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Well would you?

ultimateloner

Well-Known Member
Jan 25, 2004
4,539
2,149
Think of the plus side....Berba on his day was exceptional; dare I say it, even better than our current crop of players and that includes VdV, Modric, Adebayor, Bale...you name it.

Played beautiful football, played others in, can play alone; there wasn't much more you could ask of a target man. If he comes back we could do with Modric gone.
 

AnotherSpursFan

Well-Known Member
Dec 4, 2006
1,799
1,778
I'm sorry, I don't see what the difference is between what Berbatov did and what Modric did. The only difference is how we reacted to the two. If we can forgive Modric, we can forgive Berbatov.

Like David, I try to see these things from players' points of view as well. In Berbatov's case, I never begrudged him his departure. He was clearly far too good for us. We were going backwards at the time. Playing alongside Darren Bent, basically the anti-Berbatov, clearly exasperated him. He had never hid his desire to play for one of the best clubs in the world, and when the opportunity arose (not for the first time), it was under the most successful manager in world football. Berba wasn't getting any younger, so he took that opportunity. Most of us in his position would have done much the same, Spurs blinkers aside.

If anything, Modric ought to be the harder to forgive because he tried to engineer a move from a Spurs side much more on the up, to a not-much-better team, with an unproven manager, and with many years ahead of him at the top. And did I mention that it happened to be to the second richest club in the world? Much the more mercenary of the two players, really.

And Berbatov is brilliantly gifted and plays the right style of football for our team - a perfect combination with Van der Vaart, I'd imagine - so to me it's a no brainer if we can.

I disagree, Modric is a professional who gives his all on the pitch even though we blocked his dream move

Berbatov...he's just a w****r.
 

ero1x

Well-Known Member
Nov 16, 2004
1,533
1,207
It's funny that people should say he would be an upgrade on Pav. Yes of course he would, but then why would he leave the Man Utd bench to warm our bench?
 

JimmyG2

SC Supporter
Dec 7, 2006
15,014
20,779
I'm sorry, I don't see what the difference is between what Berbatov did and what Modric did. The only difference is how we reacted to the two. If we can forgive Modric, we can forgive Berbatov.

Like David, I try to see these things from players' points of view as well. In Berbatov's case, I never begrudged him his departure. He was clearly far too good for us. We were going backwards at the time. Playing alongside Darren Bent, basically the anti-Berbatov, clearly exasperated him. He had never hid his desire to play for one of the best clubs in the world, and when the opportunity arose (not for the first time), it was under the most successful manager in world football. Berba wasn't getting any younger, so he took that opportunity. Most of us in his position would have done much the same, Spurs blinkers aside.

If anything, Modric ought to be the harder to forgive because he tried to engineer a move from a Spurs side much more on the up, to a not-much-better team, with an unproven manager, and with many years ahead of him at the top. And did I mention that it happened to be to the second richest club in the world? Much the more mercenary of the two players, really.

And Berbatov is brilliantly gifted and plays the right style of football for our team - a perfect combination with Van der Vaart, I'd imagine - so to me it's a no brainer if we can.
I have no problem with players leaving for fame and fortune elsewhere.
However for whatever reason Modric didn't leave and is still giving us the benefit to the full of his £40 million pound talent.
This saga is not finished and I think that of English clubs Man. Utd might be the next serious suitors. He is good enough for Barcelona too.
We let Berbatov go and got good money for him again, perhaps it suited us at the time to take the money or because he is a more determined or awkward character.
My point is that having left us for greener pastures they should live with their decisions.
It depends really on the terms on which they leave.
At the moment it looks as if we did him and ourselves a favour.
If he goes to Chelsea now it's clearly for the money but whatever he goes for I don't want him back.
 

saintlyspur

Well-Known Member
Mar 27, 2006
718
526
yes he would be an upgrade over pav but so would stevie wonder,but I would still welcome him back because he is quality
 

Spur-of-the-moment

Well-Known Member
Jul 26, 2003
669
276
Merry Christmas.

I don't believe Berbatov was going through the psychological distress attributed to him by David M, any more than Luka was suffering in the same way when he said his head wasn't in that first game of the season. Berba had been promised by the DoF that Spurs would move him on if a bigger club came knocking. He was persuaded to stay one more year in the hope that we would qualify for the CL and give him the stage his talent deserved. In the process of squeezing as much money as possible out of Man Utd (or Man City) he may have been concerned we were aiming to hang on to him, hence the upset.

I don't bear Berba any grudge whatsoever.

We got some very good football out of him and cashed in big time. He gave us great pleasure: I always felt he was a proper Spurs player, reminiscent of the great Alan Gilzean. I was genuinely bereft when he left us: I remember the first time I saw a Man U shirt with his name on and how strange it felt to see a Spurs name on a red vest.

For what its worth I'd welcome him back with open arms as long as he fulfils the conditions above. At no time during his time at Spurs did I see him giving anything less than his best on the day. He doesn't have a sleeves rolled-up, charging about the place manner. Nor did Carrick and, for not getting his shirt dirty, the latter got a lot of undeserved stick in his first few months at Spurs from ignorant, message-board idiots who couldn't tell their arses from their elbows, let alone a well-positioned player who stays on his feet from a bad one who charges in to make up for his deficiencies. Robbie Keane was an histrionic exhibitionist who flattered to deceive and was a vastly inferior player to the phlegmatic Berba.

Anyway who gives a hoot whether we here want Berbatov back or not? First, it's whether -- given his age -- he's available at the right price and willing to take a salary cut to join Spurs. No doubt those with keen eyes for the form of a footballer will be able to detect any signs of a decline and associated risks. Secondly, it's whether Harry feels he would be make a positive contribution to squad development.

If he fulfils these conditions, he comes to us.
 

Mullers

Unknown member
Jan 4, 2006
25,914
16,413
Never. He effectively went on strike in order to leave. There is no way back for him because the club is bigger than any player.

This.

Also I don't want United's cast off's, it was embarrassing when we replaced Berbatov with Campbell.
 

HotspurFC1950

Well-Known Member
Feb 6, 2011
4,223
2,623
I have a very different take on Berbatov's departure to nearly all other Spurs supporters, because I tend to see it from Berbatov's point of view as much as from the perspective of a Tottenham fan.

I think Berbatov has quite a depressive personality. He's a melancholic by nature and that's a very unusual mindset for a footballer. Introspective sportsmen tend to get an exceptionally hard time from fans and teammates: Stan Collymore perhaps devised a few rods for his own back, but remains an extreme example of a player whose talent was undermined by his depressive tendencies; in a very different way, Graeme Le Saux is a player who got interminable and unmerited stick - mainly from his teammates - because he didn't fit the stereotypical personality and lifestyle of the footballer. I could name a few others, all different, but all with introspection and a strain of melancholy or depression in common.

In that context, I don't accept the official Spurs-fan view, which is that Berbatov "went on strike" and "disrespected the club". From all sorts of signs that were perceptible at the time, I'm pretty sure that he was in a major state of anxiety and panic in August 2008. His life-dream was being blocked and he couldn't see a way to realise it. Spurs had failed, certainly through no fault of Berbatov and his 20+ goals, to qualify for the Champions League for a second successive season and he felt that his chance was escaping.

I don't think he was in any fit state to make rational decisions at all. Now, one can criticise that as a weakness and a failing, indeed his tendency to internalise and to brood has caused problems with his demeanour ("sulking") and consistency wherever he has played, but for fans to harbour an unforgiving rage about it and to speak of "betrayal" and "dishonour" just seems to me to be a misinterpretation of what was happening at the time.

Put into that context, my views on whether we might want Berbatov back at Tottenham have solely to do with 1) whether he would be a footballing asset and 2) whether Redknapp could do any better at managing this especially odd player than Jol, Ramos and Ferguson, none of whom managed to get his trust and confidence and thus get him integrated into a squad, both as a player and as a person.

I haven't really watched him play in any detail since the day he scored 4 goals in a game early last season. Assuming he's still got two thirds of what he had when he was at Tottenham, that makes him still a better striker than anyone we have except Adebayor. More importantly, his skill-set is right. he's the right kind of striker to act as an alternative to Adebayor and that's what is missing from our squad.

But can Redknapp manage him, which means can he gain his confidence and trust and get him playing with consistency and positivity? That's a tall order, because Berbatov is such an odd, mercurial character, but the fact is that we are presently not only accommodating Adebayor and Gallas, both of whom had reputations for being troublesome employees, in our squad, but Harry has managed to jockey them into acting as cheerleaders for Spurs and for Redknapp's managerial skills. If anyone can deal with Berbatov, it has to be Redknapp.

So I reckon it would be a well-judged risk. Not that I think it's likely to arise.


No for me.

I think his sullen demeanour is not good for the team personality.

We are also much better than when he left and need to choose our signings even more carefully now so as to suit our culture.
 

Azazello

The Boney King of Nowhere
Aug 15, 2009
6,965
5,069
I'd love the player we had a few seasons back but as we saw with Keane, when his dream move fell a bit flat, we didn't get back quite the player who had left.

So, that's a no from me.
 

philp

New Member
Feb 13, 2005
29
6
Football is a profession like many others, and msot peolple would not stay at their job out of pure loyalty. If a job with better prospects and more money came along most people would jump at it, that is all Berbatov did. He was one of the most gifted players I have seen at Spurs for fifty odd years and we would be foolish not to accept him back were he available and more importantly he wanted to come. However the chances of ManU selling a class act that they control to a rival who is breathing down their necks is not going to happen, so unfortunately this is a purely hypothetical discussion.
 

Ionman34

SC Supporter
Jun 1, 2011
7,182
16,793
At the end of the day, whether we the fans would accept him back is irrelevant. One person only will decide and he was more upset about the way Berbatov acted than anyone, Levy.

Would he have him back? I reckon it would be a cold day in Hell first.
 
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