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Huddlestone

arthurgrimsdell

Well-Known Member
Feb 16, 2004
843
826
I am really quite stunned at some of the anti Steed and Zok posts I read. :eek:mg: Golden balls Huddlestone had one of the worst matches I have EVER seen in a spurs shirt on Sunday, he is not athletic, mobile or fit enough for the Premiership (which the new coach will hopefully be able to change) and it is reaching the point in his career when he needs to start producing the goods more consistently or he will end up discarded.

Zokora has been much improved this year, for anyone to suggest he puts Huddlestone under pressure is ridiculous as his passing success rate is MUCH superior and he covers far more ground. He has obviously never been given the strict role that many fans wish he had been or seem to believe he has been and as such he has never played that kind of role. When he plays with Jenas and Hudd they tend to cover for each other when one goes forward. It may not be the most popular system on this board but that is how it has been.

Malbranque has been our best midfielder this season, despite appalling stamina and he showed in the first half that even when playing out of position he will be creative and link with the front two. It is painfully obvious he is a central midfielder and should be feeding the strikers much as it is painfully obvious that Lennon should be on the right so it is a bit much to write him off.

I struggle to see what Kaboul and Zokora get the stick they do when Dawson and Huddlestone have not been any better, in my opinion much worse, this season. I can't help but think it is because of the Comolli link that these players get a hard time. :shrug:
I agree with your comments on Malbranque. In my view he has generally played well this season, the Fulham game being a notable exception, and I suspect his best position would indeed be in central midfield.
I also think that Zokora has improved this season. But he still has a way to go in my view. Superficially his passing my appear to be good, because generally it reaches its target, but it is rarely anything other than lateral, and more often than not puts the recipient into trouble because he doesn't judge the pace of his passing at all well. So some of his passes come up short so the recipient has to fight off an interceptor, and some of his passes reach their target having been hit too hard in the general direction of the recipient, needing them to be controlled, thus making his involvement in one-touch movements very rare. However, it is generally the recipient who is blamed by the crowd when this happens, be that Jenas, Huddlestone, Lennon, Tainio or Malbranque. Also, though Zokora does get through some good work, his running is often reminiscent of Steffen freund's play, running alongside the game rather than taking part. He also has the habit, which admittedly he is beginning to tone down, of flicking the ball up when he receives it, thus slowing down the team's momentum while he then re-controls the ball, goes five yards in one direction and then turns 180 degrees and moves off in the opposite direction.
With regard to Kaboul, I can't understand why you struggle to see why he gets so much stick. He is obviously very talented, with a good first touch. But, apart from the Blackburn game, when it seemed to me he reacted well to specific instructions, he invariably tries to dribble his way out of defence, and is often caught by an opponent and thereby puts the team under pressure. Similarly, he gambles with regard to his positioning, in order to try intercept rather than cut off the route to goal. Ledley King had these same faults earlier in his career, and it was when he realised that there are times when you just clear your lines, that he became the class act he is now.
With regard to Huddlestone, we'll just have to agree to disagree, though you might ask yourself why he more often than not had two or three men closing him down every time he received the ball against Blackburn. I don't doubt your answer will be it's because he's so slow, but if that were the case, one would do. In my view, the reason was that Blackburn regarded him as someone they could not allow any time on the ball to. Notice they didn't bother with Zokora.
 

muffwah

Active Member
Feb 8, 2007
585
215
I agree with your comments on Malbranque. In my view he has generally played well this season, the Fulham game being a notable exception, and I suspect his best position would indeed be in central midfield.

I also think that Zokora has improved this season. But he still has a way to go in my view. Superficially his passing my appear to be good, because generally it reaches its target, but it is rarely anything other than lateral, and more often than not puts the recipient into trouble because he doesn't judge the pace of his passing at all well. So some of his passes come up short so the recipient has to fight off an interceptor, and some of his passes reach their target having been hit too hard in the general direction of the recipient, needing them to be controlled, thus making his involvement in one-touch movements very rare. However, it is generally the recipient who is blamed by the crowd when this happens, be that Jenas, Huddlestone, Lennon, Tainio or Malbranque. Also, though Zokora does get through some good work, his running is often reminiscent of Steffen freund's play, running alongside the game rather than taking part. He also has the habit, which admittedly he is beginning to tone down, of flicking the ball up when he receives it, thus slowing down the team's momentum while he then re-controls the ball, goes five yards in one direction and then turns 180 degrees and moves off in the opposite direction.

With regard to Kaboul, I can't understand why you struggle to see why he gets so much stick. He is obviously very talented, with a good first touch. But, apart from the Blackburn game, when it seemed to me he reacted well to specific instructions, he invariably tries to dribble his way out of defence, and is often caught by an opponent and thereby puts the team under pressure. Similarly, he gambles with regard to his positioning, in order to try intercept rather than cut off the route to goal. Ledley King had these same faults earlier in his career, and it was when he realised that there are times when you just clear your lines, that he became the class act he is now.

With regard to Huddlestone, we'll just have to agree to disagree, though you might ask yourself why he more often than not had two or three men closing him down every time he received the ball against Blackburn. I don't doubt your answer will be it's because he's so slow, but if that were the case, one would do. In my view, the reason was that Blackburn regarded him as someone they could not allow any time on the ball to. Notice they didn't bother with Zokora.


I think DZ is clearly suited to a Makelele role, he shouldn't be moving forward as much as he does, he should be ball winning and playing it sideways. I am not sure I remember him playing constant bad balls, I think if he was the other players would be giving him a very hard time. He is someone with great potential if used correctly and I am unsure why he gets slated like he does, use him properly and he will prove himself in my opinion. I am not sure what the problem with him turning is?

With Kaboul we have a clearly talented centre back, better on the ball and faster than Dawson, a great tackler and someone who will I am sure be a great servant to the club. He does like to run forward (not a terrible problem if you have a good DM who will drop in and cover) and I think this should be reined in a bit certainly until we are more stable but I have not seen him be responsible for 4 or 5 goals conceded like Dawson has been in the last 6 matches, so I fail to see why he is getting a worse press. I know who I think will turn out the better footballer.

As for the slug Hudd I would imagine the reason he had two or three people on him is that he likes to take a touch, pause and launch a hollywood ball forwards, so given his lack of mobility this would be his major threat, should he ever find his target (anyone who saw the guardian diagrams before the liverpool match will be aware that this is not a regular occurrence) so given the fact he is not going to ghost past everyone they probably want to prevent the long balls.
 

montylynch

Fandabeedozee
Jun 23, 2005
5,817
3,988
Very good read and some very good posts.

What we've got to remember is that the guy is still young, 20, still a kid in most peoples eyes. He was spotted at a very young age, touted by some top pros as a big star for the future, brought to a very big club and becasue of the hype surrounding him was expected to pull up trees from the off. Very rarely do you get a young kid who can do it a premiership level straight away.

There's no doubt he has potential, bags of it IMO, but it's a case of harnessing it. Making him confident, lets not forget we are in the bottom three and confidence is low. When you're that age you must be scared witless of making mistakes which sometimes leads to him trying too hard. It's up to the more experienced players to gee him up, to give him that confidence, say to him, you play the ball and i'll do my hardest to get on the end of it. If I don't, don't worry, try again, you don't need the experienced players flailing their arms and having a go at him when it doesn't come off. You're then taking away the most important part of his game.

Last year for the most part i thought he was awesome but that's because the team had confidence, bags of it, teams never looked forward to playing us. This year, it's different, teams can't wait to play us as they see us as easy pickings. They think, let Spurs play for 80-85 minutes then we'll put the pressure on and we'll score.

Hudd must be given more time and not be written off, lets face it, not all our superstars ripped up trees all the time. Gazza, Hoddle, Klinsmann, Ginola all had bad games from time to time. I've no doubt he'll come good and be a valuable player at spurs, he just needs the miles and the confidence and everything will click.

Don't forget at the moment we're struggling for points, right now i'd take us sending out a team not to get beaten, followed by us sending out a team to win ugly then get a good run going then the confidence we had last year will come back.
 

arthurgrimsdell

Well-Known Member
Feb 16, 2004
843
826
I think DZ is clearly suited to a Makelele role, he shouldn't be moving forward as much as he does, he should be ball winning and playing it sideways. I am not sure I remember him playing constant bad balls, I think if he was the other players would be giving him a very hard time. He is someone with great potential if used correctly and I am unsure why he gets slated like he does, use him properly and he will prove himself in my opinion. I am not sure what the problem with him turning is?

With Kaboul we have a clearly talented centre back, better on the ball and faster than Dawson, a great tackler and someone who will I am sure be a great servant to the club. He does like to run forward (not a terrible problem if you have a good DM who will drop in and cover) and I think this should be reined in a bit certainly until we are more stable but I have not seen him be responsible for 4 or 5 goals conceded like Dawson has been in the last 6 matches, so I fail to see why he is getting a worse press. I know who I think will turn out the better footballer.

As for the slug Hudd I would imagine the reason he had two or three people on him is that he likes to take a touch, pause and launch a hollywood ball forwards, so given his lack of mobility this would be his major threat, should he ever find his target (anyone who saw the guardian diagrams before the liverpool match will be aware that this is not a regular occurrence) so given the fact he is not going to ghost past everyone they probably want to prevent the long balls.
Zokora may end up as a good DM, but there are a lot of people around who think that is what we are lacking at the moment, so one would have thought the job was his for the taking. For my part, I have seen little evidence to date that he has the discipline for such a role.
With regard to Kaboul, I think he should be debated on his own merits. I agree with you that Dawson has been generally poor this season. In fact, from what I've seen, I don't think that he plays particularly well, unless he has Ledley King alongside him. But that should not used to excuse Kaboul's deficiencies.
With regard to Huddlestone, your criticism that he likes to take a touch is one I can't agree with. In fact what he likes to do is immediately move the ball on. It is only when he either receives a poor pass or is immediately closed down that he has to take a touch. Imagining is all very well, but is not consistent with what actually happened. With regard to "Hollywood" balls, I regard his passing as probing, generally attacking, always positive, which along with one-touch moves, which he is much better at being involved in than, say, Zokora, as exactly what the team needs. Against Blackburn, some of his passing wasn't coming off. Sometimes the pass was overhit. Sometimes the player running off the ball stopped when they could have run on. Sometimes there was a breakdown in communication, where the receiver didn't anticipate, sometimes Huddlestone misjudged the run. But he was always looking to break down Blackburn's well-organised mass defence, and in my view was by far our best chance of doing so, though Keane also put through some astute passes. Fans' frustration that it wasn't coming off led in my view to a massive over-reaction against Huddlestone, which he dealt with with great courage, by continuing to probe. I don't read the Guardian so did not see any diagrams, but you appear to me to have defeated your own argument, by at one and the same time suggesting his passing doesn't reach its target, and giving as the reason for two or three opponents trying to stop him, as trying to cut out those same passes. Your comment that he is not going to ghost past opponents ignores the fact that he did so on a number of occasions when closed down by two or three opponents.
Your sarcastic use of the word "ghosting" and calling him a "slug" add nothing to your argument. Indeed it detracts from your other more thoughtful comments.
 

gregga

Well-Known Member
Aug 22, 2005
2,281
1,312
I think that it would be incredibly unfair to wirte hudd off at this stage of his career.

However, I don't think he's currently good enough for the premiership and would much rather see tainio in his place in the middle. Keep the hudd back for uefa/cup games.
 

littleAaronlennon

New Member
Feb 18, 2007
262
0
Dam it must be just me, but i really don't think Malbranque is a class player at all. Indeed quite the opposite i would chew Fulham's right hand off for him to go back to them he just clumsly and careless his passing range probaley happens to be his only decent trait. Why on earth can't people see this against Sevilla in last season's Uefa cup tie at the Lane he effectivley cost us the tie with his beyond ridiculous own goal, and then this season against Arsenal his pointless and stupid crass challenge on Flamini who was going nowhere cost us the equalizer please piss off with Jenas.
 
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