Niko Kranjcar's agent has said today that the future of his client is in the hands of the club, with a move not necessarily what he wants. He feels that he has to play more often and I find it hard to argue with that. So, do people think that Redknapp should try and build some bridges with the Croatian midfielder, start the new season anew and play him more often or should we get the best price that we can and move on?
I think letting a player of Niko's capabilities/versatility go would be stupid. I understand his need/want to play more football, but for some reason 'Arry just doesn't like playing him. We're in 4 comps this season and surely 'Arry will have learned the burnout lessons of last season to give him some proper sustained game time. Keep
He needs more game time and some players need less in order to prevent being worn out. It should be easy to keep him and play him in almost every cup game. Its things like this that make me doubt 'Arry slightly.
If he wants to stay and work hard then of course we should keep him, he's a good player to have in the squad.
Top quality player, only weakness is pace. But we would have to pay big money for someone as god as Niko and with Europa League next season he should get plenty of games.
When it comes to the importance of our midfielders, I'd rank them something like this: Modric Van Der Vaart Sandro Bale Huddlestone Lennon Kranjcar Pienaar Palacios Dos Santos Bentley Jenas In other words, Kranjcar offers more to the team than five players currently on our wage bill, which is reason enough to give him another chance.
SSS, I'd read that he wasn't prepared to be 'versatile', left side or nothing, which puts him behind Bale VdV and Modric who all like to operate in that part of the pitch. If that is the case he is best moving, I agree too good a player to bench warm regularly, but I'd rather see those on the pitch than him tbh.
The poll is currently 12 yes votes to 0 no votes. Pretty unanimous. I'll tell Levy what we've decided!
Sounds pretty unlikely to me, NSSS. He probably said that he was crap on the right, which he is, frankly, but I doubt that he'd turn down the chance to play in van der Vaart's role. It'd be interesting to see how we'd do if Kranjcar was used on the left with Bale playing at left-back behind him. A team with all of our Croatians in it (once Pletikosa's loan expires) and some immensely skilful players in the midfield. I wonder how much influence keeping our Croats happy could have on Modric and his mindset about staying? Maybe we should bring in a couple more! Kalinic from Blackburn never seems to get enough time, in my opinion.
We could do worse than getting Bilic in after 'Arry's gone but I think we've got enough Croatians for the time being.
Without Niko, you wouldn't even be playing European football next season. He single handedly won you 6 pts towards the end of the season. It beggars belief why Harry, like with Defoe, has bought this player - twice! and still won't play him??? What is that all about? Niko is a talent, if Spurs don't want him, then maybe we should put a bid in for him?
In all seriousness, I think Defoe would do well at Arsenal, we'd supply him with endless opportunities to shoot on sight!
Its a weird one I know, but he did play a game on the right, and I think he voiced his opinion afterwards that he didn't want be played out of postion there again, it was something like that anyway, and looks like Harry wasn't happy with that comment. You're also right in saying he's crap on the right...because he was in that game! When you suggest Bale at FB, do you mean an odd game to rest BAE, or as 1st 11 choice? I'm not sure I'd be in favour of disrupting the understanding between Bale n Benni, which brings us to the crux of the matter. Niko doesn't just doesn't seem happy to play 2nd fiddle, and wants a regular start, I just don't see room for him when we're fully fit on that side of the pitch. You're right on the Croat camaraderie, Modric has mentioned it a number of times.
He played a few games on the right last season NSSS, notably Bolton away. He was rubbish. Our midfield was a rather confused choice overall, with Bale on the left, Palacios AND Sandro in the middle, Kranjcar on the right and Modric in the middle. I'd like to see Bale given a bit of a run at left-back, as I agree with Redknapp that it's his eventual position and it definitely suits us to put him in a role that makes him hard to pick up. He was targeted so often for dubious treatment and double marking last season that I started to worry about him getting injured virtually every time we played. Neville did him when we played Everton at WHL, backing into him when he'd already gone up for a header, resulting in a horrible and dangerous landing and he struggled with his back for quite a while afterwards. He kept getting hacked and 'machine-gunned', as Graham Poll calls it, where a team will commit fouls on one player quite a few times, but they'll spread the fouls around, so nobody gets disciplined. I rate Assou-Ekotto and I think that he's done more than enough to keep his place in the side, but I hope we use the friendlies to try some different formations and tactics.
I think its just small details PNP, with Niko VdV and Modric on the pitch we severely lack pace, its one of our main strong points, breaking at pace, just using Lennon is far to predictable and then he ends up getting double whammied. In place of one of those two, but not with them imo, but how do you drop one of them? The other thing is, look at the other teams benches, on the whole you don't get much whinging from them, they're happy to be part of a top team squad. However, you always get the odd one in every team that gets cheesed off with it, and he's ours.
I voted keep obviously as he is a great player, but would hate to see him sit the entire season on the bench again, if that were to be the case he should leave asap.
