It seems very possible that we will lose Tiote if a big cash sum is offered. This would mean we'd lack a strong, physical presence in midfield. One that can harass opposition center midfielders, and be a rock in front of our back four. I've also been very impressed by his creative skills and also his ability to strike a ball. I see that Parker is favoured over Huddlestone in your set up. How much would it take for you to part with Huddlestone?
Huddlestone's been injured all season and a defensive midfielder he's not. He's got a great range of passing and is alright in the tackle but his lack of pace makes him unsuitable for being given too much defensive responsibility.
He will not be alone at the back, we would just need someone with a big physical presence, someone that's quite comfortable on the ball and can release and find players well enough. Also someone that can rough up opposition CM's.
Huddlestone's a very different player to Tiote, Tash. He's a deep lying creative midfielder and he actually tends to play his best stuff alongside a Tiote-like player, barring the run in the side that he had with Modric, bizarrely. You were linked with Keita from Barca a couple of months ago and he'd be perfect, if he's available. Get someone in as an understudy and to fill out the squad and you'd diminish the loss of Tiote quite dramatically. I'm sure Pardew has his eye on someone, though. He's done a very good job of picking up players that other sides haven't fancied, for whatever reason and getting great performances out of them.
I'd personally rate him at £15m. Still relatively young, great passing range, cracking shot when he uses it, not a bad tackler. Does lack pace but makes up for it by reading the game well and add to the fact he's also English means his price automatically gets increased But in all seriousness I wouldn't want to sell him. We need four top drawer centre midfielders, luckily we have that in Luka, Scotty, Thud and Sandro.
Shame that we didn't get to see Huddlestone and Sandro in the Europa League earlier in the season, as they were both out due to injury. Unfortunately we might get another chance next season.
Based on Jordan Henderson being valued at £20m, we value Huddlestone at the sort of money usually associated with the EU bailing out the Greek economy.
He may be built like a brick ****house, but few could accuse of being a physical presence. And THAT's after a ton of games at CB for Derby...
We actually beat Villa 2-1 last season with Huddlestone, Bassong and Hutton in the back four and no holding midfielder for most of the game, strangely enough. The starting line up was Gomes; Hutton, Huddlestone, Bassong, Assou-Ekotto; Jenas, van der Vaart, Modric, Bale; Pavlyuchenko, Crouch. That's all kinds of wrong.
Probably because I can't remember what it was supposed to be, Notso! I know that Huddlestone and Bassong played as centre-halves, but the midfield just doesn't lend itself to any sort of formation. 4-4-2 diamond, perhaps? Jenas in the holding role? Can't recall.
