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?
enjoyed the fisticuffs up top between essexian ,east anglia spur and the bloke that feels his cavity. Also the man hugs further down the blog,wot a bunch on here.
talking of gaits earlier mentioned, I think its pretty clever of Charlie to go from side to side like a crab but actually move forward at the same time,Im sure it confuses the oppo.
In reply to Astro re buying PNBloke I totally agree about how come we bought him from the salt of the earth pearly kings and queens ,GAWD BLESS THE LUVA DUCKS.to me he was all wot Astro alluded to.
But am now glad we got the geezer. :shifty: :winke:
Come on melcyid, dive in – the more the merrier. 8O
Yes I must say I’m a little disappointed with hartley. ;-)
Don’t worry East, it won’t last… :-)
That’s what cracks me up about this blog, you get so many people arguing about stuff, but at the end of the day we all ultimately want the same thing for Spurs in end!!
We just have different ideas of how to get there!
I agree…or do I? I don’t know anymore…. :shifty:
Now you and I disagree Phil, because there are some mentioning no names (East Anglian Spur) who like a Japanese water torture, drip, drips ridiculous infantile comments about things they clearly no nothing about.Loooking to prove a point (although it’s never obvious quite what that is?). It’s unbelievable to think we’ve had a 4 from 4 month, and still there’s bitching about ‘Trout-Chops! He buggered up the starting line-up on Sunday-corrected it when it was realized and we won, easily in the end,thats the fact of the matter and surely you’d think he’d get a little credit, nah-too much to ask I guess?
Ah our in-house popinjay has turned up and still brown nosing and still only seeing what he wants to see rather than the reality. I wondered what that pen and ink was.
And yet more infantile comments. pathetic, purile and stupidity at it’s best-well done you-again!
If Rafa doesn’t play on the right it means Luka does.. We need to play our strongest midfield ie Luka, Parker AND Sandro meaning 5 in middle. To me it’s not Rafa or Defoe, it’s Defoe or Sandro.
And as for this ‘I’m not the type of player who defends’ – out of order in my book. Last time I looked playing football was a team game!
The solution to this is playing both VdV & GB a little tighter towards the middle of the pitch. We want GB down the wing which he will still be able to do.. Rafa can move towards the centre when Walker gets involved bombing forward. Playing 2 defensive midfielders should surely allow for this luxury with cover during counter attacks. Playing like this (in between the centre halves & full backs) would make defending against us a nightmare!