Good morning and welcome to the breakfast show.
The quotes below hit the back pages of the Sun yesterday and drew some pretty predictable thoughts from me. But first, over to Van der Vaart…
“I have definitely had a series of irritations. You want to play in the position where you do best. But if I have to chase after an attacking full-back every time, I can’t play my own game to my best ability.
“Sunday was not the first time I have played out wide and I was given the freedom to move infield. But you could see from the goal I scored that my strength lies in the centre of midfield.
“It proves that I am more dangerous when I am close to the goal than when I play out on the wing. I do what the manager asks me to but I hope this won’t be a regular occurrence. In my opinion he made a mistake in making his comments about my most recent injury.
“He took me off because he did not want to take any risks with me. I can understand that but I am convinced I could have played for 90 minutes. I was amazed to be taken off. I felt I’d played a great game. I scored and also three times put team-mates in one-on-ones with Arsenal’s keeper.
But I could perhaps understand it from a tactical viewpoint. Arsenal’s left-back was continually moving upfield and I’m not the type of player who consistently runs after opponents.”
Nothing there I can really disagree with in that. He’s right.
The dangers here though are screamingly obvious. Speaking out in the press against your manager can never be described as inspired. This can of course, be viewed as a sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander moment. I can’t think of anyone in football who is more media friendly than our Aitch after all, including those working as full time pundits.
But you must scratch your head and ponder why this can’t be resolved ‘in house.’ There’s nothing controversial there, other than the fact it reveals that Rafa is as depressed by his manager’s infatuation with Defoe as everyone else is.
3MP was torn still suckling from Arry’s breast (what a deeply upsetting image, I apologize) despite the inarguable fact that he was rubbish. I define rubbish in this instance as being hired as a goalscorer and failing to score any.
Defoe will have to be removed by specialist surgeons.
The entirety of last season was spent hoping someone would score. And while we waited Rafa was juggled about as he doesn’t play the lone striker role. Now Adebayor has landed we are still juggling.
The NorfLandinDarby™ was partly dogged by Defoe’s selection over Sandro and my fear is that Arry won’t be changing his mind anytime soon. Van der Vaart has his faults but on balance he’s a classy character who routinely assists and scores goals. His name ought to be one of the first on the team sheet.
If Defoe really is – as we are surely being led to believe – ‘pulling up trees’ in training, then it down to him to then force his way past lesser players. If there aren’t any then he either has to work harder or bide his time. But you cannot have a situation where he’s hogging a place to little purpose.
We’ve been here before though, haven’t we? PSB was fielded endlessly to the mind numbing sorrow of all those unfortunate enough to be watching.
Will Arry see sense, or will this serve as a catalyst for one the best players we’ve signed in my lifetime to be sold off sooner rather than later?
It’s a pretty fundamental rule of football that the best 11 players don’t always make the best team. The best combination of players makes the best team. And the best combination of players depends a lot on who’s on the other side of the pitch.
There will always be things that could have been done a little better. I haven’t heard anything about Redschnapps cancelling training because we’re so damn good, so I can only assume that they are still working towards continuous improvement.
But SERIOUSLY. We have won four league games on the trot, the last of which came against Le Arse in a game where we created about 5 gilt edged chances to their one-and-a-half. Most of us freely admit that all of this was based in large part on the addition of Parker – a player Harry has been after for years, all the while almost all of us fans as well as the chairman strenuously disagreed.
Tactical nitpicking aside, this simply isn’t the right time to be complaining about team management. Pick your battles Harry-haters. Pick your battles…
this is true i was one of them saying we dont need mediocre parker and harrys a daft old goat. how very wrong of me, bet im not the only one thou.
i don’t think anyone doubted parkers ability – its his age thats the issue. he is a player who relies on his engine not his skill. he will run out of puff soon. not many players of his type play into their 30’s. he is a good short-term signing but he is not the future.
That was my criticism of the signing of Parker, his age, which made him a questionable long term solution. However at £5 million he looks a bargain, and buys us some time to find his eventual replacement.
Though as has been said before Harry wasn’t the first Spurs manager who wanted him, Martin Jol wanted to sign him too – one can only imagine if we had got him then. We might have been in the CL the past 4 years, and Berbatov might still be the ringmaster – and not considered to be merely a sideshow attraction at our club, in our history.
fair shout just at the time we really diddnt need another soso CM as we already had way too many but his proved his class just hope we can get a good couple f years with this form outstanding
I can’t remember one person saying ‘His age is a concern’, what are you, pensions minister?
I think the vilification was more along the lines of…
He’s shit
He’s West Ham shit
He’s another one of Harry’s favourites
He’s shit and he’s one of Harry’s favourites
If Redknapp thinks he’s the answer then both of them are shit
Actually, think of it… maybe age was mentioned, but only in the context of ‘He’s has-been West ham shit’.
etc. etc.
I did think his age was an issue but didn’t make any comment on it. At £5M though he must be a bargain. I bet Danny boy said luvvly jubbly! 8O
@nick “i don’t think anyone doubted parkers ability”
I’m going to have to go with Astro on this one, in remembering A LOT of critcism of Parker’s ability on here. Half decent player in a sh*t team would look good, wouldn’t he? Bassong mk II. If he’s so good, why doesn’t he play for England?. That sort of stuff.
Not saying his age wasn’t held against him as well, I just don’t remember it being the MAIN criticism for most. I am way too lazy, though, to actually go back and see what people wrote back then.
For my own part, I remember feeling disappointed that we hadn’t signed Diarra. I don’t think I really ever commented on Parker on here, though tbh.
Actually Astro the point I laboured the most regarding some of Harry’s apparent (and established) targets was age. I expressed concern regarding paying a lot of money for these players – with their high wages and a likely depreciation in value. I even mentioned the point whereby teams would try to rid their squads of their 33/34 year olds who nobody would want to buy – as their wages would be burning a hole in their pockets.
In the thread where I touched on this very point you yourself agreed with me, when I also suggested we should be investing in youth.
This was around the time the “£40 million for Modric” talk was being bandied about, when I was saying – ok, fine, he wants to leave, let’s sell him then and re-invest in some other players for the future.
On another thread shortly after that I even commented on how West Ham were on the one hand battling us re: the Olympic Stadium, handing over documents to the Police etc, and with the other were trying to sell us their “soon to be 31 year old midfielder for between £6 and £8 million”.
We appear to have secured his services for £5 million, and on the face of it it doesn’t look quite so bad after all. But at the time it also didn’t appear that we would be selling Crouch at all, nevermind for the price achieved.
So, even though you say “I can’t remember one person who said”, I hope I jogged your memory.
And if I failed to, then I suggest you head back to the threads around the last week of August. ;-)
I do remember at the time that there were reports of us and Arsenal thinking of buying PNB that the real Robbie Savage actually said “How could you not buy England’s Holding Midfielder when you had the chance for less than £10m!”
I think its the only sensible thing Savage has ever said.
When VDV was injured against City he was initially expected to be out for 3-4 weeks so he may yet not be fully back to fitness. He does seem to suffer hamstring problems more than most and has done for about 8 years. Advocat had trouble fitting him into the Dutch team for Euro 2004 and dropped him and Van Basten dropped him for WC 2006 even though he had performed well for Hamburg at the time. His level of fitness has been an ongoing problem with every manager from 2004 and this may well be the crux of the matter, Defoe`s one-on-one with a French fitness guru has certainly sharpened him up and VDV should sign up for a course, with the commitment and his undoubted talent he could still turn out to be the best.
VDV runs out of steam because he chases lost causes which is admirable but he really needs to make better use of his energy.
We should play him off Ade, same as we played him off Crouch and see if it works.
and the circle begins again!
I must concur with Harold of Hotspur here.
As others have said VDV is top class and JD is not.
VDV will score and create chances for others JD only mostly provides for himself.
The chilling statistic is that over both their Spurs careers VDV has a better strike rate than JD.
Case proven methinks
You are making too much sense :dizzy2:
That occasionally occurs when I drink too little
Thank you for dragging me back to reality.
I’ll try not to do it again
welcome to my world.. its a happy yet strange place x
@onedavemackay Re Defoe, don’t you mean “provides saving practice for the opposing goal keeper”? :lol:
I’ve been racking my brain and for the life of me I can’t think of one player in our current squad that I am desperate to get rid of…..This may not sound unusual to some, but every squad we have had since the late 70’s, early 80’s there has always been at least one player that for me has just not been good enough yet got consistent playing time…are you listening Paul Miller?
Is this a sign? I hope so….is it a coincidence that Uncle Norman has just released his book ‘The Managing Game’ and we have a fantastic mix of youth, born winners, hard workers and world class footballers that anyone with half a brain could knit together? I don’t know……but I haven’t been this optimistic since the night a stripper gave me her number with a seductive smile and believe me, that was a long, long time ago…..
By the way, I’m going to have to change my name now and become anonymous just in case the wife finds out about the stripper….thinking, Glorious Basterd or Inglorious Yid….COYFS