Your 1st choice defenders

[aspursfan]

With King retiring, Dawson recovering from injury, Vertonghen arriving, and Caulker pushing for a place in the team, what is your preferred pairing in the middle?

Do you want to see Vertonghen slowly introduced, or do you expect him to be an immediate 1st choice?

Even with King retiring I feel like we're in a better place defensively than we were last season. I think Vertonghen should be a great acquisition and we've got plenty of competition for places, as well as cover for injuries.

I think Kaboul/Dawson & Vertonghen would be my choice. With Gallas & Caulker filling in as needed. I say Kaboul/Dawson because I really can't make my mind up between the two. Kaboul has been mostly excellent since his return. He has a tendency to make silly challenges at times, but so does Dawson.

I suppose Bassong is back as well. I'm not entirely sure how he became so alienated under HR after such a memorable start.

What do you think?

[RiffHard]

With King retiring, Dawson recovering from injury, Vertonghen arriving, and Caulker pushing for a place in the team, what is your preferred pairing in the middle?

Do you want to see Vertonghen slowly introduced, or do you expect him to be an immediate 1st choice?

Even with King retiring I feel like we're in a better place defensively than we were last season. I think Vertonghen should be a great acquisition and we've got plenty of competition for places, as well as cover for injuries.

I think Kaboul/Dawson & Vertonghen would be my choice. With Gallas & Caulker filling in as needed. I say Kaboul/Dawson because I really can't make my mind up between the two. Kaboul has been mostly excellent since his return. He has a tendency to make silly challenges at times, but so does Dawson.

I suppose Bassong is back as well. I'm not entirely sure how he became so alienated under HR after such a memorable start.

What do you think?

Difficult to say, really. We know who Redknapp would have played but it is yet to be seen who Villas-Boas will prefer. My personal choice would also be Dawson/Kaboul and Vertonghen. Dawson is somewhat injury-prone and so is Gallas. Vertonghen has had his fair share of traumas as well. I guess all our centre-backs will feature at some point.

[RSS61]

Kaboul has always impressed me. Strong, quick, good in the air, and pops up with a good goal now and then. Also he seems to have stabilised himself at the back last season. Verthongen looks pure class, so I guess those two together for me as no 1 pair. Dawson/Gallas as backup. As for Bassong, unless something has happened to his game, he will rarely feature, if he was any good why would we have bought Verthongen ?

[Yiddite]

Difficult call.
Without Vertonghen it would have been Kaboul and Dawson.
How will Vertonghen adjust to Premier League ? The only way
is to play him ..he was good for Ajax but at the expense of Dawson?


A difficult call!!

[RiffHard]

Difficult call.
Without Vertonghen it would have been Kaboul and Dawson.
How will Vertonghen adjust to Premier League ? The only way
is to play him ..he was good for Ajax but at the expense of Dawson?


A difficult call!!

Don't forget, we're talking about Spurs and that means there are always lots of injuries.

[ugs]

Seeing as Levy's Puppet likes to play a high line then I would hope that he will play Kaboul and I suppose Vertonghan as they seem to be the quickest defenders we have. Although I would like to see Kaboul and Dawson together because they seemed to be developing an understanding before Daws got injured.
One thing I would like to point out is that our Goalkeeper will also need to be a "sweeper keeper" covering for those times that the high line is breached and I unfortunately don't think that Friedel fills that bill. Don't get me wrong I think he's a very good keeper but at his age pace isn't going to be his strongest asset, and if he can't cover that area in behind when the defenders get turned I can see us having some problems. If this happens it will play on the Centre Backs minds and may make then hesitent about playing high and if one or both start holding back a bit to cover..... hey presto another problem players being played onside !!!!!!!
 
Oh well what do I know Levy's Puppet will have a clipboard somewhere with a project on it to deal with this ............
 
 

[aspursfan]

Seeing as Levy's Puppet likes to play a high line then I would hope that he will play Kaboul and I suppose Vertonghan as they seem to be the quickest defenders we have. Although I would like to see Kaboul and Dawson together because they seemed to be developing an understanding before Daws got injured.
One thing I would like to point out is that our Goalkeeper will also need to be a "sweeper keeper" covering for those times that the high line is breached and I unfortunately don't think that Friedel fills that bill. Don't get me wrong I think he's a very good keeper but at his age pace isn't going to be his strongest asset, and if he can't cover that area in behind when the defenders get turned I can see us having some problems. If this happens it will play on the Centre Backs minds and may make then hesitent about playing high and if one or both start holding back a bit to cover..... hey presto another problem players being played onside !!!!!!!
 
Oh well what do I know Levy's Puppet will have a clipboard somewhere with a project on it to deal with this ............
 
 

I had the same thoughts about Kaboul because of his pace. I'm really nervous about this suicidal high line. I really hope we do some impressive business with our options up front because I have a feeling we're not going to have many clean sheets!

[RSS61]

Seeing as Levy's Puppet likes to play a high line then I would hope that he will play Kaboul and I suppose Vertonghan as they seem to be the quickest defenders we have. Although I would like to see Kaboul and Dawson together because they seemed to be developing an understanding before Daws got injured.
One thing I would like to point out is that our Goalkeeper will also need to be a "sweeper keeper" covering for those times that the high line is breached and I unfortunately don't think that Friedel fills that bill. Don't get me wrong I think he's a very good keeper but at his age pace isn't going to be his strongest asset, and if he can't cover that area in behind when the defenders get turned I can see us having some problems. If this happens it will play on the Centre Backs minds and may make then hesitent about playing high and if one or both start holding back a bit to cover..... hey presto another problem players being played onside !!!!!!!
 
Oh well what do I know Levy's Puppet will have a clipboard somewhere with a project on it to deal with this ............
 
 

I think you'll find thats why we have Hugo Lloris lined up. Anyway, no matter what system he plays, we are hardly likely to be worse in defence than we were for large parts of last season.

[RiffHard]

On a side note. Ugs, baldbloke and other bashers - Please stop this Levy's Puppet s**t. Villas-Boas is our manager and only time will tell whether he'll be a success or not. At the moment you sound like bitter old men. You've expressed your opinion on Villas-Boas and Levy in most of the threads around here by now. Enough is enough. The topic was about our centre-backs.

[ugs]

I gave my opinion on our centre backs and defensive options, and yes I'm a bitter old man which is my perogative as I feel that our club at this moment in time is being run badly !!!
 
I am behind the team 100% but at this moment I choose not to back our manager or Chairman, and may I just point out you are the one who have taken it off topic !!!
 
 

[baldbloke]

With King retiring, Dawson recovering from injury, Vertonghen arriving, and Caulker pushing for a place in the team, what is your preferred pairing in the middle?

Do you want to see Vertonghen slowly introduced, or do you expect him to be an immediate 1st choice?

Even with King retiring I feel like we're in a better place defensively than we were last season. I think Vertonghen should be a great acquisition and we've got plenty of competition for places, as well as cover for injuries.

I think Kaboul/Dawson & Vertonghen would be my choice. With Gallas & Caulker filling in as needed. I say Kaboul/Dawson because I really can't make my mind up between the two. Kaboul has been mostly excellent since his return. He has a tendency to make silly challenges at times, but so does Dawson.

I suppose Bassong is back as well. I'm not entirely sure how he became so alienated under HR after such a memorable start.

What do you think?

I'm going for Kaboul and Mabut

[Metalanimal]

You would hope the home work has been done on Vertongen and he can slot straight in, impossible to say IMO until I have seen him play and hopefully AVB feels the same.

So at this point at has to be our tried and proven strongest CB pairing of Dawson and Kaboul, they started working well togther before Daws injury.  IMO JV has to prove his worth not walk straight into the team becuase he is a new signing, he could be pants in the EPL.  I hope he does well for us and I think he will once settled in.

[ugs]

You would hope the home work has been done on Vertongen and he can slot straight in, impossible to say IMO until I have seen him play and hopefully AVB feels the same.

So at this point at has to be our tried and proven strongest CB pairing of Dawson and Kaboul, they started working well togther before Daws injury.  IMO JV has to prove his worth not walk straight into the team becuase he is a new signing, he could be pants in the EPL.  I hope he does well for us and I think he will once settled in.

Shame is we could of had a proven EPL defender last Christmas for less money if Levy had got his finger out and bought Cahill when we had the chance. I think your probably right that we need to start Vertonghan slowly to see how he copes but due to his £8 million price tag I'm sure he'll just be thrown in at the deep end and expected to cope !!!!
To be fair he is an international and has played Champs League so he should be more than capable of dealing with the EPL !!!!
 
 

[baldbloke]

You would hope the home work has been done on Vertongen and he can slot straight in, impossible to say IMO until I have seen him play and hopefully AVB feels the same.

So at this point at has to be our tried and proven strongest CB pairing of Dawson and Kaboul, they started working well togther before Daws injury.  IMO JV has to prove his worth not walk straight into the team becuase he is a new signing, he could be pants in the EPL.  I hope he does well for us and I think he will once settled in.

Your so right. If levy wasn't such a stubborn cnunt he could have saved the club money. Another reason on my list to hate the bloke !!
 
Shame is we could of had a proven EPL defender last Christmas for less money if Levy had got his finger out and bought Cahill when we had the chance. I think your probably right that we need to start Vertonghan slowly to see how he copes but due to his £8 million price tag I'm sure he'll just be thrown in at the deep end and expected to cope !!!!
To be fair he is an international and has played Champs League so he should be more than capable of dealing with the EPL !!!!
 
 

[baldbloke]

Strange, nobody has said Gallas and Kaboul. Perhaps we are all idiots and AVB is a genius