robbiesavagehasbreasts
dinkin' flicka!
- May 23, 2007
- 2,689
- 69
On New Year's Day we lost against Aston Villa 1-2, and straight after the game Gus Poyet was interviewed and he seemed to be generally angry and disappointed with our defense and promised "big changes"
I, for one, was expecting some changes in this January window but I never expected this many, both in personnel and in the way we play. Ramos has completely changed our defense in one month. Let's have a look.
1) To begin with Ramos took Paul Robinson out of the team and put Radek Cerny into the team. This he did in one of our biggest game of the season, against Ar5ena1 in the Carling Cup semi-final.
2) We stopped man-marking when defending set-pieces and instead we play zonal marking.
3) We bought three new defenders (four with Gunter but he was bought in December): Jonathan Woodgate, Gilberto and Alan Hutton.
4) Ramos took Tom Huddlestone, a deep-lying midfielder, considered too slow, and made him into a damn good centre-back.
5) We kept Pascal Chimbonda, Michael Dawson and Young Pyo-Lee. To expand on this, Woody, Gilberto and Hutton were not bought to replace these players (though some of them may leave next summer) as Tottenham players. They may have been bought to replace them in the starting line-up, but what we were doing, was buying quality and in the same time getting rid of fringe players.We bought Woodgate and loaned Anthony Gardner out. We bought Alan Hutton and loaned Paul Stalteri out. And I really liked that. We kept all our best defenders and bought defenders that can be considered better than we had before. That's how it should be done. Liverpool, for an example, seem to always buy squad players. They are not buying players that will upgrade their starting 11, but players that will be fourth striker, back-up CB's, etc. And until Rafa stops doing that they will continue to fight for fourth place.
***
I doubt anyone can argue with any of these decisions. Cerny has done brilliantly, we've been defending better at set-pieces (Tevez goal aside!
), the new signings look good (especially Woodgate), Huddlestone has looked composed and good in his new positon, and it's good to have players like Chimbonda (can play anywhere in defense), Lee (good back-up, always does well when playing) and Dawson (good back-up for King, Woodgate and Tha Hudd, even though he is sometimes a donkey) in the squad.
Since we lost to Aston Villa we've conceded 10 goals in 10 games and kept four clean sheets as well. That's pretty impressive, considering our record last season and the way we were defending before Christmas. January has seen some big changes and that's what I like about Ramos. He makes big changes, no matter how difficult they are (Jol would've never dropped Robinson) and he seems to be improving our team with every game we play!
p.s: I apologise if words are misspelled but english is not my first language.
I, for one, was expecting some changes in this January window but I never expected this many, both in personnel and in the way we play. Ramos has completely changed our defense in one month. Let's have a look.
1) To begin with Ramos took Paul Robinson out of the team and put Radek Cerny into the team. This he did in one of our biggest game of the season, against Ar5ena1 in the Carling Cup semi-final.
2) We stopped man-marking when defending set-pieces and instead we play zonal marking.
3) We bought three new defenders (four with Gunter but he was bought in December): Jonathan Woodgate, Gilberto and Alan Hutton.
4) Ramos took Tom Huddlestone, a deep-lying midfielder, considered too slow, and made him into a damn good centre-back.
5) We kept Pascal Chimbonda, Michael Dawson and Young Pyo-Lee. To expand on this, Woody, Gilberto and Hutton were not bought to replace these players (though some of them may leave next summer) as Tottenham players. They may have been bought to replace them in the starting line-up, but what we were doing, was buying quality and in the same time getting rid of fringe players.We bought Woodgate and loaned Anthony Gardner out. We bought Alan Hutton and loaned Paul Stalteri out. And I really liked that. We kept all our best defenders and bought defenders that can be considered better than we had before. That's how it should be done. Liverpool, for an example, seem to always buy squad players. They are not buying players that will upgrade their starting 11, but players that will be fourth striker, back-up CB's, etc. And until Rafa stops doing that they will continue to fight for fourth place.
***
I doubt anyone can argue with any of these decisions. Cerny has done brilliantly, we've been defending better at set-pieces (Tevez goal aside!
), the new signings look good (especially Woodgate), Huddlestone has looked composed and good in his new positon, and it's good to have players like Chimbonda (can play anywhere in defense), Lee (good back-up, always does well when playing) and Dawson (good back-up for King, Woodgate and Tha Hudd, even though he is sometimes a donkey) in the squad.Since we lost to Aston Villa we've conceded 10 goals in 10 games and kept four clean sheets as well. That's pretty impressive, considering our record last season and the way we were defending before Christmas. January has seen some big changes and that's what I like about Ramos. He makes big changes, no matter how difficult they are (Jol would've never dropped Robinson) and he seems to be improving our team with every game we play!
p.s: I apologise if words are misspelled but english is not my first language.
