Tottenham Hotspur Vs Manchester United: Match Thread

[Legend10]

Modric is world class. That's all to be said about that.

Absolutely!

If Modric isn't world class then most players might as well pack their boots away and go home.

 

[southlondonyiddo]

I love him and I wish I could agree with that but I think he can do more than he is, possibly from the centre though he's obviously excelled out wide so far, and more often than not he's not what I remember at the end of a game.

He's a flair player, skillfull, creative, able to dribble and pass, and for me a player of that type needs to produce genuine moments of brilliance more often than he does to be called world class. The men who were on the pitch at half time, one of whom is far more relevant in this comparison as he was also a showmen, they were world class.

Ferguson said Modric would get into any team in the World. Ginola would never have been a regular for Ferguson, played far too much for himself rather than the team. Ginola would never have the discipline required to be a regular in a Premiership winning side

Modric is World class, Ginola never was

Ginola was the best player i've ever seen at beating a man but 90% of the time he'd then go and beat him again followed by running diagonally across the pitch 3 times beating 3 more players before shooting 20 yards over the bar

Harsh but true imo cos he was great to watch sometimes but his end product for his ability was shocking

Ossie got half the applause Ginola did but he was twice the player during his time at Tottenham

 

[The Apprentice]

Two things.

Keane should never play left midfield ever again.

Crouch playing completely ruins our style of play. We fall into the trap of just smashing the fucking ball diagonally to him every couple of minutes. He invariably fails to collect it or flick it on to anyone. Add to this the fact that the Ol'Giraffe makes TheHudd look like Usain Bolt.

 

[BringBack_leGin]

Ferguson said Modric would get into any team in the World. Ginola would never have been a regular for Ferguson, played far too much for himself rather than the team. Ginola would never have the discipline required to be a regular in a Premiership winning side

Modric is World class, Ginola never was

Ginola was the best player i've ever seen at beating a man but 90% of the time he'd then go and beat him again followed by running diagonally across the pitch 3 times beating 3 more players before shooting 20 yards over the bar

Harsh but true imo cos he was great to watch sometimes but his end product for his ability was shocking

Ossie got half the applause Ginola did but he was twice the player during his time at Tottenham

Ginola was a better crosser, passer, shooter, dribbler, and in a much worse team. I'm not going to get into a debate about either who's better or which player performs better for us, because I don't want to be seen as being disrespectful to Modric when I am very openly a fan of his, and I would be very heartbroken to lose him. I will say, however, that if Modric is even half the player that Ginola was, he will be superb, but at present there is still a gulf between the two, and that is not said because of any bias, I'm talking about two players I am fond of.

 

[southlondonyiddo]

Ginola was a better crosser, passer, shooter, dribbler, and in a much worse team. I'm not going to get into a debate about either who's better or which player performs better for us, because I don't want to be seen as being disrespectful to Modric when I am very openly a fan of his, and I would be very heartbroken to lose him. I will say, however, that if Modric is even half the player that Ginola was, he will be superb, but at present there is still a gulf between the two, and that is not said because of any bias, I'm talking about two players I am fond of.

Fair enough, thought you were going to come after me with a chain saw after I'd given my views on your love childEek

 

[stemark44]

Modric is certainly not world class yet but if he continues playing the way he has this season - he most definitely will be!

 

[Vecellio]

BringBack_leGin, Ginola is/was *not* a better passer than Modric. He was maybe a better dribbler and definitely a much better shooter, but never in a million years a better passer.
He was also a lot more selfish and Modric is better at playing the simpler, and in a way more creative/efficient option. Bottom line is they're both class but very different players, too different to compare directly.

I think Modric is world class. Being the best player on your (decent) national team is a pretty good indicator. Let me ask you, would you swap him for Lampard or even Gerrard? I wouldn't. And not just because of his age. He's simply a more creative footballer than either imo.

To compare him with Iniesta is a bit rough. Iniesta is (still!) underrated and for mine really is the best player in the world (tied with Messi, again quite different types of players with too different positive attributes to compare directly).
The thing to mention is he along with Xavi et al are 'products of the Barca system', playing and learning their style together since early teen years, supporting each other and moving into space for a pass at all times. If you took Don Andres and put him in the Spurs team he wouldn't look half as good - who's fault would that be?


--------

I do agree with many of your other points though..Carlo makes me nervous, i think his time has gone, and Hutton is simply not good enough from a defensive point of view.

 

[alfiespurs]

Our wall, despite Cudicini's rantings, refusing to align properly on Giggs free kick.

Talk about passion ! He knew what was going on !!!Bless him he kept us in the game .

Playing Keane, an out of form STRIKER, on the left wing where he is worse than useless (not his fault, not his role, should have been Kranjcar)

I wanted him back, but the man is pathetic ...

The lack of Modric (or Kranjcar/ Giovani/ someone who can create space from the left) because, in Modric's absense, Huddlestone had far less space to do anything and as a result was poor throughout, and Lennon, who was being triple marked whenever the ball was near him, had far less ammunition than usual because one of his two main providers (Corluka being the other) was just not in the game, while Defoe all of a sudden also see's far less of the ball.

Jenas in please ...


The substitution of Hutton for Corluka. As soon as that happened I knew. Hutton is a guaranteed goal conceded every time he plays.
:grin::grin::grin::grin:Send him back to rangers please .. a complete liability ... rooney ripped him, sums up scottish football ....

Next week, in an equally difficult game, I expect to see Keane out, for Kranjcar (who I thought did well), Huddlestone out, for Jenas (pains me to say this but he played very well), and Cudicini out for Gomes (Carlo fills me with dread). I will probably get little, or none, of this, but I hope I get it all.[/quote]

get a draw and we will be lucky ... but keane has to be dropped ...:grin::grin::grin:

 

[InOffMeLeftShin]

OK, we got a little ahead of ourselves and maybe expected the run to continue. The reality is we had a bad game, we didn't execute the things that had been going well in previous games i.e. the closing down, high tempo passing etc.

We may have missed Modric, but I think we equally missed Palacios (who looked more than a little jaded after a late night game in Mexico on Wednesday/Thursday morning). He had the drive, but was a little short on the rest and then without him in the second half it seemed like we didn't have the cut and thrust to really take it to Utd.

The positive is that if we are going to have a game like this, and over the course of the season we are bound to, then it couldn't have come against a better opponent at a better time. It is better to lose against Utd than to throw away points against teams we should be taking all 3 against. We still have 12 points and a solid foundation for a good season and have now had a decent wake up call that we need to work even harder to match the best teams. I'm kind of glad that we have got that game out of the way (we always struggle against them, offer them too much respect and space) and now can get back to reality and working hard. We need to scrap for everything in the next game and try and get a result.

Now that we have lost I wouldn't be that surprised to see Harry go one up top against Chelsea. He was never going to change it while we were winning but I can easily see a midfield of Lennon, Palacios, Huddlestone, Jenas and obviously Keane on the left with just Defoe up top. Crouch will revert to an impact player and we will try and hang in there. I might be wrong, but I doubt Harry will panic at all. He'll just demand more hard work to try and at least get something to take into a run of games where we should be able to pick up some points.

 

[Spurs_Q8]

i would talk about our reception again for Berba, last year think we were right after what he did, but i was a bit surprised about another boo day for him yesterday, i think he scored twice and refused to celebrate in both times, i respect more when i saw Adebayor celebration vs Arsenal.

 

[PT]

The good news this season is that we will have a week to recover, go over match tapes, train, talk tactics and get down the clubs!

 

[Vecellio]

i would talk about our reception again for Berba

The ironic thing is that by booing him you reveal how hurt you are/were at his departure. It's also small-time. Indifference would be much more cutting in it's way (also classier).

 

[WexfordTownSpur]

This is still man Utd, league champions, CL finalists (champions the year before) and world club champions...they didn't turn shit over night because they sold Ronaldo any more than we turned into world beaters over night because we won our first four games.

We have had a great start to the season and are making progress, but the progess is not going to be instant so you have to expect to sometimes get beat by teams of the calibre of Man U.

Rome was not built in a day and we were never going to bridge the gulf between us and man u which has been created over 20 years in one half season.

Yes we have played better against them in recent years, but those are one off games as is this...you can judge progress purely by them.

Let's see how we respond as a unit before we start writing ourselves off as moving backwards etc

Sorry but the Keane Defoe partnership with Modric pulling the strings is why we had 4 out of four - Lets be honest we were lucky to win the Birmingham game - we look like a different team without Modric!

I think the confidence will also be battered now, not only to be beaten, but the ease with which utd dispatched us at home, was embarrassing!

I think, and always have that Hutton is a defensive liability, I think we found out why again!

I would keep the same winning formation V Chelsea as we had at the start of the season, just replace Modric with Kranjcar, and maybe Hudd with JJ (Hudd was back to he's old form, he really just can not cut it against great oppersition, stick JJ in)

So against Chelsea.

------------Gomes------------------
Corluka - King - Woddy/Bassong - BAE

Lennon - Palacios - JJ - Kranjcar/Bentley

----------Defoe-Keane------------

 

[Legend10]

Crouch is a far better option up front than Keane.

 

[kezza]

I swear I just saw Kezza on TV?

woohoo someone saw me first and not libs!! :bowdown:

 

[chrissivad]

woohoo someone saw me first and not libs!! :bowdown:

I was only half watching and missed you all. Only thing i saw saw a smile and told Andrew that was kezza!

 

[kezza]

I was only half watching and missed you all. Only thing i saw saw a smile and told Andrew that was kezza!

a smile!! lol


I wish we had played better in the second half against them. We just looked scared. Modric's absence noticed for sure.
But we were bound to lose a game sooner or later and we can just pick ourselves up and give it all we have against chelski next.