play 6 defensive players and 4 attackers. In 442 you really need 4 all rounders in the middle 4. If the middle 4 are say Lennon, Sandro, Modric and Bale then it will work fine but I don't think we've got anyone near as good an all rounder as Modric or Bale currently. The closest are probably Holtby and Chadli. So where do players like Eriksen and Lamela fit?
I'd rather sell Holtby than loan him out. We could easily get £5m-£6m for him, likely more with Levy at the helm. The lad is never going to be a first team regular regardless of what formation we play. He's been here nearly a year now and in all fairness, hasn't looked much better than when he joined. Sell Holtby, recall Carroll. Simples.
The best midfield 4 that would be similar to the midfield we had of Lennon, Sandro, Modric and Bale would be Lennon, Sandro, Eriksen, Lamela in my opinion. Problem is there's no way that will really get a look in as the likes of Paulinho and Dembele are doubtful to be dropped (the latter's form doesn't deserve to be either in all fairness).
I'd quite like to see that midfield play, provided I wasn't asked to play at left back behind them....but Audere est facere. But then we need to sell two of Capoue, Dembele and Paulinho as Holtby or Carroll would be better cover for Eriksen?
what have you seen in Chadli to judge him as an all rounder, PS? I've not seen him do one thing particularly well yet, let alone saying that he's got a few decent attributes that could class him as an all rounder. Holtby looks like he could be, but yet again, he rarely shines. For me, Paulinho and Dembele are the best all rounders in that position. with the formation looking like it's changed, therefore resulting in us seeming overstocked in MF and now short of strikers instead, it looks like we might need to offload in MF. - Especially with TS looking like he's keen on playing youngsters like Bentaleb too. Like you say, Holtby has had a year. Eriksen has had 6 months and has done as much, if not more in that time period than Holtby.
I'm going to have to stop reading this thread. All this Holtby-bashing, Townsend-overlooking and Eriksen-and-Lamela-loving Boo you guys. Boooooo!!!
No bashing, YV. More frustration. I'm a big fan of Holtby's passion for the club and the fact he seems like a top guy. But it annoys me how we've not seen much of what he's clearly capable of and he's been with us for a year. he's scored a couple of screamers and had some excellent performances, but they are so few and far between. Like others have said, he's the German U21 captain, so he can't be too shabby, can he?... he's clearly got a lot of talent in there but we need to see it more regularly! Come on Lewis!
He seems to cover the LB more than anyone else we've got when played on the left but he hasn't done much to prove his attacking credentials so far. To be fair most of our recent midfield signings (including Holtby) have not had enough games for me to judge.
Holtby's only looked really good in the Europa games against two-bob opposition. He's had a solid performance every now and then in the league but for someone who came with quite an exciting reputation, I've been far from impressed by him to be honest. Being pretty much English and coming from the league that plays most like the Prem, you'd have thought that by now, if he were as good as what were lead to believe, he'd be an undisputed starter by now. Maybe a lot of the blame needs to lie with the management and coaching staff for his failure to produce regularly but I think it's fair to say that if Holtby left tomorrow, we wouldn't really notice it to be honest. Sounds harsh and don't get me wrong he does seem like a great guy but ultimately it's the football that does the talking and quite frankly he's just unimpressed me for the most part.
Well, this thread is developing into the subject I said as soon as we bought this lot, with what we already had, we've got too many similar types. We are ridiculously overloaded with attacking MF'ers, and I'd say one DM too tbh. I'm hoping that our staff are not as stupid to not notice this, and there is a plan afoot to offload a couple having run out of time last window, the names may well be a surprise, you would think the latest names in are seen as superior, so some of the existing may have to go.
But SOS you can say Chadli has only looked good against two-bob opposition in the Dutch league. I know you follow the league but there's a reason players like Dirk kuyt, Bony, Alitdore and Alfonso Alves have been free scoring as while the Dutch league has been home to some truly great players, the overall standard of defending is near to shambolic so alongside these great talents like Vdv and Suarez you get average players making a name for themselves.
I still think Holtby will be a top player and hopefully with us. Been here a year but hardly had a consistent run of games in any given position and that has mostly been in a Spurs team that lacked forward momentum and general direction under AVB. Has the attitude and commitment to succeed and has shown occasional glimpses of why he was rated so highly by Germany. If he gets a decent look-in for the rest of the season and still falls short then maybe think of moving him on, but much too soon to write him off yet in my opinion.
I thought Holtby was impressive against Everton Fulham, Sunderland and Villa(twice). What's being talked about for Holtby here though really applies for all our players this season, they've been inconsistent and generally poor against the best teams. I'm not trying to say he's brilliant and should be starting every game but as far as a squad player goes he's doing fine, certainly no worse than the likes of Lamela, Paulinho, Sigurdsson, Capoue, Chadli and Townsend out of our midfielders. Nevertheless it seems to be Holtby getting the flack and being written off on the basis that he's too old to improve or that he's been at the club 6 months longer than some of the others. I wouldn't right off a player like Holtby just yet. Fletcher at United improved a huge amount in a short period out of nowhere and I think as fans if we expect players by the age of 23 to either be holding down a first team place or not worth bothering with then we're probably not as knowledgeable as we think.
Tim Sherwood on 5 live has told Garth Crooks Spurs are not looking to bring anyone in this Transfer Window
Just about as few and far between as his starts. Actually, when asked to play deeper, Holtby runs around a lot without being very effective either defensively or as a playmaker. But he's had such a good eye for a pass when played at CAM I think he'll be a big player eventually for someone. The problem is that he just doesn't strike me as able to be as effective in a 4-4-2, except just possibly if we make it a 4-4-1-1 and play him behind Ade or maybe Soldado. The bottom line is we have too many players. It's all very well to say it's a good problem to have, but it's still a problem that seems to be getting bigger. Lamela somewhat reasonably wants us to fish or cut bait with him, and we seem to be refusing to do either. Meanwhile the one player we lose is a striker, a position where we we were already thin. It certainly is tempting to try Lamela in a 4-4-1-1, not to mention Eiriksen, but I think Holtby is a better fit, both because his eye for a through ball is his best quality, and because he doesn't have the dribbling skill, I would say, of the other two.
Worth bearing in mind that Tim is very much old school like Harry, so if you don't conform to his ways, then you don't get picked.
I thought Kuyt was a good Premier League player, granted didn't match the goal scoring form but was a key figure for Pool at times. Bony has 6 goals in 9 league starts plus a few in Europa, pretty good in my opinion. The Dutch League produces great technical players and think Chadli fits that bill, his problem so far is adapting to the pace, he's probably not been used to being closed down so quickly, whether he will or not adapt remains to be seen but it's not been the best starts admittedly. But saying that, he's come from an inferior league so he's going to have to step up, Holtby has come from a Champions League side in a very strong league and has done nothing on a consistent basis to suggest he's as good as we were expecting him to be. Fulham and Sunderland I'd agree with (yet look at their positions in the table), can't remember what he done of note against the other sides if I'm honest. Completely agree that most of our players have been inconsistent but the problem with Holtby is he's now in a position where some of the newer players are already in front of him in the pecking order. Eriksen's recent form under Sherwood has been very good where as Paulinho has jumped ahead in the CM pecking order where Holtby is probably 4th or 5th choice in. I've said before I wouldn't begrudge Gylfi a move, as similar to Holtby, he's down the pecking order and unlikely to get many chances unless we pick up injuries. Lamela, Paulinho, Capoue and Chadli can arguably be given more time (though there are rumours Capoue could be off already which would be a shame) where as Townsend's had a solid season for both club and country. I'm not writing Holtby off as a player but I do think his chances of succeeding here at Spurs are very slim. He was struggling to get in the squad in his first 6 months and having added about 4 or 5 midfielders this summer whom are more likely to be given the chances to impress when opportunities arise, I don't see a future for him. Lets not forget Sherwood chose to bring on an untested youngster instead of Holtby (and Capoue) against Soton and judging by the way Bentaleb's been utilised since, it would suggest to me that he too is arguably above Holtby now in terms of the pecking order for positions.
He ignored Holtby and Capoue against Southampton because they both turned up 30 minutes late for the bus taking them to the hotel for the overnight stay.
Kuyt was a decent player but that's after he adjusted his game and became a work horse and over time developed into a good squad player but I mentioned him as at feyenoord he scored 71 goals in 100 games, league games and that is bordering on ridiculous! This is why I struggle to get excited about players from the Dutch league as you're right there are technical players but it's easy to show technique in a league where players like Kuyt and Alitdore can score over 30 league goals a season.
