We don't want him stopping anything please.Although it would be quite funny seeing him showered with a load of condoms I suppose!
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Match Tottenham Hotspur v Woolwich Scum (15th Jan - 4.30pm)
- Thread starter thinktank
- Start date
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Couldn’t agree more anyone who disagrees doesn’t know much about what good football is!
In almost 7 years (205 games) Xhaka's only had 4 red cards, but 55 yellows (he knows when to foul and when to stop). He's committed almost 300 fouls. His decision making is excellent. He's a cynical, dirty midfielder, who knows exactly what he's doing.
I said in my post that I want him to be taken out of his comfort zone and duped into being the clown-shoe you think he is. He's not a clown-shoe - I really wish he was. He is actually a first class cunt.
I guess the stats speak kinder than the memories that endure, but I still don't have the impression of him being a 'calculated' kind of player.
Hope we rattle the fuck out of him tomorrow.
Absolutely. I want him to be sent off in the first half.
Used ones.Although it would be quite funny seeing him showered with a load of condoms I suppose!
Well why are people posting want him sent off in first half? Surely if we beat them 11 b 11 leggo man can’t blame anyone?
If we play our usual sit low passive shot without laying a glove on them gonna be posed off. Ffs if your gonna lose go down ficking figjting. I want us to pummel them with shots, crosses, tackles, kitchen sink, etc. we are at home , need to win no more villa type performances . Conte cannot overseas those performances again.
He'll find someone or something to blame if they lose, he always does. But, it's never him.
It's going to take a much better performance than almost all season because we have been pretty poor even in the wins bar a few.
Couldn't give a fuck about Legoman......
If they get a red, I will laugh and hope we go on to humiliate them.
Lest not forget Emerson got screwed by a soft-ass red that allowed the floodgates to open for them in the away game.
I know beneath all this is your boring anti-Conte schtick, but I couldn't give a shit about details so long as we beat them tomorrow.
Well true as long as bear them I suppose and I’ll take that but let’s hope conte schools Lego man.
Unlike last time, no Holding, Elneny or Cedric in the line up. Its going to be so tough.
I just pray we dont fall into this fallacy of trying to 'play on the counter'.
Its so maddening we even have this discussion when we are the home team. We shouldnt accept being dominated by them at our own ground.
I just pray we dont fall into this fallacy of trying to 'play on the counter'.
Its so maddening we even have this discussion when we are the home team. We shouldnt accept being dominated by them at our own ground.
We have to face facts; we have to weather an early 'storm' in both halves...... It's a fundamental pattern in the way they play.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-tottenham-have-fewer-young-stars-than-Woolwich-f22lknt2g
When Harry Kane broke through at Tottenham Hotspur in 2014, they had the youngest squad in the Premier League and had gained a reputation as a club where fresh-faced players would be given a pathway to the first team.
Nearly a decade on and Spurs supporters may reasonably ask where the next Kane is coming from. Tomorrow’s derby against a youthful, resurgent Woolwich will be a clear reminder of how far the club have fallen when it comes to nurturing their own talent.
Woolwich’s matchday squad for the derby is likely to include Bukayo Saka, 21, Emile Smith Rowe, 22, and Eddie Nketiah, 23, all of whom graduated from the club’s Hale End academy. Gabriel Martinelli, the Brazil forward, joined at 18 and, like Saka, has become an established international and appeared at the World Cup.
Contrast this with Tottenham, where no one has made a similar impact of late. Oliver Skipp, 22, has made three starts in the league this season, having been hindered by injury, while Japhet Tanganga, 23, has been used sporadically since his promising debut against Liverpool three years ago.
The rival clubs, five miles apart, have been on different paths. Over the past four Premier League seasons, Woolwich have given five times more minutes to players aged 21 or under than Tottenham. Mikel Arteta, appointed as a rookie manager in December 2019, was fortunate to inherit a good crop of academy players but has made it his mission to use them. “It is part of the project and it is part of our DNA,” Arteta has said. “Our academy players have to have opportunities in this club and we want to give them opportunities.”
Until now, Woolwich have not been serious title contenders, which gave Arteta more licence to promote youth. During the past four years, Spurs have appointed three head coaches in José Mourinho, Nuno Espírito Santo and Antonio Conte who wanted to work with established players rather than emerging talents.
Dilan Markanday was rated by coaches but the winger joined Blackburn Rovers a year ago, frustrated by one senior substitute appearance. Luis Binks, who joined Spurs aged six, rejected a professional deal and joined Montreal Impact in 2020 after failing to receive assurances from Mourinho that he would get game time. Noni Madueke, an attacking midfielder and England Under-21 international, left for PSV Eindhoven in 2019.
A number of prospects such as Madueke, now at PSV, have left Spurs in recent years
GEERT VAN ERVEN/GETTY IMAGES
Mourinho did hand debuts to Alfie Devine and Dane Scarlett in 2021, then both 16, but critics argued that he was simply box-ticking. Devine became Tottenham’s youngest player, at 16 years and 163 days, when he came on against non-League Marine in the FA Cup but the attacking midfielder waited two years for another go as a last-minute substitute in a 1-0 win over Portsmouth in the same competition last Saturday.
Scarlett played a handful of times and Tottenham have high hopes for the forward, who has scored five times on loan at Portsmouth this season. Troy Parrott, 20, got some game time under Mourinho but his attitude and application were questioned in the under-23 side. In his four loan moves the forward has scored 14 goals, two fewer than Kane managed in the same number of spells away from the club between 2011 and 2013.
Kane and others such as Nabil Bentaleb got their big break when thrown into the side by Tim Sherwood and Les Ferdinand. Mauricio Pochettino, who succeeded Sherwood in 2014, picked Bentaleb and Andros Townsend prominently in his first season. He later became more conservative in his selections although he used six academy players in a 5-0 win over Gillingham in the League Cup in 2016. Of those players, only Harry Winks is still contracted to the club. His career has nosedived and he is yet to make an appearance on loan at Sampdoria where he has struggled with injury.
Marcus Edwards made his one and only Tottenham appearance that night too. Pochettino came to regret comparing Edwards to Lionel Messi and perhaps the attacking midfielder’s recent progress at Sporting Lisbon — where he impressed in both matches against his old club in the Champions League this season — suggests a lack of patience on all sides when he left.
Edwards left Spurs in 2019 and is now impressing at Sporting
CARLOS RODRIGUES/GETTY IMAGES
Pochettino’s problem was that as expectations grew, he became under more pressure to sign established stars. He did not persevere with the likes of Kyle Walker-Peters, who made 12 league appearances in three seasons and was sold by Mourinho to Southampton in 2019. He has kicked on since. and, ironically, Tottenham’s priority for this transfer window is a right wingback — the position he most regularly plays. One target, Sporting’s Pedro Porro, has a £36.7 million release clause.
It all means that while Spurs have the fourth-oldest squad in the Premier League, Woolwich’s has been the youngest over the past two seasons. Arteta’s plan has been to sign players aged 24 or under who can be developed, having had his fingers burnt when he signed a 32-year-old Willian at the end of his first season.
Arteta has reaped the rewards of the work in the academy that began with Liam Brady in 1996, who helped develop English players in Ashley Cole, Kieran Gibbs and Jack Wilshere. For Arsène Wenger, the academy became more of a finishing school for youngsters from overseas, including Cesc Fàbregas, Wojciech Szczesny and Nicklas Bendtner.
Woolwich replaced Brady with Andries Jonker in 2014, to try to close the gap on the big-spending academies of Chelsea and Manchester City, who have dominated youth football in the past decade. Jonker’s philosophy jarred with some coaches and he was replaced by Per Mertesacker in 2017.
In September, Ethan Nwaneri became Woolwich’s youngest player in top-flight history when he made his debut aged only 15 years and 181 days. The club also have high hopes for Charlie Patino, the 19-year-old midfielder on loan at Blackpool.
Nwaneri became the Premier League’s youngest-ever player at 15 years and 181 days when he came on for Woolwich against Brentford in September
STUART MACFARLANE/GETTY IMAGES
Chelsea have shown that having a good academy can boost transfer coffers. In 2021 alone they generated £90 million from the sale of players they developed, which effectively paid for Romelu Lukaku, who cost £97.5 million from Inter Milan.
Woolwich and Tottenham cannot match that. Since 2016, Woolwich have sold Alex Iwobi, Emiliano Martínez and Joe Willock for a combined £70 million and raised another £40 million from Szczesny, Francis Coquelin, Gibbs, Krystian Bielik and Chuba Akpom. In the same period, Tottenham have made £55 million from sales of Bentaleb, Ryan Mason, Walker-Peters, Alex Pritchard and Cameron Carter-Vickers. One obvious benefit of giving young players minutes in the Premier League is that, if they perform well, it increases their value.
Tottenham have been competitive at under-18 level in recent seasons but the under-21 side are bottom of Premier League 2 Division One. They have hopes for Jamie Donley, 18, a forward from Northern Ireland who has been at the club since the age of eight. Last summer they signed Will Lankshear, a promising 17-year-old forward from Sheffield United, who, like Kane, had previously been released by Woolwich.
Will they break through and allow the fans to claim them as one of their own? That depends on whether Tottenham find a coach to trust them.
