True captains seem to be a dying breed. As much as I'd love for Spurs to have one, I'd say it's borderline impossible, or certainly improbable to get/ find/ produce one. I've grown up in an era that's had the likes of Puyol, Maldini, Cannavaro, Gerrard, Vieira (hate saying that), Keane and many others I haven't mentioned. With maybe Kompany aside (when he plays), there's no other real leader in the Prem and it's hard to think of many in Europe, too.
Come to think of it, you're right. They're a dying breed. Arsenal have no one, United have no one. Chelsea have Cahill but he isn't very good. As much as we mock him, I rate Milner as a captain and in Van Dick they have another player who is captain material.
While it's been a real problem in the past five years or so many capable captains retiring in a short space of time without anyone really being groomed to replace them, a large part of the problem was how managers in the mid-to-late 90s just handed the armband to the player with the highest media profile and assuming that'd be enough, for example Inter giving Fat Ronaldo the armband between 1999-2001 (winning **** all in that period), Newcastle and England handing Alan Shearer the armband in spite both having better options on the pitch, England then deciding Beckham should be captain because somebody apparently meant to click the set piece taker cell on the spreadsheet but instead clicked the one marked "captain", while Sergio Ramos was presumably got the Los Ladrones armband after kicking every other potential candidate into the stands of their training complex.
I think Morgan at Leicester was important in their title winning season. An organiser and a leader. Keane was massive for Utd. The embodiment of the manager's attitude on the pitch. There's still a role for a player who leads by example, organises, encourages, directs and generally gets the best out of teammates.
After last night's game Mido says we should sign Leonardo Bonucci and Jan Oblak while selling Erik Lamela ...so he doesn't just dress like an early 80s Columbian drug lord, he also sounds like he's been sampling their product
Yeah Cahill is a decent leader, **** CB these days but has those leader qualities that are rare, probably learned that from Terry tbh (should've mentioned him in previous post, another one I'd hate saying though). Milner I'd probably put more down to being an exemplary professional than actual leader, although that said, there's not many top professionals like him these days which in sense makes him an excellent candidate for leadership. Wouldn't say VVD, though. **** professional and while he's a top CB, he's never really shown true qualities in leadership in my opinion.
I think if Graham Roberts was playing today he would have been sent off in every game before halftime! "Men were men in those days!!!!!".......and so were the refs!
Captaincy doesn't come from wearing the armband - last night was a great example of this Buffon is Juventus captain, but Chiellini is their leader on the field he sets the tone for their performance and having the likes of Khedira, Pjanic and Higuain in the side who are also men that you would happily hand the armband to shows something of what we were up against - but as others have said Captains are a dying breed Philip Lahm maybe the last great captain but he was also a truly world class player that would walk into any team. I think Lascelles has something at Newcastle amongst the current crop in the premier league and much as I hate myself for even thinking it Mark Noble is a leader at the spammers.
So it's been about 24 hours since I commented. I have read through the thread and despite others saying positive things I am still distraught. Could've; should've; would've. For me it is all just too depressing to see us fall again at the hurdle. Year after year. Eventually we will no longer be a young team-in fact I believe we are already not that young. Poch needs to meet SAF and learn from him. Will I ever see us win a decent trophy?
Don't despair mate. You didn't seriously think we'd win the CL did you? Our league form has been disappointing but more than acceptable taking into account Wembley, injuries and City's ridiculous spendi...erm, I mean talent. Yes that's it, talent. Save the doom n gloom for if and when we don't win the FA cup. Then I think there will be a backlash from the fans.
You are doing fine, any other season (without City's unprecedented run) and you would still be well in with a chance of winning the PL. Let us all hope City's season is a one off
I wouldn't mind that we lost...but the way we gifted them the tie then I'll I'm hearing is how Juventus and their experience pulled through and we should be extremely proud. It feels a bit patronising..nothing to do with their experience..we handed them the tie in 3 minutes, that's bullshit for a club who's aspiring for great things and we are year 4 into Poch's project. That tie was ours but for 3 pathetic minutes. Higuain did nothing...one chance and he took it. I've been crying for month on month that we are wasteful with our chances, even superstar Harry is and we paid for it on Wednesday. I'm not prepared to hide behind the overhyped notion about a handful of teams that are talked about like they have some kind of natural gift to succeed which has been nurtured over time. We should have done better against Juve. How many more years into Poch's reign before he teaches his team's in game management and applies it himself?
Honestly. You're reading through these comments and then...Sid. Dynamite. Anyway - it's absurd, all this talk of bottling or always coming short. No - we clearly have not come up short far more often than not this season. How can a narrative form that "Again Spurs have come up short" when we were only playing Juventus because we beat Borrusia Dormaund home and away, drew against Real Madrid in Madrid, beat Real Madrid comfortably at home and won our games against Apoel 3-0 both home and away? I mean, unless literally every team who is neither domestic champions that year or winners of the CL are abject failures and only one (or, rarely, two) teams can be said to be performing acceptably... How can Spurs' mentality be at fault because we came second last year?! We won 12 out of our last 13 games! Unfortunately Chelsea kept winning too. Less often than us though. Hang on! Did Chelsea bottle it last year?! Guess they must have since Spurs were clearly the more mentally strong having lost only two games from mid-December through to the end of the season compared to Chelsea who lost two league games from Early April onward. Not only that but...er...Spurs beat them handily when we met in January. Point I'm making is that the results happen - Kane's header doesn't go in, Dele doesn't reach the rebound, Juventus fluke 4 goals in the 13* mins out of 180 that we didn't dominate, Chelsea do just enough to keep their noses ahead in 2017...and then retrospectively people look for Grand Narrative reasons about mentality or strength of character. I think there's plenty of evidence that this team has great mentality and are clearly not bottlers. I'm going by the evidence that is there in all our games over the course of about three years and not just looking at one or two results and drawing simplistic conclusions, as punditry and journalism encourages us to do. *Okay maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. Let's round it up to 20, maybe 30. Out of 180.
Basically, imagine some famous gambler was betting on a 6-sided dice coming down either 1,2,3,4 or 5 at odds of 2/1 and they (naturally) kept winning. Well the moment the dice came down a 6 someone somewhere would be writing something calling into question the gambler's judgement and saying that at crucial times they just don't make the right calls. It's copy, it's ad-space, it'll get read, it'll sell.
