Well screw Stewart Robson and the horse he rode in on.

Robbie Keane is the man.

"They can both score with their heads despite being relatively small because they have good heading techniques"

I stopped reading after this.

Well, it's a pity for both of you that you didn't pay attention, because, as usual, his article is a goldmine of hard-nosed and canny football analysis.

He's wrong about their heading technique, of course.

Otherwise, the article is extremely knowledgeable, balanced and has plenty of insights, especially for the non-Spurs-fan who doesn't know the players as well as we do.

Well. I'll admit he is better than me but...

Stewart Ian Robson (born November 6, 1964) is an English former football player.
Born in Billericay, Essex. He was educated at Alleyn Court Prep School in Westcliff On Sea, and Brentwood School. He was also an outstanding cricketer.<SUP class=noprint>[citation needed]</SUP> Robson joined Arsenal as a schoolboy in 1978. He made his debut soon after his 17th birthday, on December 5, 1981 against West Ham United, and quickly became a regular feature in the Arsenal side, as well as the England team.
Robson showed great promise as young footballer, both in his versatility (although he usually played in midfield, he was equally adept in defence as full back or centre back) and his competitiveness; he was an enthusiastic runner and tackler. He was the Arsenal fans' 1984 Player of the Year, and made the England senior squad, but a series of injuries hampered his career – Robson had continual problems with his groin and hamstrings. He spent three months out injured in 1985-86.
After the arrival of George Graham as manager, Robson found himself frozen out of the Arsenal side, only playing five matches of the 1986-87 season, before losing his place to Steve Williams. He was sold to West Ham United in January 1987 for £650,000; in total he had played 186 matches for Arsenal, scoring 21 goals.
He started brightly at West Ham - he was a regular in the Hammers' first team for two and a half years, and Player of the Year for 1987. However, he lost his place after they were relegated in 1989, playing only eight times in the following two years. In March 1991 he joined Coventry City, and went on to make 57 league appearances for the Sky Blues, but once again, injury ruined his spell at the club; he suffered a bad knee injury playing his old club Arsenal at the start of the 1993-94 season. In summer 1995 he retired, after an entire season out injured.
Robson later joined Wimbledon as a youth coach, eventually moving up the ranks to become reserve team manager and then first-team coach. In 2003 he spent a short spell as first-team coach at Southend United, and in 2004 he joined Rushden & Diamonds as assistant manager. He is now the Diamonds' technical director.
<!-- Saved in parser cache with key enwikicache:idhash:2801976-0!1!0!default!!en!2 and timestamp 20070113223321 -->Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Robson"

He played for Arsenal when they were total shit, went to West Ham, and in football giant terms, went on a downward spiral from there.
As I said, better than me, earned a good living from football - but - just my opinion

I want to see both of them play in the game.

I wasn't commenting on his ability to play football. I don't recall that Arsene Wenger or Jose Mourinho were any great shakes as footballers either. They seem to have done rather well in their second careers.

Robson regularly writes pithy, concise articles, packed with information and largely free of the kind of brain-numbing clichés that football-people usually spout. He has a very good understanding of players' strong and weak points and of team tactics and he writes in clear, plain English.

Almost every time I read one of his articles, I learn something about football.

I'm glad you are happy

Think the article is pretty much spot on.

Quite insightfull indeed

Good little article and I agree with his conclusion. However, whenever I watch Spurs (which unfortunately is always on TV now as I have moved to Hong Kong, and so I only get to see what the producers want me to see) Defoe's work rate appears to be pretty high and he chases people down continuously. What he won't do (and this I like) is what Keane does and chase their players all the way back into our own final third/box. I wouldn't call that lazy. I'd call that intelligent.

Good article, well thought out and delivered.

Interesting mention of Keane's attempted flicks. I think that it is a result of playing with Teddy. I think Keane realises how devastating some of Teddy's flicks into space were and is trying to emulate him. Unfortunately he just hasn't got that part of his game right yet. You have to applaud him for trying to make something and I do agree on occasion that he should hold the ball up and create in that way instead. If he made 20 runs in a game and didn't get the ball once we'd be slating him if on the 21st time he didn't bother making the run and the ball went where he would have been. Keep doing the right things and the goals will come, he just needs to balance out what is right in which situation. If we are getting hammered for possession and can't hold the ball up the last thing you want is Keano flicking the ball forward and giving possesssion away again. However in a different situation a speculative flick is just what the doctor ordered.

I always find Robson's articles worth reading, far better quality than most football 'journalism'

- though the heading biz is way off - how could he get something so wrong? How many goals and assists have come from the combined heads of Defoe and Keame, not many.

I reckon more have come from Berbie's head in the few months he's been here than in all the years combined of JD and RK.

dewcent articles but a lot of mistakes which are clearly based on the common assumptions that people make about both players rather than any actual first hand knowledge (ie watching them play). For instance, Defoe may once have been a player who gave up when off form, but now he acytually works tremendously hard off the ball, even when off form, even making tackles and dropping deep or out wide. also, it is crazy to say that his technique is worse than robbies, considering how often it works when defoe tries something intelligent and how often we are left frustrated by Keane trying a flick at the wrong moment and screwing it up. On the other side of the coin, it is wrong to say that Defoe makes better penetrative runs, if you watch last season at all the reason Keane did some much better is because he was making the runs and scoring the tap ins, which Defoe still doesn't really do. Defoe is good at running onto through balls, but Keane is the one who gets behind defenders for the crosses and tap ins!

Ps, i like them both but prefer defoe!

To be honest i thought it was a crap and poory written article stating the obvious about both players apart from that heading crap (Keane vs Chelsea anyone?). Im a fan of Jamie Redknapp's ones.

Really interesting article (except for the heading nonsense), I think he higlighted two interesting parts of Robbie's game.

The first is the flicks, I think Robbie tries too hard to do something exceptional when he could keep it a bit simpler (of course it all seems worth while when it comes off), the problem is he's sometimes not quite as good as he thinks he is.

The other was the observation that our midfiled doesn't make the most of Robbie dropping deep. I hadn't really considered that before but it makes sense and it's something MJ should get them working on.

It's a good point, but actually, we do have someone who does this, quite frequently, too. It's Jenas. But he hasn't been about much recently and, when he was, he was attracting a lot criticism by wasting those very opportunities to drive into the box.

Malbranque is another candidate, but he's still getting used to his teammates.