Would JD had made a difference in the final?

[Paxtonite]

I for one would go as far as to say we would have won it had he been well enough to play based on yesterday's performances. One chance would have been all he needed and he probably would have got on the end of ONE of Lennon's cut backs.

Conjecture i know, but that is how i feel. Shame he missed out.

 

[kaz Hirai]

would have been a hell of alot more offsides in the game thats for sure

 

[southgatespur40]

yes without a shadow of a doubt had palacios been able to play as well we could have beaten them with ease.

 

[yiddo_4eva]

Obviously there is no way we can predict how Defoe would have done. It is all 'what if'...BUT, I would have loved to have seen him in the starting lineup and have no doubt he would have put in 110%, after all he missed out on 2 cup finals last year.

Then again, he could have been off form as was Pav, who has been on fine form on alot of the cup games he has played in so hard to tell.

Its over now, the dream has gone, time to reshape and rebuild and keep us in the premiership. The players can then get ready for next season and aim at a trophy in which we can hope Defoe will be heavily involved in.

COYS

 

[bubble07]

if we had berbatov and carrick the game would have been in the bag but the club sold out

 

[ealingspur]

its a strange fallacy that small strikers cannot hold up play. Defoe is infinitely more skillful that Bent and Pav and so I think we would have benefitted greatly in that department. He has decent upper body strength and a much better touch than the other two strikers, thus making our play flow much easier.

He's also a scarier striket to face than both bent and pav, he's a better striker of the ball, quicker than pav, can link play better than bent. I really think he would have made a world of difference.

 

[Kendall]

It's tough to say because neither striker was given much in the way of service yesterday and were well marshalled by Evans and Ferdinand. If there's one thing Defoe is much better at than Pav and Bent it's shooting from distance and we may have benefitted from trying to test Foster from the edge of the box.

 

[EZSpur]

Pax - its a good point, would the result have been different if Defoe had played - my answer, would be yes! I think we certainly would've seen more efforts on goal and maybe even an actual goal in normal time.
However, Kendall is right, neither of our strikers actually got the service they required and Man U's defence was always tight - but, with Defoe you have a player that can make things happen for himself, so i'm sure he would've found some space and tried to make a difference.
Plus, good efforts on goal build confidence in other players, so i'm sure we would've seen more pops at goal from the likes of Modric.
But like you say, its all conjecture!

.....lets not forget one thing though, for all of us saying that having Defoe, Keane, Palacios etc would've made a difference, and we might've won, Man U were missing a heap of players too, so its all relative unfortunately.

 

[Wellspurs]

Was he there? I saw Keane etc.

 

[spursgirls]

I think we would have won if Defoe had played, or Keane for that matter. With both of them, we would have won easily!

 

[VegasII]

Defoe was there - I saw him standing with Wilson & Shimbomba & a load of Utd players when the pens were taking place. Only Keano & Woody sat with the players.

 

[gavspur]

he could well have made a difference, buthe could well not have too, you never can tell with the little fella.

Now Palacios, I think he could've made a difference - although i think that was Zokora's best game for us, and JJ was way more forcefull in what he was doing (actually i think Palacios' game has rubbed off on JJ, for the good) - I still think Palacios would have made a difference.. He's left better or fitter players than Gibs or Scholes scratching their heads this year.. Lampard and Carrick to name a couple.

 

[ginol@14]

of course he would
the guy is a class player , lethal finisher and since he came back he looks like a different player to the one we sold , he actually seems to play for the team instead of just himself !
we would of won if he played , im convinced of that ... shame for him , thats 3 finals in 2 years he has missed

 

[freeeki]

The only difference it would have made is that he would have taken one of the early penalties and probably bagged it.

There weren't really many opportunities missed by Bent or Pav that I'm certain JD would have scored - let's not forget he rarely scores when its matters ;-)

 

[DC_Boy]

definitely think JD could have swung it for us- so harsh on him and us that he missed out on yet another final

and for sure wilson would have made a difference too

of course Berbs could have swung it for them equally (so glad he didn't play on the winning side against us)

 

[Peters]

of course he would
the guy is a class player , lethal finisher and since he came back he looks like a different player to the one we sold , he actually seems to play for the team instead of just himself !
we would of won if he played , im convinced of that ... shame for him , thats 3 finals in 2 years he has missed

.

Defoe was unfortunate that he wasn't selected for the World Cup finals in 2006. Then he missed 3 club finals!

It is quite unbelievable that Defoe should be such a "nearly" man.

 

[worcestersauce]

if we had berbatov and carrick the game would have been in the bag but the club sold out

Time to drop the Carrick nonsense now, his contract would have been finished by now anyway so he would be at Utd on a free.

 

[NickHSpurs]

I'm not sure if he would have won it for us but he certainly would have posed a threat for the simple reason he gets a shot in when he gets any sort of sight on goal. You rarely see Bent getting himself half a yard outside the box and getting a shot in, we seemed to have a lot of the ball around the 18 yard box without anyone having a go.

 

[MattyP]

Mr Shift and shoot could have made a difference yes, as despite Foster getting MOTM he only had a couple of saves to make before the penalty shoot out.

But Berba would have made a difference if he had started for them.

 

[Paxtonite]

I know there have been references in this thread about whether if any of our other players had played that they would have made a difference, but i purposely focused on Defoe because he was actually eligible to play. Cup tied players or even players we sold are not even worth focusing on.

I just felt that with Defoe being the kind of player that can create a chance for himself, has an eye for goal and a turn of pace, that it may just have troubled Utd enough.

Oh well. There's always next year!