Morning all, Had a cheeky pint at lunch yesterday with a mate who's also a fellow yid. We got talking about Spurs, as you do and we were saying who's better than who and who should start vs Villa etc but then we got talking about when (or if) the day comes we have a fully fit squad, in a selection of 18 for a match day, one or two "top" players will have to miss out. Our squad, (sorry if I've forgotten any) is as follows: Lloris Friedel Gomes Walker Naughton Kaboul Vertonghen Dawson Chiriches Rose Fryers Sandro Capoue Paulinho Dembele Lennon Townsend Chadli Lamela Eriksen Holtby Sigurdsson Soldado Defoe Kane Adebayor That makes 26 players (please say I've counted correctly! ****ing hate maths) to fit into an 18 man squad. Now Gomes, Fryers, Kane and Adebayor are very unlikely to make the squad unless major injuries or massive loss of form to others occur, leaving 22 to fit into a match day squad of 18. With Naughton and Rose aside, every other player from the 22 has played at least once for their senior national side (though I think Rose may have an outside chance of getting a call up if he can reproduce his pre-injury form when he returns) thus meaning that there are 20 players of international experience looking to fit into the 18. I honestly can't think of any other team that has a problem of leaving an international calibre player completely out of a match day squad, I think Utd done it a few seasons back when Berbatov was left out of the CL final, the same season he was the EPL top scorer (I think) but bar that, I can't think of any other cases. For me, my selection would have to be (based on potential more so than current form): Lloris, Walker, Kaboul, Vertonghen, Rose Sandro, Paulinho Lamela, Eriksen, Townsend Soldado Dawson, Capoue, Dembele, Holtby, Chadli, Lennon, Defoe Now I've left Friedel, Chiriches, Naughton and Sigurdsson out from the "main" 22. Two of them are pretty much the first name on their national teams team sheet! Reasons for leaving them out: Friedel (although no longer an international) because it's a very rare occurrence for a keeper to get an injury during a game and with the outfield talent available, a back up keeper takes up a very good outfield players' place. We've ironically seen in recent years outfield players who have to go in goal when either there are no subs left or both keepers have taken injuries and somehow the outfield players turn into Buffon! I remember Rio going in goal for Utd and pulling off some worldy saves. Chriches because we have 3 top, top CB's and even putting Daws on the bench is a tough choice but Vertonghen and Kaboul are a bit better in my opinion. Chiriches may have the potential to one day oust one of those 3 from the squad but I've yet to see enough to say he definitely could. Naughton, although not an "international" player, he's featured for the U-21's and he's a solid enough Prem player. With the players around him though plus the fact Kaboul can feature RB it means we can afford to leave him out. Sigurdsson, such a hard choice as currently his goals have massively helped us and the form of Chadli hasn't been setting the world alight but like I said, based on potential, I think Chadli (and Holtby for the CAM role) JUST and literally JUST, means Gylfi misses out, it's so marginal though that it's really harsh on Gylfi. So... Thoughts?
Should I delete this before Ghoddle sees it? I've no idea, to be honest. I'd need to see a lot more of our new players before I could say.
Similar to this i was wondering the other day: Who is our best player? I have no idea. Last few seasons its been fairly obvious. Now, not a clue.
Well you say you're considering potential hence Lamela in the starting 11. Personally I only have other people's word and some You Tube clips to base that on but I'll give you that even though right now I'd rather see Lennon on the right than him. I'd have Siggy on the bench ahead of Chadli. Potential of a 30m man is one thing (you'd hope). Potential of a 8m man who's shown nothing something else. And if we're talking "potential" then wouldn't Ade be our first choice striker?! Blimey.
Best players or best players in the PL? As we know, the PL places extra demands on players who excel elsewhere in Europe, some fail to make the adjustment, which imo doesn't make them a bad player overnight. Far too early for comparisons for me....no wonder the conversation only lasted 1 pint!
One of siggys biggest critics but defintley deserves to be selected ahead of Chaldi, both on performances and potential shown. Although the danger with siggy this year, is that his goals allow some to overlook his over contribution so you can understand why many don't rate the guy as if you watch him over the 90 minutes he doesn't offer a great deal, yet will then pop up with a great shot. Remember at swansea, he was scoring some great goals and he has rediscovered that form, be interesting to hear from swansea fans to find out what his overall level of performance was like back then.
I've only just managed to log back on, it also said my thread had 1 reply, I clicked onto it and there's 8! Not606 server has clearly got a cold! Lol. I think given time Lamela will definitely become our next "Golden Boy", he's got a lot of work to put in but I do think he'll be a great player. Yeah I said choosing between Sig and Chadli would be tough and I am kind of regretting leaving Gylfi out. Chadli seems to be split amongst people on here (not surprising), some have seen glimpses of what he can do and are therefore hopeful and others think he'll be the new Bentley/ Pienaar/ Gio. He's a lethal finisher on his day but he's yet to contribute much more than the odd goal so far, when he hasn't scored he's usually the first one everyone wants substituted which says it all. If he could be more involved on the creative side for when he's not scoring, can be a great player.
I find this bizarre suggestion of not having a back up keeper on the bench, in the belief that anyone else can step in if needed, disrespectful to the role of a "real" keeper and disrespectful to Brad Friedel and our other keepers. I appreciate your thought wasn't intended to be taken like this, but us keepers tend to stick together on ideas like yours. Anyway, as it is mandatory to have 3 named keepers in a 25 man squad, it follows that in the PL it is mandatory to name 2 of them in the 18 man match day squad.
As for Kaboul and Vertonghen being " a bit better" than Daws, well not at the moment they aren't. It is my belief that Vertonghen has been our poorest defender so far this season and Kaboul is incapable of playing more than one game a week.
Verts has been caught out a fair bit, not just on crossing but also out muscled and left for dead (minus the tugging of shorts). The goons had Varmaelen, who like Verts was great when he arrived, especially in an attacking sense but second season slowly turned Into an average defender. Verts could go the same way at his current rate, they must be from the same Belgium gene pool of consistency when it comes to defending.
He looks very easy on the eye when going forward, which I think tempts people to forget the number of occasions he gets caught out when he then loses the ball some 35 yards out and then struggles to get back.
I think as a centre back he has to get his priorities right. Maybe in Holland he can surge forward when he wants but he definitely needs to prioritise his game. Verts would probably excel in a 3Atb type formation as you need someone good on the ball, with a flat back four what you say is spot on and makes Sandro even more important as currently Paulinho or Dembele aren't good enough to fill in at DM.
I see our centrebacks performances as a pairing. You can look at Dawson or Vertonghen as to blame for Arsenal's goal, for example, but there's no real right answer. The problem was that the partnership broke down at that point and neither anticipated what the other one was going to do. Yeah there are individual moments like Dawson not getting anywhere near Terry for that freekick and I think Vertonghen was supposed to be marking Reid for that corner too but on most occasions I don't see the point of singling one out for blame and not the other. In general the partnership has worked well, we're catching strikers offside a lot and we haven't had many danger moments in our own penalty area, most of the problems have come from out wide. Setpieces are still a big problem though, as they have been for years at Spurs but we need to see Dawson and Vertonghen leading by example, not joining in the chaos as we've seen so far.
Alright I give up. Either there's some new-fangled formation I've never heard of or you've typed that on a phone and meant 3-5-2. Or, nowadays, since having two strikers up top is INSANITY, more likely 3-4-2-1? Now I'm just sounding like a Ted Rogers gameshow.
Lol..... Busted. Typed on my tablet / phone! You should follow Italian football, they still like two up top! 3412 is popular in the league. My memories of a 3 At The Back formation involve Glenn Hoddle!
