Player watch: Toby Alderweireld

Colonel Dax · Jul 13, 2018

allatsea said:
If we are talking about the Toby of the season before last I agree but Toby has struggled both last season and in the World Cup.

What I find worrying is presumably Toby is trying to impress so the likes of Man United will be keen to sign him but he has been poor.

I think poor is a bit harsh. He hardly played last season after his injury, and when he did it was after a while out so inevitably he wasn't up to speed. Still think he's a very good centre back.

allatsea · Jul 13, 2018

Colonel Dax said:
I think poor is a bit harsh. He hardly played last season after his injury, and when he did it was after a while out so inevitably he wasn't up to speed. Still think he's a very good centre back.

What do you think the standard of his performances has been in the World Cup ? Certainly not average for him, and certainly not good, so I reckon poor is a fair assessment.

Colonel Dax · Jul 13, 2018

allatsea said:
What do you think the standard of his performances has been in the World Cup ? Certainly not average for him, and certainly not good, so I reckon poor is a fair assessment.

Admittedly against France he wasn't great, but the same could be said for a few other Belgian players that night.
Against Brazil I thought he was good.

Overall not up to his usual standards but poor is a bit harsh, IMO. Didn't get many games with us after his injury so it's not surprising he's not quite back to his best yet.

USAYID · Jul 13, 2018

allatsea said:
What do you think the standard of his performances has been in the World Cup ? Certainly not average for him, and certainly not good, so I reckon poor is a fair assessment.

Alli was extremely poor at the world cup too......I guess you don't rate him either or think he's past it? Toby has not regained full match fitness after his injury. Playing in the WC will help, but there is no substitute for playing week in and week out for a few months. Playing games so close together at the WC does not help recovery time, which is vital when you're trying to get match fit.

Hengy1 · Jul 13, 2018

Thought he was pretty good at the WC tbh. Certainly no worse than Verts that’s for sure

dtxspurs · Jul 13, 2018

Hengy1 said:
Thought he was pretty good at the WC tbh. Certainly no worse than Verts that’s for sure

Everyone pre world cup - "Should never buy a player after the world cup... Can't make a judgement on a player from world cup performances"

Everyone post world cup - "Toby is past it... Barrios looks like Kante, sign him up..."

LexingtonSpurs · Jul 13, 2018

dtxspurs said:
Everyone pre world cup - "Should never buy a player after the world cup... Can't make a judgement on a player from world cup performances"

Everyone post world cup - "Toby is past it... Barrios looks like Kante, sign him up..."

To be fair, Toby wasn't great in the few matches he did play for us in the spring. He is coming off two seasons with substantial injuries, and 3rd in the last 4 seasons.

This may come as a shock, but the older players get, the more difficult it is to regain pre-injury form. At some point you have to recognize the toll that takes on a player - and that the player may not get back to his best.

I suspect that is driving part of the decision-making at United - they want him, but at the right price. Even they have a point where the price is greater than the risk.

Giovanni · Jul 13, 2018

I did used to prefer the 352 when we were firing all cylinders with rose and walker on song but im not so sure now. The thing is that we will dominate pretty much any game/team outside the top 6/8 so i would kind of prefer to have the extra attacking body and goalscoring threat. Especially if we have dier at dm aswell. That would be 4cb's which is massive overkill.

dtxspurs · Jul 13, 2018

LexingtonSpurs said:
To be fair, Toby wasn't great in the few matches he did play for us in the spring. He is coming off two seasons with substantial injuries, and 3rd in the last 4 seasons.

This may come as a shock, but the older players get, the more difficult it is to regain pre-injury form. At some point you have to recognize the toll that takes on a player - and that the player may not get back to his best.

I suspect that is driving part of the decision-making at United - they want him, but at the right price. Even they have a point where the price is greater than the risk.

I'd rather take the risk of him getting back to what he can be and how good that team can be. He's played more games than Jan has in the last 3 seasons..

dtxspurs · Jul 13, 2018

Giovanni said:
I did used to prefer the 352 when we were firing all cylinders with rose and walker on song but im not so sure now. The thing is that we will dominate pretty much any game/team outside the top 6/8 so i would kind of prefer to have the extra attacking body and goalscoring threat. Especially if we have dier at dm aswell. That would be 4cb's which is massive overkill.

City, United, Chelsea, all have at least 4 Cb's at their disposal. We also have the ability to rotate those positions more often with the addition of Davinson so that could potentially help with the injuries. Maybe each of them play 30 games in the league or something like that and around 40 in all competitions? I'm no math wiz.

LexingtonSpurs · Jul 13, 2018

dtxspurs said:
He's played more games than Jan has in the last 3 seasons..

Wat? Check your maths....

League Matches (15/16 - 17/18):
Jan - 99
Toby - 81

CL/Europa
Jan - 20
Toby - 18

FAC
Jan - 7
Toby - 7

League Cup
Jan - 1
Toby - 1

Totals
Jan - 127 (37, 42, 48)
Toby - 107 (49, 38, 20 - going in the wrong direction...)

scat1620 · Jul 13, 2018

People are writing off Toby because Poch wants to get shot of him, not because he's not still a fantastic player. It's a defence mechanism against the disappointment that we're prepared to sell one of the best players in the world in his position.

dtxspurs · Jul 13, 2018

@LexingtonSpurs I got off the wikipedia pages 55, 39 & 20 for Toby = 115 and 32, 42 & 38 for Jan = 113.

allatsea · Jul 13, 2018

scat1620 said:
People are writing off Toby because Poch wants to get shot of him, not because he's not still a fantastic player. It's a defence mechanism against the disappointment that we're prepared to sell one of the best players in the world in his position.

Can you point to one post where Toby has been written off ?

scat1620 · Jul 13, 2018

allatsea said:
Can you point to one post where Toby has been written off ?

I'm not going to trawl the thread for individual posts, but I'll concede the semantic point and rephrase my post as:

People are arguing that Toby leaving won't weaken our squad because Poch wants to get shot of him, not because he's not still a fantastic player. It's a defence mechanism against the disappointment that we're prepared to sell one of the best players in the world in his position.

LexingtonSpurs · Jul 13, 2018

scat1620 said:
People are writing off Toby because Poch wants to get shot of him, not because he's not still a fantastic player. It's a defence mechanism against the disappointment that we're prepared to sell one of the best players in the world in his position.

I don't think so. For me, anyway, I don't think he is the same player he was in 2016/17. He never looked that way for us when he cam back fro injury last season, and he has not done anything this summer to show me that he is back to where he was.

I'll admit that last year, I thought that Poch was not plying him due to the contract issue. Now, I am more of the opinion that Poch did not play him for footballing reasons. Last year - and certainly on the evidence of last season and the WC - Sanchez is a better player than Toby.

Sanchez has not yet reached the heights of Toby - when Toby was healthy. But I think there is a legitimate chance Toby will never regain that form either - age and injuries take a lot out of a player.

LexingtonSpurs · Jul 13, 2018

allatsea said:
Can you point to one post where Toby has been written off ?

I'll own up to being close to writing him off - at least in terms of being one of the top 2-3 CBs in the league.

ETA - Toby was great. I am not convinced he can still be great - and even that comes with an increased health risk.

scat1620 · Jul 13, 2018

LexingtonSpurs said:
I don't think so. For me, anyway, I don't think he is the same player he was in 2016/17. He never looked that way for us when he cam back fro injury last season, and he has not done anything this summer to show me that he is back to where he was.

I'll admit that last year, I thought that Poch was not plying him due to the contract issue. Now, I am more of the opinion that Poch did not play him for footballing reasons. Last year - and certainly on the evidence of last season and the WC - Sanchez is a better player than Toby.

Sanchez has not yet reached the heights of Toby - when Toby was healthy. But I think there is a legitimate chance Toby will never regain that form either - age and injuries take a lot out of a player.

Fair enough, I'm happy to agree to disagree on this one. I think that at 29 Toby still has at least a couple of years of top class football left in him, and at this moment in time if I had to pick a Back 4 for Spurs (albeit I'm with @Colonel Dax in that I think we're probably best off with a Back 3 of Jan/Toby/Sanchez) then I would pick Vertonghen and Alderweireld rather than Vertonghen and Sanchez.

spursfan77 · Jul 13, 2018

I suspect he’ll still go to Man Utd. They seem to be linked with every centre back under the sun though. Maybe to get us to come back to the table if we want Martial.

rabbikeane · Jul 13, 2018

We look far more solid with a back three and got much more control of the game in my opinion. It also brings out the best of Tripper - third best performer at the World Cup (behind Modric and Mbappe?)? World Class wing back, while at regular full back we discuss whether we should sell him.

Issue is of course the many attacking options we got, where excellent players will have to be benched.

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