Donatello

Mason didn't feature for Spurs in the league until he was 23. Not that I think Gape will make it for us, but to dismiss him because he's 21 seems short-sighted....dismiss him because lack of ability

I forgot to reply to this. I'm slightly perplexed by the sentence in bold. Why can't a direct comparison be made because one happens for be first choice and the other not? What else are we to go on? :S At any rate, my own 'assessment' of Targett would be that he currently lacks A) the technical ability, and more importantly, B) the speed to be a prototypical modern fullback. Defensively he's fine. Technical ability may come with time, but speed will likely always be a factor - perhaps a player can overcome that with good judgement/reading (i.e. knowing when to selectively attack). Moving forward though, I can't see him becoming the type of starter we'd need, unless we play a 'chalk on his boots' left winger (which would somewhat mitigate the need for him to get forward). And there isn't going to be much room on the bench for a LB. Who knows, perhaps he'll develop his crossing and become Trippier-esque P.S Definitely good enough to be our back-up LB though.

Would you consider that to be an academy success? If JWP becomes a Davis-quality player? (I absolutely would, hence why I'm asking).

CM or RM, imo (RM preferably). At any rate, utility men are useful by their very nature. You need utility men. Milner, Blind, etc. Good teams have them too. Nebulous or otherwise.

It's probably a little unfair to compare him to Barkley and Grealish because they're true AMs, but I get the gist of what you're saying (and Ali is being deployed there now! At least he was against West Ham). Edit: Incidentally, he does have a few quality moments - see his cross for VVD's goal against Swansea, and the cross he put in for Mane against United (which Pelle scored the rebound from). They don't go down as assists, but they're as good as.

Have we? When did that happen?

Targett has played enough

I wanted the answer to this, so found out. Note, this is based on league games only, since the beginning of the 14/15 season (inc Pelle for comparison). Long - 302 mins per goal. Pelle - 247 mins per goal. I've cross-checked this information (i.e. used two independent sites) and there's a slight discrepancy of 3 mins for Long, and 2 mins for Pelle (in their favour), so the information is accurate enough.

I feel this is pretty much it. I don't feel he's played enough for anyone to judge his ability realistically. I can recall a few snippets - a sharp/incisive pass to JRod, releasing Pelle, the assist for Long. Not much done, but then not much played, so it's unfair to be critical. On that point (not having played), does anyone share the belief that Koeman makes substitutions rather late in the game as standard? I have nothing to base this on (i.e. I haven't looked into it - perhaps I will), but I'm under the impression that Koeman always seems to make changes reluctantly/late in the second half. Perhaps if he was more inclined to do so, Juanmi would've had more game time by now.

You don't like Tadic, we get it Who would you play instead?

I'd like to see more of Romeu in place of Wanyama (who I don't think is having a particularly good season). I think we'd have seen more of him if not for his mental disciplinary issues (I.e. his compulsion to get booked ). Incidentally, do you think Harrison Reed would've been able to play (competent enough) as one of the two DMs in a system against the top 6?

You've got to be joking?! Not that I wish him banned.

I'd like to see Hesketh on the bench in place of the second defender (Caulker). That would be my gripe this season, but perhaps that's fanciful thinking. Who the Hell knows what's going on with Harrison Reed. I'm not sure I'd have felt too comfortable going into the season (+ europe) with Wanyama, Clasie, JWP, and Reed as our CM options though. Even with Romeu in the fold, one injury and he's (Reed) back on the bench (unless Koeman is that opposed to him) - although I guess that's the case with many an academy player across the league (an injury or two from the bench). I guess the question is, of our matchday 18, how many academy players/young English players would you be content with? (Not taking starting into account) P.S I'm not convinced Seager is the most 'future-proof' option we have. His skill set just seems too limited (imo). As above, Hesketh would be my academy bench player. Then Reed. Then Seager. (I haven't seen much of Slattery, in spite of all the talk).

So you'd start Long in spite of his combining "better with the other team than his teammates"? Makes sense.

Oh, and Pelle was a effin' moron for picking up that card.

Osvaldo was a waste of money. Long's just overpriced.

I thought he was one of our worst players. As mentioned above, he was bottling tackles, particularly against Walters when challenging for long balls/goal kicks. And he wasn't keeping up with the game at all for long spells in the first half - it was frenetic at points, admittedly, but he just looked like he was being lazy (imo). If he's going to be our enforcer, he *has* to be consistently physical, because he contributes little else. P.S Thought Clasie was our best player. Made some inventive passes. P.P.S I don't think Long got into the box enough today (for crosses). If he's starting on that right, he needs to be coming in at the back post 9 times out of 10. I didn't feel like he did that much at all today.

From memory, Vectis isn't a JWP fan.

I don't really care if people leave early (for the reasons stated a million times already), but I do believe that that sort of apathy is *partially* responsible for declining atmospheres (or indicative of it). AdrianSFC nailed it earlier in the thread.

I'm assuming because without him (Yoshida) it would have been Pelle/VVD/Fonte, and a selection from Bertrand/Cedric/JWP/Clasie/Davis/Mane/Tadic defending corners/set pieces/crosses, which Ron finds unpalatable - he may have a 4 players above 6ft policy You can't really have any complaints about it if we're winning (well, you can, obviously, but it's a little OTT/critical).

Well, yeah, we were certainly harder to beat (score against) at specific points last year when compared to the tail end, but I think the term can be applied generally when you examine the season as a whole, personally. Our goals against tally will probably be noticeably higher this year, which is fine, provided we keep scoring

"harder" - No suggestion that we're not hard to beat now. Original poster suggested that we're only hard to beat "these days". At any rate, by "beat", I'm specifically referencing our ability not to concede...which was far better last year. I imagine our losses tally in the league is similar to last year (at this stage), but we're conceeding a heck of a lot more, ergo, we're potentially easier to beat in my opinion. Edit: upon reflection, Pilchards may not have been making a comparison with last season anyway. I thought he/she was saying we were better last season, but harder to beat this season, whereas they were probably making a comparison with the first 5 or so games of this season.

8th-9th sounds about right. Don't forget about Everton though, people. I tend to view it as such... (alphabetical order) 1st-4th = Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City, Man United 5th-7th = Everton, Liverpool, Tottenham. 8th-10th = Southampton, West Ham, +1 other (I.e whoever had a good season from below - this year, between Crystal Palace and Leicester) Ultimately, top 10 should be our standard now. P.S Note, I'm not suggesting teams will finish in that order, but rather how it might play out on paper/historically/based on how I perceived them/etc.

We were harder to beat last season, to be fair. (imo)

It's an assist. But it's not one to get particularly excited about.