An interview with 'Arry (and his view of Tommy H)

[Bus-Conductor]

You truly are daft. Huddlestone and Jenas are two completely different players. One is a holding midfielder whilst the other is a box to box CM. So comparing their stats respective to the role they played is pointless and demonstrates your FM-esque understanding of football.

What Huddlestone does for the team is unique and cannot be compared to what JJ does. In my opinion a holding midfielder is absolutely crucial to the way we play and Huddlestone is the only player we have who plays this role (and Sandro now) - and he does a pretty damn good job!

This is the first time that we ahve played 451. Usually - for most of the last 5 years we have played 442. In a 442 you need both your CM's to be dynamic and not just perform one discipline well. This is why I have always said that you can accommodate Huddlestone in a 451 far easier than a 442. Because I understand the difference between Huddlestone - and his capabilities - and Jenas - and his capabilities.

My point- which if you had the intelligence to understand, but clearly don't so I'll explain it to you - is that in a 442 there is virtually nothing that Huddlestone's abilities provide to a team that jenas's don't.

Even in a 451 such as today, Huddlestone job was not simply to be a "holding midfielder" (I'm not even sure you know what that means) but when possible to start and support attacks - this is a must in a 451 formation - with Palacios as the ultimate insurance - NOT HUDD. My continual point being that Huddlestone lacks the dynamism and stamina to do this with any consistency and for 90 minutes - as we saw last week against City, and this week against Stoke, where he again faded in the second half and any influence waned.

 

[TwoSaintsComeMarching]

Major face-palm. I'll get back to you in the morning. It's late and I don't have the energy to respond to a two year old atm.

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

I've only got a three inch cock so I can't join in with the willywaving.

Please debate without resorting to personal insults or snideyness else there be infractions and lockings.

 

[TwoSaintsComeMarching]

Oh and btw, what we played today was closer to a 433 than a 451.

 

[TwoSaintsComeMarching]

I've only got a three inch cock so I can't join in with the willywaving.

lol

 

[AlexSkree]

Major face-palm. I'll get back to you in the morning. It's late and I don't have the energy to respond to a two year old atm.

same! i cant take BC serious after watching Spurs the last years. The best games Spurs have played have been with Modric and Huddle in the centre. He has just made up his mind that Huddle is no good. Seriously he should just be banned or something. Comparing jenas to huddle is just stupid..

Another indication of BC`s knowledge of football imo...

 

[Lilbaz]

Didn't Roy Hodgson get into the CL with Inter? Or was I dreaming again?

 

[Gilzeanking]

I've often felt that Hudds skills didn't compensate for his flaws . Also that there has been some rose coloured spectacle type viewing of his Hollywood passes on here .

But , every year the positives have increased against the negatives ( credit to coaches) . He's had a couple of shots so far for example, one a great volley and another arrowing along the ground and both on target ...no typical Hudd row Z stuff . He is going to score soon if he hangs around just outside the area at corners etc .

And he does have this calming effect which is hard to quantise in stats .
The Arse/Chelski victories with him 'n Mods are hard to deny too .

The FA saying the next England manager will be English makes me ill . We don't need an English manager , a Russian manager , a manager with green eyes or a manager with one leg shorter than the other .

NO, we need a GOOD manager.. Restricting this search in anyway is madness . So now the possible pool to find England's next manager is down to just 55 million rather than 6 billion . Fuckwits .

We need England to do well under Capello now...or Arry's name to have a little more dodgyness added to it with this court case !

And OOF....seriously over the top Joey to demand BC should be banned because he doesn't agree with you...are you drunk or something ?
We've been asked to keep personal comments off this thread so I won't tell you exactly how you appear to me currently . BC is a way better poster .

 

[C-oops]

BC you are so full of it. Nothing about Hudds abilities that JJ doesn't provide? How about consistency for a start. Effort, vision and being the catalyst for virtually every attack for seconds. Don't use yesterdays game to back up your point. I will even admit that in the second half Jenas was very good. But as we all know it's going to be his seasonal exception to the rule. You say you need dynamism in a midfield two. Well jj ain't your man there either. If he was a gas he'd be argon. Still yesterday he repeatedly failed to work back in the first half and apart from the ball to bale was pretty non existent outside his usual 2 rd passes and floating around too deep. He was r from
dynamic up until that pass to bale.
Face it BC. JJ only played yesterday due to a pretty large injury list. He ain't in harry's foremost thoughts and won't be first choice. I for one am not going to get excited over yesterdays performace as we all know itbwas one of those rarities we've all come to expect.

 

[Legend10]

Incredible that anybody could fault JJ's performance today, he had an excellent game and was vital to us getting the 3 points.

 

[THOWIG]

Please not another Jenas thread!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[C-oops]

Please not another person saying not another jenas thread.

 

[mabolsa_ritchey]

Im loving Huddlestone proving me wrong. I admit I was one of those who thought that he was a talented youngster but just felt the Premiership was one step too far for him. Now he's one of our most consistent players, and we are a far worse team when he doesnt play.
To be fair to Jenas too I think he has always been massively underrated by the vast majority of Spurs fans. Fair enough he has declined in the past few years, but I personally felt that he did a good job for us in Jols time, and even in the Carling Cup when we won it.

 

[Jody]

Edited.

I just posted in a Jenas debate :doh:

 

[Damian99]

One game and BC is cummin in his pants over Jenas, there must be a reason why the Hudd is now and has been for a long time picked CONSISTENTLY over Jenas. Jenas has been consistently average for a long time now and possibly yesterday was playing for his place???? Or playing for a move away???? Had that not entered your one dimensional views???.

Once again you waffle on about pass percentages, very misleading stats as you cannot say if the pass was just a simple one yard ball or a backwards pass, while keeping possession 30 passes out of 30 passes doesn't mean you have been the best player on the pitch you fool, only the least wasteful player on it.

While he had a good game yesterday and was probably the pick of the midfield, over the last season or so, Jenas hasn't improved and Huddlestone( and only YOU cannot see this) has improved greatly and rightly gets picked above Jenas on a regular basis.

They are very different players but only you will deny that Tottenham struggle more without Huddlestone than it seems we do without Jenas.

I like you ratings on Dawson yesterday by the way lol. is "These types of gamesare made for Dawson" your way of giving him some praise? You are truly beyond belief.

 

[Coyboy]

That's weird because Hudlestone actually gave the ball away more than Palacios and Jenas put together. That's a fact, but don't let it hamper your romantic perception.

I have always said that I can make a case for Huddlestone in a 451 and I think that our midfielders all did pretty well today but why would anyone being objective pick out Huddlestone as opposed to Jenas. They both saw the ball 68 times, but Hudd gave it away 13, Jenas 6. Jenas was the player getting up and down the pitch, only a foul preventing him from scoring, playing the best pass of the game that put Bale clean through, blocking Etherington's goal bound shot and was by far our best player on the day.

Why are people so willing to look so hard to see what Huddlestone does well, but seem blind to what Jenas does well. If Huddlestone had played that pass to Bale, Joey would be posting youtube clips and everyone would be wanking each other off.

Like I said, I think all our midfielders did well in a tough game today but any non biased observer would surely have picked Jenas's performance out of the three CM's.

In a 451 I can understand the case for Huddlestone, but having seen Jenas play that pass today, the interchange with Bale that should have been a goal, the fact that not only did he play two greta through balls but also was industrious and gave the ball away much less than Hudd, why isn't everyone wetting themselves over Jenas's performance, and declaring undying love. Especially as in the whole time that both players have been at the club, jenas has consistently outpassed, out created, out scored, out defended and out ran Huddlestone.

Jenas has always been a more valuable player in terms of overall contribution than Huddlestone, and I've not seen anything yet to suggest that that has changed. Today re-affirmed that opinion.

Fair points, but this isn't a Jenas v Hudd debate as they are both good players and not only different but one is much more experienced than the other.

But you always said Huddlestone can't play in a 4-4-2. After last season, you have been proved wrong.

 

[StartingPrice]

great interview. Hudd's performance on Tues kept us in the CL imo. People rave about Modric in CM but him and WP were torn apart in the first 30 mins - then as soon as Hudd came in and Modric moved out wide we controlled the game for the majority. I love HR!

I think the important thing was the 'wanting to drop Wilson and move keep Mdders in the middle' bit. I said it atthe time, the fact that THudd/Modric worked against top teams who thought they were so superior that they culd outplay us, doesn't mean it will work against nasty mofos who don't have any intention of outplaying us, but would be quite interested in a vacancy for outkicking us (not saying Young Boys did that...they had A.N.Other advantage).

Amazing to think that it's taken this hugely intimidating yet friendly giant from Derby four years to become the player we all hoped he could be. We all see his impressive talent from day 1 but it seemed for so long that he was always afraid of his own size, afraid of going into tackles in case he hurt someone, afraid to put his massive frame about. Well, guess what, that's no longer the case and whether it's down to 'Arry, Joe Jordan, Kevin Bonds or whoever we now have a player who can dictate the game like the best around and he's still only 23 !!!!!

Not at all.
Actually, during all of the 'THudd ain't good enough' posting I maintained that you had to lood at his relative age, and comparing him with Carrick you would see that MC was being absolutely hammered (pardon t'pun) by the Spammers at an older age that THudd was.
Still much more to come from him, IMHO.

Not amazing at all. It's a pretty reasonable time-scale, and it will probably be another season at least before we see him truly fulfil his potential.

But you're dead right in saying that it's our coaching staff, derided by some, that has developed him into what he is now—as they've developed Bale, Lennon and others.

Good coaching truly does help...picking out the things to work on, things to develop and cultivate, things to eradicate, personalised training and fitness, etc.

Huddlestone is brilliant i personally recon hes better than carrick all he needs to do is add some more goals to his game it wernt so long ago everybody wanted us to sell him to fulham and so on ha.

Only down point on hud is his speed and he doesnt score enough but apart from that he is a beast espec now hes learnt how to get stuck in ha.

Never wanted to sell him (too many of our fans want to sell too many of our players too soon).
More goals would be nice, however, and I am sure that is one of those things that the coaching staff will be working on.

BC - I don't consider myself to be the most gifted of footballing analysts, but it seemed clear to me that when Hudd came on he calmed things down, delivered the right passes, and generally allowed the team to find their rhythm. Stats are a vague indication at best. They don't indicate movement, simple passes, right passes, completed passes that were the wrong passes...they don't show the multiple aspects of a game that statistics cannot.

As for Jenas, well I'm not one of those that pitches our own players against each other. I think Jenas is a good player. I've posted in the past that he is waaaayyy too inconsistent to be a regular at the moment, but when he is playing at the top of his game he is fantastic.

:grin:
Top post, Spurger +1 [Edit...no I won't, Spurg, have to spread it aound first}
I have debated with BC before (BC, are you listening), and he does have some genuine insights, so I wish people would get off his case sometimes. But I really think he would benefit from realising, as I have pointed out to him before, that stats are a usefull too, but only one amongst many, and that there is so much to be learned from aspects of the game, and the analysis thereof, that just are not related to stats at all.

And I am in the same 'intermediate' camp over Jenas, as well...though I would prefer to refer to him as 'frustrating' rather than 'inconsistent'.

Incredible that anybody could fault JJ's performance today, he had an excellent game and was vital to us getting the 3 points.

Who faulted him?

Actually, as I was watching it I was thinking "I bet when I log onto SC folk will be slagging him, even though I thought he had a pretty decent game today":grin:

 

[Flightrisker]

When's an Englishman going to buy a football club again?
'For the most part it's not happening. I was delighted to see David Sullivan and David Gold take charge at West Ham because it's their club. But Blackburn might be getting new foreign owners. Same at Liverpool. You never hear it's going to be an Englishman.
'And foreign owners invariably go for foreign managers.




Avram Grant's English now?

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Fair points, but this isn't a Jenas v Hudd debate as they are both good players and not only different but one is much more experienced than the other.

But you always said Huddlestone can't play in a 4-4-2. After last season, you have been proved wrong.

NO, I've always said, for me, Jenas would be much better in a 442 than Huddlestone.

If look you will also find nearly always adding that I can make a case for Hudd in a 451.

And, although yesterday's argument wasn't necessarily Hudd v Jenas, my point was merely the perception of people re Hudd and Jenas.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

One game and BC is cummin in his pants over Jenas, there must be a reason why the Hudd is now and has been for a long time picked CONSISTENTLY over Jenas. Jenas has been consistently average for a long time now and possibly yesterday was playing for his place???? Or playing for a move away???? Had that not entered your one dimensional views???.

Once again you waffle on about pass percentages, very misleading stats as you cannot say if the pass was just a simple one yard ball or a backwards pass, while keeping possession 30 passes out of 30 passes doesn't mean you have been the best player on the pitch you fool, only the least wasteful player on it.

While he had a good game yesterday and was probably the pick of the midfield, over the last season or so, Jenas hasn't improved and Huddlestone( and only YOU cannot see this) has improved greatly and rightly gets picked above Jenas on a regular basis.

They are very different players but only you will deny that Tottenham struggle more without Huddlestone than it seems we do without Jenas.

I like you ratings on Dawson yesterday by the way lol. is "These types of gamesare made for Dawson" your way of giving him some praise? You are truly beyond belief.

As opposed to the games where the teams play neat intricate football and the strikers are intelligent and have pace obviously.