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PNB Lifts The Lid On The Spurs Squad

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Good morning. 

Cracking interview with Pathe News Boy from Henry Winter in yesterday’s Telegraph. The quotes below merely serve to confirm some of our most positive hopes.

“It’s probably the best team I’ve played in. Look at Gareth. He has exceptional ability. He can carry the ball 60 yards up the field. Aaron too.

When the team-sheet goes in, the opposition full-backs must be thinking, ‘This is going to be a tough day today’. And Kyle Walker and Benoit Assou-Ekotto are unbelievable. I wouldn’t even class them as full-backs. I class them as wingers/defenders.

“Then we have Luka in there as well. He’s a fantastic player, technically, who puts a shift in. And we’ve got Rafa [van der Vaart] and Jermain [Defoe]. Top players.

So is Manu. He’s a real bubbly character, one of those happy-go-lucky fellas. I’ve never seen him looking miserable. He’s a joy to be around. You have people in your team who are buzzy, and you want to be around, and you sometimes have quite negative people, always moaning about something. I always want to be around Manu. Before I met him, I’d read stuff about him but he’s great. He’s a good man.”

“I’ve heard him say to Adebayor in meetings: ‘They are not going to live with you today. Today’s the day. You’re going to score two goals, you’re going to win the game for us’. I can see Adebayor getting bigger and bigger as Harry’s saying it.

“Harry makes you feel good. What you see is what you get with Harry. There are some managers who you think I don’t quite know them.

Like Mourinho. You’d need to speak to people who’ve been in Mourinho’s company to understand him. But with Harry, it’s him. He was one of the main reasons I wanted to sign. He’s a great manager. He gives you freedom. ‘Go out and play’.”

The comments about Ade are particularly interesting. My impression of Parker from what I seen over the years is that he’s a pretty straightforward, ordinary chap. An English everyman if you will. So if there were some ‘side’ to the beaming Togolese nutcase – whilst it is arguable Parker wouldn’t gossip about it to Winter – it is even less likely he’d praise him for no good reason.

I was unconvinced before we signed him. This is no secret. And in this I wasn’t alone. But he won us all over with not only a work rate that shamed so many of his predecessors but an effectiveness that dwarfed them. 

He wins most of his tackles. His internal Sat Nav is permanently programmed to advance towards the other lot’s goal. If he passes laterally it’s because it’s that or stand a bloody good chance of losing possession. 

There was a story doing the rounds that he gave his West Ham colleagues a ‘Churchillian’ pep talk in the dressing room when the chips were down. Having had the pleasure of him in the Lilywhite for a little while now I can completely believe it.

 

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54 comments

  • Fromoursoutheastasiacorrespondent says:

    And another case of “stop me if you’ve heard this”

    Interviewer: “What’s the best thing about sex with twentyeight year olds”?

    Whinger: “There are 20 of them”.

  • perrymann says:

    What i see is a team that loves playing together.You can just feel it when they take to the pitch.Long may it reign.

  • Harry Hotspur says:

    @Fromoursoutheastasiacorrespondent and indeed any other fellow fans based outside Blighty.

    Hotspur’s Half Hour is looking for foreign correspondents to ad so ex Pat flavour to broadcasts. Nothing heavy – certainly no heavy lifting – just a few minutes on the blower now and again to give us a flavour of the bar/front room/ brothel/ice cream van you watched a game in.

    Hands across the ocean. All that one :winke:

    Interested parties chuck us mail mail to harry-hotspur@snack-media.com

    :daumen:

  • Billy Legit says:

    My only concern about tomorrow is TCM/LSOP coming back to haunt us and banging one in!

    Then again, as long as it isn’t more than one (especially if HRH The King isn’t playing), coz i can see us putting at least three past them, even in their own back yard.

    As for PNB, i was wrong. I let his age, previous employers and the fact that he was part of a relegated outfit murky my usually sound (?) judgement.

    There, i said it, I WAS WRONG ABOUT PNB!

  • Ginola14 says:

    One of my claims to fame is that I played against PNB several times as a schoolboy.

    Back then he was known as the kid from the McDonalds advert (check it out on you tube if you haven’t seen it- classic 90’s curtains!)

    Rumour at the time was that he was scouted based on the TV commercial and he wasn’t any good. How wrong we were…although he was a different player then; much more of an attacking threat.

    He’s now my new favorite player and living my dream whilst I work in IT play in tier 9!

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