Mr. C takes a break from angering the Martin Jol fan club to sing the praises of Tottenham’s enormous 20 year-old midfielder Tom Huddlestone.
The Hudd
The guy is phenomenal and I don’t think it is unreasonable to say he’s probably the best young talent Tottenham has seen since Paul Gascoigne or Glenn Hoddle. By season’s end I fully expect him to be amongst the favourites for the Premiership’s best young player. Don’t get me wrong, Lennon is exciting, but for me the Hudd is the real deal. A lot of journalists have written this weekend that Huddlestone has replaced the void left by Carrick last year; but in reality we have a player with the potential to be far better in most areas of the game.
In Huddlestone we have a player who has the ability to beat the first man on set pieces, is fantastic in the air and unlike Carrick is not scared to take advantage of the long range shooting opportunities a holding midfielder often receives. His vision and range of passing are already among the best in the Premiership and like Hoddle his touch is wonderful for a big man. Knock a pass at any speed or height to him and he’ll drop it to his feet instantly.
Jol stated at the weekend that he rates him as one of, if not the best young player in Europe at the moment; I’m inclined to agree and there is certainly no one like him. For me he has all the holding skills of Makelele, the passing range of Carrick and the shooting technique of a Lampard. To think he will end up costing us £2.5m; it’s a big two fingers up to the dirty scoutmaster at N5 who claims there is no array of English talent in the game.
This weeks fixtures saw us conclude our group stage against Bucharest and finally give us our first away win in the Premiership at Manchester City. It is fair to say that both of these matches could have been named the “Tom Huddlestone showâ€, and people are saying that Joey Barton deserves a call up?
Oh right, the matches…
Bucharest on Thursday have to be the worst opposition to play at WHL for a good few years and its absolutely scandalous that they got hit for only 3 goals instead of 9 or 10 which they deserved. Berbatov and Defoe were awesome and their partnership is starting to flourish and it’s very clear that Berbatov prefers playing with a striker off him rather than being used as a lone target man when Keane is in the side. The Hudd was fantastic as was Zokora who showed like he did against Boro that there is more to his game than just breaking up attacks; he is more than willing to take players on with the ball and looked more likely to fulfill those early comparisons to Patrick Vieira. Arch enemy Feyenoord in the next round which brings back many memories, mainly of trouble and no doubt both clubs firms will be polishing their meat hooks and waxing their baseball bats in anticipation of the clash in February.
Sunday saw us travel up to Eastland’s in search of our first away win of the season and to be honest I don’t think their was a Spurs fan in the ground who didn’t believe that we were going to come away with anything less than 3 points. We have an uncanny hold over City especially away from home where I have seen us win 6 of my last 7 visits to the blue half of Manchester.
We had a good drink before the game in some godforsaken pub/social club which is famous as it is owned by City great Mike Summerbee – who was propping up one end of the bar; probably the driest part of the establishment given the overflowing of the urinals was slowly making its way out to the public area, I wish was kidding but this is the kind of place where you wipe your feet before you go outside.
As we sat in the stadium, the best in the country in my view, we were rocked by the news that Lennon was missing as was Dawson – who a lot of us had forgotten was suspended. The first half was a walk in the park and to be honest we should have been 1-0 up in the first minute through Berbatov. The Hudd was given the freedom of the park and he was punishing them all over. A fantastic free kick for Davenport to head home and 8mins later he scored an absolute screamer which gave Weaver no chance. Like Bucharest in midweek we could have easily gone in 4 or 5 up at half time and that is no exaggeration, we were that dominant.
City came out a better side in the second half which was expected and for the last half hour of the game it was squeaky bum time as we struggled to get the same hold of the game. To be fair City fans would grumble that they should have come away with something, but we done enough in the first half to finally collect our first away win of the season.
Thank Hudd for that!