Good morning.
Of course some of you will have known this, but my guess is that some/many won’t. I only noticed this morning for what that yardstick is worth. The Midget Gem, the Master Swordsman himself has equaled the goalscoring achievements for Spurs of Robbie Keane. Both men have burst the onion sack 122 times from the same number of appearances for the mighty Tottinghams.
By complete chance I was comparing the two in conversation with ODM last night. By comparing I mean I was comparing the similar way I felt and the way fans felt about both.
You tell me what you think.
My view is that while both individually have their ardent supporters, there is a third section of fans who respect both but have never had complete and utter confidence or faith in either. Now this isn’t being churlish, because a 100+ goals are a 100+ goals anyway you slice it. More a case of never quite being able to ignore the weaknesses of both men.
Pointy Shouty Bloke for me invariably under hit his shots. Whenever he hit the ball there always seemed to be enough time to cross yourself and genuflect before you found out if the ball had gone in. Whilst he wasn’t the fastest striker on the planet he had a superb understanding of the game and contributed far more than just goals. It’s no coincidence that Berbatov never played as well or scored so many as when he was teamed up with Robbie.
Defoe for me has rarely offered more than a receive, turn, ping it, wince/cheer (delete as appropriate) merchant. He has never really had a foil a such and it isn’t unfair to say that he has spent the majority of his career in the Lilywhite elating and frustrating fans in equal measure. Forever offside, frequently accused of being selfish he’s also saved our bacon and you have to respect him for that.
The bottom line I guess is there isn’t such a thing as a bad goal – both men deserve their place in the Club’s all time top ten but it’s highly unlikely either will be revered much outside of N17. If I wanted to really maudlin I’d pause to rue the fact that we just can’t seem to land a striker who offers the lot.
Strikers are like boats… they are always a compromise.
Rarely do you get the quick, nimble, tall, passionate, accurate, aerially dominant, hold up striker. Its usually a bit of this and a bit of that.
Whilst Keane and Defoe are physically similar in many ways they both had one non-physical thing in common and that’s the undeniable passion for the game and the shirt when they played and will rightfully be afforded legend status in the pages of our future history books, despite their obvious failings in other areas. They both got the ball in the back of the net more than most and we should be thankful for that.
I’m thinking next transfer window we might see the birth of a new Spurs stiking legend… just who that might be I have no idea but I can certainly hope.
Guys like Berbatov would have been a legend if they had an ounce of Keane and
woops edit…
… Defoe have when it comes to giving your all. (I know Keano had his moments where it was all huff and puff and point, but thats passion too. Berba couldn’t give a toss sometimes. Bags of talent but too laconic.
Interesting breakdown. What would be interesting to see would be the number of assists that each got, relevant to their number of appearances. If you can score that many goals and also create more opportunities for others to score, then surely you are of much more value to the team? Would also be interesting to see (although probably impossible), how many shots it took each to achieve those amounts of goals.
Berba and Keane were the best strike duo I’ve seen in lilywhite for sometime. If sulky hadn’t been such a c*nt he could have been a Spurs legend, rather than a ManU footnote
PSB might have got a 100 league goals for us,that’s what i want to see but both decent records
many of us and the press probably thought defoe was off but he he is still here,we can’t have a relationship with players if they don’t stick around,what’s that saying in the acting world if you live long enough you’ll become a legend
defoe may not be the one but i still kind of like the guy,who’d ever thought we’d see him leading the line on his own :blink:
Both are miles away from the only player who knew how to score goals for Tottenham, Jimmy Greaves.
IMO it is much harder to score now.
And Jimmy’s 70 odd