O'Hara against bench role

[mawspurs]

Source: Sky Sports

Spurs man against being a squad player again.

Tottenham midfielder Jamie O'Hara admits he will find it hard to return to the club's bench after starring for Portsmouth on loan.

The 23-year-old has enjoyed a fine campaign at Fratton Park, winning rave reviews for his talismanic and determined performances.

O'Hara is on a long-term contract at White Hart Lane and is returning to the north Londoners after playing in the FA Cup final.

He knows getting into Harry Redknapp's side is a tough nut to crack and hopes his fine season help him secure first-team football at Spurs.

"They have some fantastic players at Spurs, but I will go back there and see what happens," said O'Hara.

"It is up to the manager whether he wants to keep me.

"No-one likes to sit on the bench. I have proven that I can play in the Premier League by what I have achieved this season.

"I have got to play football every week, the fans have been fantastic and I will really miss playing for them."

Pride

Meanwhile, O'Hara believes everyone at Portsmouth should be proud of their FA Cup run after losing the final by a solitary Didier Drogba goal.

The south coast outfit had the chance to take the lead only for Kevin-Prince Boateng to miss his penalty and O'Hara thinks they could easily have landed the cup yet again.

"Everyone wrote us off. They thought we would get hammered, but we made a good account of ourselves and we could have nicked the game," he continued.

"We had one great chance in the first half, and then the penalty. Sadly we did not take them.

"But to lose 1-0 in a cup final against a team which won the league is an unbelievable achievement."

[noiseboy55]

Jog on Jamie; see you later. Go and play for Wolves.

[nferno]

to put it simply he's not good enough and he never will be good enough. i'm actually baffled as to why he thinks he should be starting for us :-S

[yawa]

Hes such a massive tit. Wish we would hurry and sell him so we dont have to get associated with his weekly ramblings.

[mawspurs]

This is the downside of loaning players out. Yes the player learns and builds experience but they then get ideas that they deserve to be in the first team at a club like Spurs. He has proved he can be a big fish in a small pond and if he is happy with that then good luck to him but if he were to take some time and talk to players at the big clubs (including his Spurs team mates) they would tell him that having the chance to be part of something special doesn't come along every day. What other club that has CL football is going to buy him?

If he comes back to Spurs he may get opportunities to play at that level but the clubs that would be interested in Jamie will not give him that chance.

Despite his stupid and selfish remarks regarding the cup semi I would still take him back as he still has room for improvement and there are times when we can do with a player of his ilk. Harry definitely seems to rate him and he knows his onions does our Harry.

[PhilosoSPUR]

He'd have to be better than Modric, Bale, Huddleston, Kranjar, Palacios and Lennon.

And he's not.

[grazinho1]

He'd have to be better than Modric, Bale, Huddleston, Kranjar, Palacios and Lennon.

And he's not.
Run along now Jamie, Blackpool might give you a starting place.You will struggle to make the bench at WHL next season and you know it.Oh and don`t forget Sandros is also coming .:hello:

[JoeT]

Agree totally 'mawspurs'.

[yawa]

Sadly Jamie suffers from the left footed and english syndrome. Automatically considered to be better than he is.

Does anyone seriously think he would get into the Arsenal, Chelsea or Man U team? As we now finished in the top 4 thats the sort of level we should be aiming at. Not a player whos just got player of the season for one of the shittest teams in the league.

[nferno]

Sadly Jamie suffers from the left footed and english syndrome. Automatically considered to be better than he is.

Does anyone seriously think he would get into the Arsenal, Chelsea or Man U team? As we now finished in the top 4 thats the sort of level we should be aiming at. Not a player whos just got player of the season for one of the shittest teams in the league.

to be fair, he'd get into any top 4 team as 2nd choice backup.. and that's being generous.

[yawa]

But he couldnt get into our team when we were fighting relegation?

[nferno]

i said he would be 2nd choice backup lol, i.e backup for the backup. i dont seem to remember us havin much injuries durin THAT spell.

[yawa]

Ahh ok :) now that makes sense!

Hope we flog him quick while his value is increased. He'd do a good job for someone like Birmingham.

[samways]

Sadly Jamie suffers from the left footed and english syndrome. Automatically considered to be better than he is.

Does anyone seriously think he would get into the Arsenal, Chelsea or Man U team? As we now finished in the top 4 thats the sort of level we should be aiming at. Not a player whos just got player of the season for one of the shittest teams in the league.
Totally agree- liked him for his toughness and never say die attitude but his comments over the last couple of months have really disappointed me, I particularly didn't like it recently when he was banging on about his back injury by saying that the final decision was his and spurs couldn't recall him so it had nothing to do with them.... what a prick.
He honestly makes me so angry these days- looking at his attitude the last two seasons I thought he had the perfect opportunity to quietly improve his game and grow into a formidable player-now he just comes across as quite arrogant :evil:

[Paxtonite]

Any one see him on soccer am yesterday (pompey crossbar challenge)? Introduced himsef as "Jamie o hara aka Guti"............cringe

[thinktank]

JO'H can gtfo tbh.

[KenilworthSpur]

There will be plenty of clubs wanting to take him off our hands. I expect Newcastle to come in with a bid as Chris Hughton already has said how highly he rates him. Lets hope we get 5m at least for him. Knowing DL it will probably be closer to 10!

Lets hope so.......

[Knarf44]

Don't want to knock him for the sake of it but having watched him closely during the Cup Final alongside another ex Spur, Michael Brown, they both looked like they were in way too deep for their respective abilities. That disappointed me because after Ballack went off they were only up against Belletti who was filling in at DM who is 33 and not exactly quick. Yet neither of them were able to provide the creative spark that Portsmouth needed and in the second half O'Hara was caught in possession too often and on at least one occasion made a terrible back pass to Rocha which put him under a lot of pressure.

Ok, I know Jamie is still young and learning the game but as others have said for a club like ours he's a squad player NOT a starter. If he doesn't want to stay then so be it. I wish him all the best.

[Locotoro]

The sounds that are coming from all corners are that he will be leaving.
He doesnt want a squad role and we are being strongly linked with midfielders.

[UncleBuck]

Getting a bit pi$$ed at hearing "Jamie O" moaning yet again.

It's not something you really hear coming out of the club these days so with that kind of attitude I'd say ship him off to Newcastle for £5m.

Even up to 2/3 weeks ago I was still in the camp saying that I thought he was great and we needed to give him some game time next season but quite frankly I can't be arsed with him now.....

[cwhite02]

He our version of john o'shea except he's not happy playing that role.

Good luck to him, he's an ok prem player

[Yidoinoz]

Couldn't believe him on soccer AM, saying he wanted spurs to lose. What a d1ckhead. Even if you thought it you don't say it!?!!??!
What he did here was worse than Ghaly

You need more than work rate to play for a top four team, if he want to play for us he has to settle for a squad role - fact

[vitamin32]

after seeing his performance at wembley he won't even warm our bench.. his passing was poor, closing down poor.. let mr levy do his magic and get a good price for a very average player.. :hello:

[davidmatzdorf]

I've long thought that most Spurs fans underrated O'Hara's talent severely. He's completely lacking in pace and that often makes a thinking player look less than he is when he is young and is still developing his game sense (think Huddlestone).

But he has absolutely everything else: he has pass, he can tackle, he scores a remarkable number of goals from midfield, especially considering that he isn't quick enough to sprint into the box, he takes a threatening left-footed set piece and he has an excellent sense of how to control the pace and tempo of a game.

I get the strong impression that most people on here are continuing to judge him based on how he played for us before his loan. I've made a point of watching him a lot this past season and he's a completely transformed player, simply miles better than when he left.

He's evidently a good learner: when he went out on loan to Millwall, he thought about his game and realised that he had to add some toughness, so he did. That got him into the squad. Now he's been on loan with Portsmouth and he's learned how to control a midfield at Premiership level and how to thrive in adversity.

He's been way out of the class of the rest of the Portsmouth team, as is shown by the fact that he virtually swept the board in their club's end of season awards. "So what?", I hear you all cry, "it's only Portsmouth", but his good play hasn't been reminiscent of a piece of glass looking like a diamond because it is surrounded by lumps of coal. On the contrary, he was often visibly let down by his teammates' lack of confidence and cohesion, when he'd a win the ball and no one would make themselves available, when he'd set up chances and there was no sharp striker to profit from them, when he'd send a canny pass into space and no one could be arsed to chase it. The team he was playing with was such that it made a creative, controlling midfielder look worse, not better.

What I think everyone agrees on is that the main questions from here are (1) whether O'Hara wants to fight for a starting place at Tottenham and (2) whether Harry can convince him that he has an even chance of winning one. I suspect that he will be elsewhere in September and I suspect that we will eventually regret it.

[mawspurs]

I've long thought that most Spurs fans underrated O'Hara's talent severely. He's completely lacking in pace and that often makes a thinking player look less than he is when he is young and is still developing his game sense (think Huddlestone).

But he has absolutely everything else: he has pass, he can tackle, he scores a remarkable number of goals from midfield, especially considering that he isn't quick enough to sprint into the box, he takes a threatening left-footed set piece and he has an excellent sense of how to control the pace and tempo of a game.

I get the strong impression that most people on here are continuing to judge him based on how he played for us before his loan. I've made a point of watching him a lot this past season and he's a completely transformed player, simply miles better than when he left.

He's evidently a good learner: when he went out on loan to Millwall, he thought about his game and realised that he had to add some toughness, so he did. That got him into the squad. Now he's been on loan with Portsmouth and he's learned how to control a midfield at Premiership level and how to thrive in adversity.

He's been way out of the class of the rest of the Portsmouth team, as is shown by the fact that he virtually swept the board in their club's end of season awards. "So what?", I hear you all cry, "it's only Portsmouth", but his good play hasn't been reminiscent of a piece of glass looking like a diamond because it is surrounded by lumps of coal. On the contrary, he was often visibly let down by his teammates' lack of confidence and cohesion, when he'd a win the ball and no one would make themselves available, when he'd set up chances and there was no sharp striker to profit from them, when he'd send a canny pass into space and no one could be arsed to chase it. The team he was playing with was such that it made a creative, controlling midfielder look worse, not better.

What I think everyone agrees on is that the main questions from here are (1) whether O'Hara wants to fight for a starting place at Tottenham and (2) whether Harry can convince him that he has an even chance of winning one. I suspect that he will be elsewhere in September and I suspect that we will eventually regret it.

:clap: Good post David. I especially agree with your last paragraph.

[badajozjim]

He's not for the starting eleven, but if Jenas leaves and the extra matches in Champions league plus the Carling cup, we would need players who can be ready to play. O'Hara has always given 100%.

[UbeAstard]

after seeing his performance at wembley he won't even warm our bench.. his passing was poor, closing down poor.. let mr levy do his magic and get a good price for a very average player.. :hello:


Hes clearly not fit and it was stated several times. Get your facts straight or is bandwagon jumping your thing.

[Shirtfront]

Playing every week when we will be playing twice a week is hardly unrealistic.

Are people forgetting that at one stage this season we had Kaboul playing in central midfield, minutes after returning to the club? And that was without any European matches.

[jonnyrotten]

Keep him, seriously talented player.

[Phantom]

Has better technique than people give him credit for, but the inistance that he should be a first team player is silly. We will have a lot of games next year (hopefully!) and he will play especially as someone else pointed out if JJ is off somewhere.