Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg looks to be on his way to Spurs from Southampton, bringing with him the sort of nonsense midfield rule that we’ve been crying out for. As per Jose Mourinho’s indelicate savaging of the Tottenham squad which was captured by Amazon and leaked yesterday, we’ve been too nice for too long.
Harry Winks is a nice boy. Good clean lad. Alas, if we look at his all-time heat map along with snapshots of his last passing accuracy maps from Wink’s recent games, a very reliable and familiar pattern builds up.
In fact, the 10 minutes Harry played recently against West Ham United at the foot of the inserted image below gives us a thinned out summary of the Englishman’s modus operandi. It’s boring.
Harry Winks is a determinedly accurate passer of the ball, but like a pendulum, it just goes back and forth interminably. A cursory glance at both players stats form this season reveals that there’s little between the two, beyond Winks is a marginally better passer of the ball, but Hojbjerg is more effective when it comes to defensive duties such as recovering the ball, sliding tackles, defensive duels and making interceptions.
Winks has been at Spurs for and never developed into anything exciting.
Nice guy, but one that simply doesn’t add enough. With any luck, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg ‘s arrival would trigger nice boy Winks’ sale.
What sort of DM is he? He’s not aggressive and he’s far from able to spray passes about. What does he actually do? Can you remember the last time he was MoM? Can you remember a time he was EVER MoM?
To bring in better players we need to be ruthless.
It is like we are making excuses for Winks – give him time/managers instructions etc. Just move him on in 6 months you will be saying Harry who?
Type of fans who don’t rate players like James Milner and Jordan Henderson.
Even if we did have the funds; bringing in that many new players at once could have a detrimental effect. The post Bale ‘Magnificent Seven’ were a bunch of strangers and played like it.
Even if we did have the funds; bringing in that many new players at once could have a detrimental effect. The post Bale ‘Magnificent Seven’ were a bunch of strangers and played like it.
Defensive midfielders are not usually exciting,it’s not their job,every club needs a hod carrier,Hojbjerg is not exciting either. If you told me Winks can’t tackle,head,pass or recover the ball then that’s an opinion but to say he’s boring or passes sidewards too often that might be down to carrying out his managers instructions.
We don’t know what instructions Winks is given, with proper coaching he can expand his game, he’s played for England so he’s obviously talented. Mourinho needs to help him. We have to be realistic this team could do with replacing seven or eight players but we don’t have the funds. Fans are too quick to condemn players, Modric struggled in his first season at Real Madrid, if certain fans had their way he’d have been chased. I leave it to Jose to improve the players.
As Trump says “drain the swamp”…no more keeping players for sentimental reasons…adieus Winks, best of luck to you on your next adventure, but please take the rest with you….easy 7 players we could shift to make way for a freshen up..
I have always thought that Winks is not physical enough to play as a DM. Having said that, there have been times when he has shown promise, but undoubtedly, he is not incisive enough. If he was played further forward, and was instructed to be more proactive in his play, I wonder if there is still a good player to be salvaged. At the moment, he seems to be frightened to make a mistake.
There’s currently a small mistake in that first paragraph that makes for amusing reading. One tiny word missed and Hojbjerg suddenly looks like a terrible prospect.
EDIT. I think it’s supposed to say no-nonsense.