The curious case of Bentaleb

[YiddoInPoland]

I like him as a player, has done well. Still not sure Tim should have thrust him into the deep end, but apart from against the big guns he has done well.

On thing i will give Tim credit for is playing some of these guys even though i don't always agree on the timing.

 

[absolute bobbins]

So the obvious answer is that Bentaleb isn't his love child and this simply proved that all the people who actually thought that............. were nothing more than a bunch of numpties!
Who knew?

you're confused, we didn't say Nabil was Tim's love child, we said Tim was in love with the child.

Nothing wrong with that per se but picking him over better players just to curry favour isn't cricket

 

[spursram]

Here is a list of names of some of the players "new" to the first team this season, in no particular order:

Paulinho
Soldado
Lamela
Chiriches
Chadli
Eriksen
Capoue
Bentaleb

Be honest, what order of success would you put them in? Who has given most return for the outlay? Given their ages who has shown the most potential? Who has shown the most desire and commitment?
Yes, I agree its Eriksen but would you put anyone but Bentaleb as 2nd? Eriksen, btw, is nearly 3 years older than Bentaleb.

I believe Bentaleb could be our Graeme Souness, a young player we once had and lost.

 

[markieboy]

you're confused, we didn't say Nabil was Tim's love child, we said Tim was in love with the child.

Nothing wrong with that per se but picking him over better players just to curry favour isn't cricket

You think what you like and we don't have many players better than him.

 

[dannythomas]

Here is a list of names of some of the players "new" to the first team this season, in no particular order:

Paulinho
Soldado
Lamela
Chiriches
Chadli
Eriksen
Capoue
Bentaleb

Be honest, what order of success would you put them in? Who has given most return for the outlay? Given their ages who has shown the most potential? Who has shown the most desire and commitment?
Yes, I agree its Eriksen but would you put anyone but Bentaleb as 2nd? Eriksen, btw, is nearly 3 years older than Bentaleb.

I believe Bentaleb could be our Graeme Souness, a young player we once had and lost.

To be honest I would put Chadli second. It has taken a while and I guess both players have had a similar number of starts but Chadli has not had a run of EPL games until recently. Credit by the way to Sherwood for that. I think Chadli could end up being a great squad player ( maybe even a regular ) with goalscoring and creative potential.

I would put Bentaleb neck and neck with Paulinho for 3rd. I do think Paulinho will come good and I would definitely start him rather than Bentaleb in the tougher matches. But taking into account Bentaleb's age it's a close call.

I think Tim has done a number of things pretty well. Re motivating Adebayor ( though to a degree any manager that selected him would have had that effect on Ade after AVB, making Eriksen the hub of his team and yes, introducing Bentaleb. Only he didn't use Bentaleb in the right matches. That is why as an Assistant Coach he could learn the ropes for a couple of years then who knows ? The passion for the club is there for sure. But if he doesn't want that then it should be adios amigo.

 

[absolute bobbins]

You think what you like and we don't have many players better than him.

Yes we do, I'd give you a list but I'm engrossed in my book

 

[davidmatzdorf]

The OP starts 'Tim's love child" and immediately forfeits the right to be taken seriously. It's just another content-free excuse for a bitter/twisted 'fan' to spit out some abuse at our players and manager.

In this case, it's also incoherent, because (as other contributors have already point out), there doesn't seem to be either a conclusion or a question.

Back in the real world: Bentaleb was brought in, according to Sherwood, because he wasn't familiar with some of his senior/expensive players, having been excluded from 1st team training by AVB. He knew Bentaleb would cope, so he selected him.

I concluded some weeks ago, after Bentaleb had several times resembled a wonderful player against inferior sides, but looked like a naive 19-year-old against superior opponents, that Sherwood, having had time to familiarise himself with his entire squad, worked out that he should be selective about which games to select Nabil.

It's not that difficult to work out.

 

[Blake Griffin]

C'mon, it's necessity over desire. If Defoe was still here then Kane would still be sitting on the bench. Likewise if Soldado was fit

we're under no obligation to start two strikers ... tim could've easily rolled with townsend, sigurdsson, bentaleb etc but instead went with kane.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

I don't really understand why Bentaleb has been dropped. I feel sorry for the kid that he seems to be getting stick merely because Sherwood is unpopular and he picked him.

I'm as disappointed that Sherwood hasn't used the 433 more as I was that AVB didn't. Players like Bentaleb and Paulinho would work so much better with Capoue/Sandro/Veljkovic to pivot off.

The kid has some learning to do of course, but for a 19yo he's done fucking well and hasn't looked out of place when played in the right tactical circumstances. There have been a couple of games when he's got over run a bit but that wasn't his fault really, just the naive tactics of Sherwood who seems to have Ferdinands cock in his ear most of the time.

 

[ItsBoris]

Can someone tell me how good/talented Bentaleb is? Because from my perspective I thought that I've seen a very promising young midfielder who could go on to be great under the right coaching. But then many people are saying that he's a poor player...

 

[tiger666]

Can someone tell me how good/talented Bentaleb is? Because from my perspective I thought that I've seen a very promising young midfielder who could go on to be great under the right coaching. But then many people are saying that he's a poor player...

Many people are clueless.

 

[ItsBoris]

Many people are clueless.

Haha would that be me or others?

 

[tiger666]

Haha would that be me or others?

No not you.

 

[SlunkSoma]

Can someone tell me how good/talented Bentaleb is? Because from my perspective I thought that I've seen a very promising young midfielder who could go on to be great under the right coaching. But then many people are saying that he's a poor player...

I agree, I think he looks like he has potential to be decent. He has found himself in tough situations and not looked particularly out of place. Had a run in the team, now we are trying something else. He might well play against Fulham.

 

[spursram]

Should be interesting how he performs in the WC, I am sure he will start for Algeria. Folks still have hopes for Tom Carroll, this "boy" is 3 years younger. Lets keep it in perspective. Has to be a great prospect. Maybe if he was 2 years older, we'd paid £30M for him, and he spent the season out of form and injured, we' be raving about him. And no I am not knocking Lamela who I am sure will be a super star. Just hope its with us, and Bentaleb!

 

[Macspur261]

Bentaleb has got to be seen as a bonus for us this season.
Be fair, who knew much about him before he was chucked in at the deep end, and we now know we've got a MF player that can more than hold his own in the PL.

 

[Ribble]

Can someone tell me how good/talented Bentaleb is? Because from my perspective I thought that I've seen a very promising young midfielder who could go on to be great under the right coaching. But then many people are saying that he's a poor player...

He's been misued sometimes I think this season which has made him look a bit worse on occasion, but when he's been given license to look forward and be part of the attacking unit he has looked really good.

 

[EQP]

Would love to see him make the final 23 for Algeria. That match against Belgium could be a classic, especially the Moose vs Nabil aspect.

 

[sammy j]

If poch gets the job then bentaleb could be massive for us next season

 

[guy]

If poch gets the job then bentaleb could be massive for us next season

indeed he has been important as of late.

But unfortunately for us he is soon to head off to the ACN. Going to be a big miss for us, just as he has really begun to hit his straps.

For Nabil Bentaleb the momentum that he has built at Tottenham Hotspur stands to be checked. The 20-year-old helped the club to their 4-0 Capital One Cup quarter-final victory over Newcastle United but he will miss the two-leg semi-final against Sheffield United, together with a clutch of Premier League fixtures, because of his involvement with Algeria at the Africa Cup of Nations, which begins on 17 January.

Bentaleb’s country comes first and he will be a part of an Algeria squad that starts the tournament in Equatorial Guinea as favourites. The final is scheduled for 8 February and if Algeria were to reach it, Bentaleb would miss four league matches for his club.

He has only recently recovered from a foot injury that ruled him out for almost two months and he has re-established himself as the first-choice in central midfield. There is no other way to dress this up: the timing of the Cup of Nations is far from ideal for him.

But Bentaleb can see the bigger picture after a whirlwind rise to prominence over the past 12 months which has seen him go from Tottenham academy hopeful to first-team player for club and country. Never mind the Cup of Nations, Bentaleb started in all three of Algeria’s World Cup group games in Brazil last summer. He was also an unused substitute in the last-16 loss against Germany.

Bentaleb speaks with conviction about what Tottenham can achieve this season. There remains the sense that Mauricio Pochettino’s team are a work in progress and that they are quite capable of hitting the wall at any moment. Consistency has proved elusive, which is why the visit of Burnley on Saturday seems like a big test.

But there have been tantalising flickers, most notably in the 2-1 home win over Everton and the cup victory against Newcastle. Despite their various wobbles, Spurs sit seventh in the table, four points off the Champions League places, and they are also through to the last 32 of the Europa League, where they face Fiorentina.

“I think the top four is realistic this season,” Bentaleb said. “We are in December and we are still in the game. We are not far from it. It will all be played out in the second part of the season. We don’t really fear anyone. We know that if we play at our best we can cause a very big problem to any team in the Premier League – to Chelsea or Manchester City. If we focus on ourselves, we will go far. The good thing about this team is that we don’t know what is our limit. We know we can be better but we don’t know the limit.”

Bentaleb followed his heart when he declared for Algeria this year rather than France – the country of his birth and the one he represented at under-19 level. His parents were born in Algeria.

“When people ask me why I chose Algeria over France I say that when I was younger and France lost I was not crying in front of my TV whereas when Algeria lost, I was crying and getting angry,” he said. “I chose Algeria because my heart always wanted Algeria. It’s a really bad thing to be missing the Capital One Cup semi-final but it’s my country and I made the choice to play for them. I have to assume it now.”

Bentaleb knows the risk to his Tottenham place that will come while he is at the Cup of Nations; Pochettino currently has a fully fit squad and Etienne Capoue and Benjamin Stambouli, among others, will look to press their claims.

But Bentaleb’s default-setting is to fight. He has always done so at Tottenham – it was one of the reasons why he was given his debut against Southampton last December, in Tim Sherwood’s first league game in charge – and will continue to do so. “Tim Sherwood was the first one to trust me and put me in,” Bentaleb said. “Most of the credit I have is for him. I will be forever grateful to him. I have found my position at Tottenham but you are never safe. This is football and you always have to fight.”

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/dec/18/algeria-nabil-bentaleb-tottenham-spurs