Kenny Dalglish Won't Be Delivering the Module: English Premiership 2011-12

i dunno xxxxps, we lose to a lot of lesser resourced teams, seems as worthy of mild complaint as anything else in sporting terms tbh

I get where ithappens is coming from - Redknapp was, I think, pretending to be less well equipped than he actually was in defensive midfield yesterday in order to try and press the case for the Parker transfer. I don't think we're the best club in the world when it comes to managing our fringe players - we seem to let them get into a psychological rut so when they do play they either have their heads down or run around like headless chickens trying too hard to impress.

But if you're not at risk of getting relegated or likely to win something then it's easy to be philosophical. Charlton fans were about as level-headed as any fans I can remember during their decade or so in midtable. When you can see your chance for something better slipping away then that's the point you start slating your players.

Yeah, as I understand it, Spurs' problem is that a load of money has been spent on wages and fees for fringe players who would be good enough for most PL first teams, but aren't quite good enough for a team with Spurs' aspirations and who therefore don't get a load of first team football. Would have been better to try to attract fewer but better players. But that's Arry's fault for stockpiling, rather than Levy's for not splashing out.

arry's, jol's, ramos's, etc

Don't know any spurs fan that wouldn't rather see youth players on the bench than hutton, crouch, jenas or bentley. If levy announced free transfer availability for these guys in the morning it would be good news. Failure to address the problems at centre forward and a partner for dawson have been ongoing and obvious.

But yeah it's been good times lately, we've got a left winger and decent options at defensive midfield, when fit, so that's something y'know

Yeah in fairness most of those signings predate Harry.

Redknapp on Crouch to Stoke rumours
as though blaming Levy for secretly trying to sell him
to Stoke

don't feel Redknapp has been behaving very well, somehow, all in all

but I do actually think Parker would be good

I feel this maybe will be a gripe you start hearing from Liverpool fans soon as well, when a title challenge starts to look more realistic, given it's the same dude masterminding transfer policy. Are Carroll and Henderson and whoever good enough to sustain a title challenge?

Although as I keep saying time and time again it's not just the players, they need to be handled properly and managed and developed well. How many managers would have looked at Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverly last season and seen them as starters in a team challenging for the title? More to the point, how many managers would be able to get them to the point where they looked like they belonged there - same goes for Ashley Young, who's now surely an England starter where he couldn't even get in the last World Cup squad?

i think redknapp would want wages docked and a serious warning for yesterday's midfield

And his attempted undermining of levy re: modric staying has been clumsy, embarrassing and unhelpful.

I think I'm maybe selling Dalglish a bit short in that last post - he may well be a manager capable of doing that.

Also did Crouch save Redknapp's dog's life or something?

>>> These will be a frantic last few days of the transfer window at White Hart Lane, with Scott Parker and Craig Bellamy likely to join Adebayor at Spurs. Lassana Diarra and Gary Cahill could also still arrive from Real Madrid and Bolton respectively with steel required. "The place needs a little bit of a lift now, and I've told that to the chairman," said Harry Redknapp. "I feel we have to freshen the place up a bit. We'll get one or two more in." <<<

(Guardian)

I wonder how many happy players there are at Spurs right now? Friedel, Dawson, the fullbacks, maybe the wingers, otherwise heads are being fucked with.

that quotation shows you some of what's wrong

OK Parker is fine. Maybe Diarra and Cahill are too.

But it is insane to spend 2 years trying to sell Robbie Keane, then go out on the last day and sign ... Craig Bellamy.

And you should not make transfer policy on the basis of 'needing a lift'; and you should not talk about 'getting one or two more in' -- it sounds like retail therapy.

You should do what Tottenham have actually done quite a bit of in the past: target talented young players (like Bale, Lennon, Dawson) as part of a squad-building strategy. And you shouldn't do this on the last day of the window!

someone (D-mac or whoever) posted a stat a few months ago saying that Friedel's form had gone, he was a liability. I have always believed it, and suspect this is not a good signing.

the problem is in getting the right players out, too. If crouch wasn't there then we'd have to pick a striker with discernible output.

When all are fit (leaving king out, to be fair about it) it really is just one cb and one cf slot needs solving, and adebayor ought to sort the latter.

I think if we have a functioning target man it will transform our entire attacking 5 and make it a lot easier to retain possession too. That hope, and the fact that we've only played the coldest type of brute brilliance so far, is keeping me from my typical kneejerk reaction. Even ekotto has proven matt's faith in him justified, sandro is out at the minute but looks great, lennon's awful now and bale's looking slack but that's wingers for you. Things are ok tbh.

Pinefox surely even you are not persisting with the notion that Robbie Keane is still a good player? Bellamy was pretty unstoppable in his last season with Man City, but is mad inconsistent and maybe blunted by a season in the Championship. I reckon he's more likely to go to Liverpool than Spurs.

Friedel is a stopgap signing I think. Looks like Gomes will be gone soon and we'll hopefully get a season with fewer howlers in goal.

Why is Palacios going to Stoke?

i had thought friedel a strange signing, but his first two performances that i've seen have been quite good- only 8 conceded yes, but no howlers. I think Gomes is shot, gone, finished. Love him, and he'll never be a robinson, but you can't have faith in the player that let in those goals at the times he did last year.

I feel this maybe will be a gripe you start hearing from Liverpool fans soon as well, when a title challenge starts to look more realistic, given it's the same dude masterminding transfer policy. Are Carroll and Henderson and whoever good enough to sustain a title challenge?

henderson had a great game at the weekend. plus we do have several other players. think it's a bit premature to be saying we can't win the league with players we haven't bought yet in windows that haven't opened yet when we're still focussing on getting into the top four.

palacios is going to stoke because he's been really very bad for over a year, and sandro does his job much better.

Hopefully he recovers form - he was great for us in our season finishing fourth

Yeah was gonna say for a time I thought Palacios was looking good. Ah well.

Keane is one of those issues on which I historically disagree with others - and will never agree - but fwiw:

I think he was a great player. HR re-signed him, for £11m or whatever, so should have used him properly thereafter. Instead he soon dropped him and farmed him out whenever possible. It has greatly frustrated me that people say eg 'Keane wasn't good for Spurs last season' etc - he only played for us about twice. It was all a self-fulfilling judgement on HR's part. The less he played, not only the less time he had on the pitch to do anything, but the less fit he seemed to get - so when he went to West Ham he soon broke down. It's all very sad.

In the state he's in NOW, he might well not be good enough for a top PL club. But then, we don't look much like a top PL club at the moment. And Crouch / Bellamy up front would look more worthy of Stoke, Bolton or whatever.

I wish Robbie Keane very well on his US adventure. I hope it's a great fun coda to a good career.

Bentley is more of an anomaly: still on the books, and even the bench? - but can he have any real future at the club, having been floating around doing nothing for so long? And then who will buy him?

we do disagree on keane after his return, pf.

Defoe looked very bright, back to his old self almost, in his cameo yesterday. That would be a welcome boost- would certainly make signing bellamy a redundancy.

Parker is a very good player, but for the life of me i can't see who he'd replace in our current centre midfield that makes him a priority signing. And he's old, expensive and injury-prone.

But most people think Parker was very good indeed last season, in a poor team - surely he could still do a good job?

let's agree that Defoe ought to make Bellamy redundant. but Bellamy, for goodness' sake - we shouldn't even be talking about that.

parker for modric
Parker for sandro
Parker for jenas

Only if we're getting rid of modric, really, and if that's the plan i'll none of it

I think bellamy/parker are on the same par as prospective signings, adding to a bloated squad without really doing anything much for the first team

What think you of krancjar?

you don't think Parker is better than Jenas?
I thought everyone thought Jenas rubbish!

Krancjar is a talented player who scores good goals sometimes, but doesn't seem to have shone when given a chance in these first few games - from what I've seen. But he really is better than most other players. Again I think he's a victim of HR's policy of buying players for the sake of it, then not using them, so they have to be 'moved on'. It doesn't make much sense.

jenas was an outlier!

We're ignoring pienaar, huddlestone, even say livermore krancjar and vdv aa options in central midfield before one reluctantly gets to jenas

Pienaar was another mad signing
who will one day appear to
'need to be moved on'
having done virtually nothing

when he could have been making Evertonians happy.

agreed

Tho he was a better option than modric or krancjar yesterday.

Pienaar isn't really a central midfielder. When we have Bale on the left, he's potentially a better option than Lennon on the right, as he can actually cross the ball well, but I doubt he'll get much run in the team and yeah seems an insane signing.

Robbie Keane = great player once, one of my favourites, has been awful at finishing since his Liverpool stint. His time at West Ham confirmed that for me. Actually, I think we only signed him because Defoe got injured so soon after his return - Redknapp's "shit, I've got an injury, better buy another player" transfer policy has been part of the problem. See also Kranjcar for Modric.

Parker would be a first name on the teamsheet all season kinda player though, possibly to the detriment of Sandro's development.

think it's a bit premature to be saying we can't win the league with players we haven't bought yet in windows that haven't opened yet when we're still focussing on getting into the top four

In fairness I did say I was being harsh on Dalglish there. Wouldn't trust Comolli though.

The other thing with Spurs is that in the top four season, we played a largely settled XI every week, back four injuries permitting, but everyone knew what the best eleven and best formation was - that's no longer the case and Redknapp hasn't got anywhere near sorting that in almost a year.

pienaar is not a bad option at cm, though, and certainly better there than krancjar and modric played together.

I'm pretty close to putting rm as a problem spot, lennon has been infuriating these past few games and there's no natural cover except that one guy

Although as I keep saying time and time again it's not just the players, they need to be handled properly and managed and developed well. How many managers would have looked at Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverly last season and seen them as starters in a team challenging for the title?

― Matt DC, Monday, 29 August 2011 12:52 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

bears reminding that bale's emergence came more through luck than judgement, dawson's too probably. but this is the thing with redknapp, players either "get good" or "get bad" depending on circumstance and their own lone personal journeys of being determined, disheartened, bored, whatever. never any sense of managerial process.

Is Gomes likely to go? Playing him against Hearts would surely limit the chances to sell him on to a club still in Europe.

didn't comolli buy the entire current spurs team? i'd have said spurs getting into the CL was a pretty good endorsement of him.

not to sound overly cliche english footballer but for all his deficiencies parker's determination ought to lend focus to the team imo. deluxe livermore basically.

rm is sorted, lennon is the problem imo and i did say he shouldve been sold while his stock was high. either corluka/walker or walker/pienaar (or livermore?) would be fine.

xp He also bought a huge amount of overpriced junk, though. £9m on Hutton, £17m on Bentley, etc. He was always very hit-and-miss, as i suspect he will be at Liverpool.

townsend ftw

Srsly, i do want to see a lot more of the youths that have been intermittently mentioned the last couple of years. UEFA outings should give us that much at least

don't think anyone would have predicted how shit bentley became....he'd had a great season at spurs. either way i think his junk is way offset when you see the players he gave that team.

I think Parker is overrated, myself. He was the best thing in a very lacklustre West Ham team last season, but I went to see them a few times and couldn't quite see why he was getting the rave notices. He looked like he cared in a team of apathetics, but that's not enough on its own. His passing was often not the best - it was the box-to-boxness that made him stand out, but that's not the crucial thing in a team that wants to play a quick passing game. Doesn't surprise me that no one's come in for him at the reputed £8m - for a 29yo who'll want four years on big wages, with no prior record of tearing up trees.

wouldnt tempt fate if i were you, just in case spurs dont seal the deal

bentley and bent were ok, not great value, at approx 16m each, but the wages were joke figures. We did well to get bent sold, we'll never shift bentley at his current level. Loan out to showcase him was a solid idea but he wasn't great iirc

meant to say at blackburn up thread...before spurs signed him i meant.

xpost Would take him at Loftus Road, but out ambitions are lower than Spurs'. Not sure we need him now we've got Mad Joey though.

Giovani dos Santos Ramírez[1] (born 11 May 1989) is a Mexican footballer who currently plays as an attacking midfielder for English Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur.

Use him! Could play in VDV's position, on the right instead of Lennon ... Or sell him already, so I can watch him somewhere.

xp did you see that paul smudge from the mirror tweeting about us being in for bellamy btw? just imagine.

      
                        pav
  dos santos
Krancjar                bentley
         thudd   pienaar

Xpost Yeah, I saw that. Bollocks, I'm sure. He seems to be revered by QPR fans for not getting the FA hearing as wrong as a load of other pundits, but when I worked in the football press I didn't have a high opinion of him. Smudge, not Bellamy.

xposts. Didn't realise dos Santos is still actually at Spurs. Thought his loan to Santander had become permanent weeks ago.