The Fulham manager claims Lewis Holtby is not a 'fighter' and says he should not have joined the Cottagers.
Read the full article at The Tottenham Way
Read the full article at The Tottenham Way
He picked a loan player to blame, means he doesn't have to deal with any fallout from it other than fans disagreeing - it'll be forgotten by next year from their end, but it doesn't change how it must feel to be Holtby, getting plaudits from the fans, clearly putting in a great shift whenever he's able, but still getting relegated and then having the new manager try and shift some of the blame onto you - gotta sting a bit.
Magraths man-management skills obviously need work.
Maybe, that's because he was brought up in a footballing culture that isn't stuck in the Neanderthal obsession with tackling. Holtby is more likely to cut off the play at its start rather than fly in with a reactive tackle.Going against the grain here but i can see a little what Felix is saying. I like Lewis, he's technically pretty sound,a nice passer, and he does work his socks off and run around a lot. But he's one of these players who just doesn't know how to tackle or get his foot stuck in. He'll run all day, chase back and shadow but ask him to tackle and i've never seen him make a good one. He's a bit like Soldado in this respect, who often comes on and gives away bad fouls, because he just doesn't do tackling properly.
Rafa Van Der Vaart was similar but due to his position playing as a number 10 it didn't matter if he didn't tackle so much. (But like the other two, if he ever did make a tackle i'd always be worried he'd get sent off!). The question is whether Lewis is good enough to play for us as a number 10. I like him but for me he isn't quite good enough. Sorry!