saintwbu

I hope we get this wrapped up asap. If we have a price set from the loan then great, but otherwise if Hoj goes to Everton then imagine Levy will be doing his usual and trying to charge £20mil odd. I think signing him is a must, and at £10mil it’d be a snip imo for a 23 year old English full back who we’ve been able to test out first.

Spurs think Winks is some kind of English Xavi. No one outside of Spurs seems to see it, but there’s no way they’re letting him go nor is he going to come to us.

I think he’s great - i think our resurgence coincided with his return to the side, and I get concerned now if he’s not starting as I think he’s an extremely important cog. He plays like someone caught between being a CM and a winger and i think that fits perfectly for us. Absolute steal at what we paid for him

I mentioned it after the City game but worth repeating - he only played 12 senior games for Spurs (I read a Spurs fan say he was MOTM in four of them!). He’s still very much fresh out of the packet. He may be 23, but he’s got the career history of an 18/19 year old, he’s learning on the job. I agree with your assessment of him on the ball, he seems comfortable in tight spaces and has a really nice change of feet and low centre of gravity on the ball.

I agree - I think he gets a rough ride on here. He was absolutely superb under Puel, and has rarely let us down in his time here. Think his tendency for a yellow card maybe distracts people from his technical ability, he’s a very nice footballer. I love him and to think we only paid £5mil for him, £7mil for Armstrong, £5mil for Bednarek - just shows there are still gems around!

Neville makes me want to cut my ears off

Luiz is pretty popular among Villa fans, seems to be high energy and for a player playing his first season in England and not speaking a single word of English when he arrived, I think he’s done well in some games i’ve seen. Likes a shot from outside the box too, with a couple of good goals this season, we could do a lot worse imo.

It’s not typically our ‘style’ to go raiding the relegated teams from what i can recall - but Lerma, Billing, Douglas Luiz, McGinn (lol absolutely no chance) would all fit the bill as a Hojbjerg replacement imo. Appreciate some of them aren’t doing a spectacular job at the moment but think all would compliment Prowsey well.

This sounds like how he was always credited with Shaw’s announcement on the scene, when he was already our starting LB when Poch arrived. He is a great manager, and was really good for us, but I can’t help think that Koeman’s team has sort of enhanced the memory of Poch’s tenure, as it was a continuation of progress and some of that period kind of blurs into one for some I think.

Man of the match tonight for Fulham by the sounds of it - trending on Twitter because it’s full of Fulham fans pleading for their club to sign him permanently. A number of shouts of ‘Ginger Kante’ and being better than Kalvin Phillips. I was always surprised Ralph didn’t take a closer look, he seems on the face of it to be a perfect fit for our style.

But Man City also rely on intricate passing in tight spaces, and in dangerous areas. I’m really not sure how he’d cope with that.

Hi Pierre, always good to know the players post on here. The ball should’ve never got to Stephens if Hojbjerg had just gone forward like any other CM in the country would have. Then he wasn’t ‘caught out’, Hojbjerg again played an absolutely shite pass which put in Aubameyang, Stephens had to sacrifice himself to try and stop him scoring.

Clyne comparison made above, but has always been on my mind too, has a similar movement style I think, slightly hunched over and looks a bit awkward on the ball sometimes but effective. Really worth remembering he has only made 12 senior appearances for Tottenham too, he’s 23 but he’s still barely played in the Premier League. I like him, i’ve liked him in every game, and yesterday was exactly the performance he needed to leave a mark. That cross for Ings was the sort of intelligence and precision that we have so desperately lacked with Cedric as our RB, everything was just smashed into the air with no direction.

GET IN THERE!! So happy for him

Spurs fans don’t seem excited at all by it, can’t blame them. But I do actually think he’d be good for them, he’s a Mourinho type player, a brute who covers a lot of ground. At Spurs he’ll have the quality around him to allow him to just run around and battle, we don’t have that so his shortcomings are there to see.

His simple work for the first goal was such an important difference from what we often see from PEH. It was an almost identical situation to what PEH found himself in before the first Arsenal goal the other day. Both came in and received the ball with back to opposition goal and space behind them. One had no idea what was behind him and bounced it back towards his own goal immediately, one turned onto the front foot and played forward. One ended with us 1-0 down and one ended with us 1-0 up! I thought Smallbone was great against Villa at home, and good today, really like the look of him.

I don't think we'll miss him at all, personally. JWP does all the majority of the combative work in this team, and he does it bloody well. I like a kid coming through the ranks anyway, but I really like the look of Smallbone from what i've seen - calm, composed, always looking forward and lovely passer of the ball. At home, I think we'd be far better with one ball winner, one player (JWP/Smallbone combo). If away from home we're still keen to go with two ball winners then JWP/Romeu as a combo is just fine imo.

Smallbone for that goal is almost identical to Hojbjerg before Arsenal’s first goal the other day. The difference? Smallbone was aware of what’s behind him, and his instinct was to turn into attack. Hojbjerg had no clue what was around him, bounced it right back first time, forcing us to go backwards and eventual cock up and concede.

Hojbjerg quality of pass wasn’t the issue for the first goal - his decision to pass it immediately back towards our goal (twice) was. How can we play with a CM who has absolutely no awareness of what’s around him whatsoever, and does not possess the ability to turn on the ball. Twice he was given the ball and with no shoulder check he bounced it straight back to our goal - the first one was unforgivable, he had all the time in the world and a turn would’ve put us on the front foot and acres of space. Absolutely pathetic, drags our team down and is hugely culpable for our poor home form - he does not suit a possession game one bit. Good riddance.

Fuck Hojbjerg off as soon as possible, useless

Why did Hojbjerg try to play those two backward passes without ever looking behind him? he’d have realised he had tonnes of space to turn and go forwards

Hojbjerg away from home (like Friday night) is fairly effective. That’s because we don’t have the ball often, his job is win it high up the pitch and get it to one of our players who can use the ball. Any time on the ball or responsibility and he is absolutely hopeless, hence why he’s dreadful at home, because teams put the onus on us to play and you expect your CM’s to be the main source of creativity but he can’t do it. Great example against Norwich of him having a simple curved pass around the CB’s to Ings and we’d have been in, somehow he went from facing goal to turning to directly face the dugouts, before playing a simple pass down the line. I also really don’t buy the ‘he gives it everything when he’s on the pitch’. He covers a decent amount of ground, but there’s been tonnes of times i’ve watched him let players run past him, and not tracked runners who have gone onto score. His fist pumps into the air appease a section of the crowd, and people love his interviews, but he’s an extremely average footballer and I must say I find his gesticulating to the crowd quite irritating when i’ve just watched him pass to the opposition for the fifth time in 10 minutes.

Still not seen a performance in the flesh worse than Hojbjerg at home to Inter a couple of season back, it was astonishing. People think he’s competent so he wins it for me!

Hojbjerg is comical

Smallbone looking quite tidy, would be interesting to have him in the middle alongside JWP. Armstrong still looks a bit rattled by that early challenge, doesn’t look quite right.