Dejan Kulusevski

[Matt1882]

Oh no doubt .. GLC was sadly almost entirely useless to us, a player who played within himself almost fucking always, meant to be a creative midfielder but never influenced games. With Kulu/Bentancur we're definitely better off, it's just about the extent of how much better off we are. Don't think that becomes clear for a while.

And the point is, GLC and others came here with fans raving about them and saying what a great deal it is that the club had got them. And they were utterly useless.
And then we get 2 "rejects" who the bedroom scouts were angry about us signing and they turn out to be ready to hit the ground running.
Neither of them are likely to become the next Kante or Ronaldo, sure but they're infinitely more useful to us than many of the signings we've made.
I learned a very long time ago not to listen to people raving about players I've never even heard of.

There's people on this forum that I bet you still haven't put on ignore yet, that try to suggest Kane isn't one of the best players in the world. Same logic just reversed.

 

[El flaco]

Cause he was happy to piss off to play meaningless international games knowing full well he wouldn't be able to play for us when he eventually got back.
This despite missing untold amounts of games for the club that pay him his ludicrous privillaged wages.
And when he was actually fit and not in quarantine, he was about as good as a kick stand for a quad bike.

THAT is why he was a wanker.

He was one of our best players when first here and during some dark days under Jose. He had a number of injuries and never really got a run in the team as a result. Yes that was disrupted more by international breaks but can’t really blame him for wanting to be a key part of his national team. He also helped them to a major comp win.
Last year lots of players have been poor but until he does some harm to the club, bad mouth us etc the then I don’t see him earning the title of wanker.
Obviously if rumours of him being unpopular at the club are true - you may also be right

 

[Herclueless]

At our best we had 4 big goal threats in the team with Kane, Eriksen, Dele 1.0 and Son. In 16/17 they scored 29, 8, 18 and 14 respectively in the league. The next season was 30, 10, 9 and 12. Even 18/19 was respectable with 17, 8, 5 and 12… but with Lucas also getting 10, though going from a combined output in attack in the 60s too early 50s should perhaps been more of a red flag than it was treated as.

It’s been just Kane and Son that you can rely on for double digits in goals since, so if Kulusevski can produce at that type of rate too it will go a long way to getting us back to where we want.

Might sound obvious, but to get a number of players all scoring those amounts of goals, you also need players capable of putting up similar figures for assists. Eriksen was an absolute machine on that front, and hasn't been successfully replaced.

Kulusevski so far looks like he might be a good goalscorer, still think we look light in the creative sense, even (or maybe especially because!) that is expected to come more from the full backs in Conte's system.

 

[tommyboyspurs]

He's done more in 2 games than GLC did in two fucking years mate.
And thank wanker came with hype. And there's STILL "fans" on this forum that claim we're weaker because he's one of the 4 useless lumps of flesh we booted out.

dont think glc was hyped at the point i remember everyone wanted dybala or fernandes

 

[Spursidol]

He was one of our best players when first here and during some dark days under Jose. He had a number of injuries and never really got a run in the team as a result. Yes that was disrupted more by international breaks but can’t really blame him for wanting to be a key part of his national team. He also helped them to a major comp win.
Last year lots of players have been poor but until he does some harm to the club, bad mouth us etc the then I don’t see him earning the title of wanker.
Obviously if rumours of him being unpopular at the club are true - you may also be right

Lo Celso had a run of about 7 games fairly shortly after Mourhino arrived where he put a lot of effort in, and looked to become a decent player for us.

However over the two and a half years he was at Spurs he was trusted by the five managers (Poch, Mason, Mourhino, Nuno, Conte) to complete 90 minutes in a PL match just seven times.

Whilst I am sure injuries may have inhibited him, there are times he's been fit (usually just before a match for Argentina) but evidently not good enough/committed enough to Spurs to be trusted to play. And that says more about the player than anyone else given he clearly pissed off 5 managers.

And yes his inability to be available to play much for the club has harmed Spurs - with a 25 man squad no club can afford to have players not putting in the effort. Which is why some may bad mouth him

 

[Spursidol]

Might sound obvious, but to get a number of players all scoring those amounts of goals, you also need players capable of putting up similar figures for assists. Eriksen was an absolute machine on that front, and hasn't been successfully replaced.

Kulusevski so far looks like he might be a good goalscorer, still think we look light in the creative sense, even (or maybe especially because!) that is expected to come more from the full backs in Conte's system.

Kulusevski got 10 goals and 8 assists in 36 matches for Parma in Serie A - still early days at Spurs but if we are lucky he maybe able to replicate that kind of form at Spurs which is similar to Eriksen in both scoring and assisting in similar measures.

Clearly we need more than one player to create assists, and we probably need to look to both full backs and cm's to contribute more. But lets be happy to get at least one player doing that role

 

[Matt1882]

He was one of our best players when first here and during some dark days under Jose. He had a number of injuries and never really got a run in the team as a result. Yes that was disrupted more by international breaks but can’t really blame him for wanting to be a key part of his national team. He also helped them to a major comp win.
Last year lots of players have been poor but until he does some harm to the club, bad mouth us etc the then I don’t see him earning the title of wanker.
Obviously if rumours of him being unpopular at the club are true - you may also be right

You lost me in the first sentence.

Not even reading the rest.
He had about 3 good-ish games. That was after barely getting a fucking game for 3 months.

 

[BringBack_leGin]

Might sound obvious, but to get a number of players all scoring those amounts of goals, you also need players capable of putting up similar figures for assists. Eriksen was an absolute machine on that front, and hasn't been successfully replaced.

Kulusevski so far looks like he might be a good goalscorer, still think we look light in the creative sense, even (or maybe especially because!) that is expected to come more from the full backs in Conte's system.

Completely agree (Though I think just having Kulusevski there offering a thread should in time mean more space and I’m turn more opportunity to create). I think ultimately this will only improve with signings, we’re not going to suddenly turn Winks and Bergwijn into Modric and VDV, and as you intimate, it may well be that this Dier’s in is reinforcing our wing back options.

That said though, familiarity breeds fluidity which in turn breeds creativity. The more the same group of players play together in the same system with the coach having them trying the same things, there better the collective will be at it irrespective of whether that we can attract that craftsman or not. There’s a limit to how far that will go without upgrades, but it can certainly improve.

Even against a Leeds side that was on its knees going into the game, I don’t think a left to right of Sessegnon, Winks, Højbjerg and Doherty even produces the square route of fuck all 2 months ago.

 

[Herclueless]

Kulusevski got 10 goals and 8 assists in 36 matches for Parma in Serie A - still early days at Spurs but if we are lucky he maybe able to replicate that kind of form at Spurs which is similar to Eriksen in both scoring and assisting in similar measures.

Clearly we need more than one player to create assists, and we probably need to look to both full backs and cm's to contribute more. But lets be happy to get at least one player doing that role

These are Eriksen's stats for assists:

Year - Appearances/Goals/Assists - Combined

13/14 - 25/7/8 - 15
14/15 - 38/10/2 - 12
15/16 - 35/6/13 - 19
16/17 - 36/8/15 - 23
17/18 - 37/10/10 - 20
18/19 - 35/8/12 - 20
19/20 - 20/2/2 - 4

That's Prem only so his stats would be padded by cups, though the Kulusevski season is also league only. TBH that actually holds up better than I expected to Eriksen's output, especially when you consider his age too. If he can do it consistently over 6 years like Eriksen did for us then he'll have been well worth the fee agreed with Juventus.

 

[Spursidol]

These are Eriksen's stats for assists:

Year - Appearances/Goals/Assists - Combined

13/14 - 25/7/8 - 15
14/15 - 38/10/2 - 12
15/16 - 35/6/13 - 19
16/17 - 36/8/15 - 23
17/18 - 37/10/10 - 20
18/19 - 35/8/12 - 20
19/20 - 20/2/2 - 4

That's Prem only so his stats would be padded by cups, though the Kulusevski season is also league only. TBH that actually holds up better than I expected to Eriksen's output, especially when you consider his age too. If he can do it consistently over 6 years like Eriksen did for us then he'll have been well worth the fee agreed with Juventus.

Agree with all that.

I'd also comment that 4 or so years ago we had 4 players (Kane, Son, Eriksen and Dele) who for about 4 successive years had 20+ combined goals and assists in all competitions, which unsurprisingly was when we were at our peak.

Moura fleetingly got into the '10+' club, but no more

We need to try to put that foursome club together again if we can, but if we can start by getting a 3rd member, that's a great start

 

[Matt1882]

These are Eriksen's stats for assists:

Year - Appearances/Goals/Assists - Combined

13/14 - 25/7/8 - 15
14/15 - 38/10/2 - 12
15/16 - 35/6/13 - 19
16/17 - 36/8/15 - 23
17/18 - 37/10/10 - 20
18/19 - 35/8/12 - 20
19/20 - 20/2/2 - 4

That's Prem only so his stats would be padded by cups, though the Kulusevski season is also league only. TBH that actually holds up better than I expected to Eriksen's output, especially when you consider his age too. If he can do it consistently over 6 years like Eriksen did for us then he'll have been well worth the fee agreed with Juventus.

Thing about Eriksen, is that he was totally alone at the time. No one else in our squad could touch him. he was very rarely injured and he was teeing up players who seemed to hit the net frequently.
All that certainly helped him get his numbers up the way he did,

I was very angry at him for the last year he had, but I'm not taking away from the 3 years or so before then where he was on top if his game. But his rivals at other clubs didn't have what he had. They had injuries, they had players to rotate with, they had strikers who missed the chances they set up etc.

 

[Herclueless]

Thing about Eriksen, is that he was totally alone at the time. No one else in our squad could touch him. he was very rarely injured and he was teeing up players who seemed to hit the net frequently.
All that certainly helped him get his numbers up the way he did,

I was very angry at him for the last year he had, but I'm not taking away from the 3 years or so before then where he was on top if his game. But his rivals at other clubs didn't have what he had. They had injuries, they had players to rotate with, they had strikers who missed the chances they set up etc.

I was angry at him during the last 6-12 months of his stay here, but then he left and didn't immediately start pulling up any trees at Inter, and we didn't improve in his absence either, kind of made me a little less mad at him. Like it confirmed it wasn't just a case of him downing tools consciously, if he'd have gone to Inter and immediately turned back into prime Eriksen then I would have been even more annoyed.

Then the incident at the Euro's put it all into perspective anyhow, I'd happily have taken him back in January and given him the chance to prove he could still go at Spurs, shown him and the world that being part of the Spurs family meant something, rather than let him prove it somewhere else and then open the door to be welcomed back with open arms as has been suggested, I actually think that's pretty shitty of us, particularly Conte openly talking about the possibility in the coming summer. Hey Christian, we're here for you bro, anytime you need... just not right now, maybe in the Summer... as long as things go well obviously...

Brentford have taken that chance on him, and if it works out then they deserve to have the same commitment shown to them in the Summer.

 

[Matt1882]

I don't ever want him back. He's just not the player he was.

 

[Shotgunofmichalebrow]

He was one of our best players when first here and during some dark days under Jose. He had a number of injuries and never really got a run in the team as a result. Yes that was disrupted more by international breaks but can’t really blame him for wanting to be a key part of his national team. He also helped them to a major comp win.
Last year lots of players have been poor but until he does some harm to the club, bad mouth us etc the then I don’t see him earning the title of wanker.
Obviously if rumours of him being unpopular at the club are true - you may also be right

This is a bigger myth than the Lockness monster. This 'he was great under Jose in a very tough period'. A while ago I went back and looked in detail at this great heroic shift of his. He was not scoring or assisting beyond the odd occasion. He was par or above in about four games when we were really horrible interms of XG and ball progression. He excelled very briefly in a deeply artificial period of time, COVID lock down, when suddenly players like Todd Cantwell were tearing it up.

I recall a professional coach telling me (I posted it here) don't be signing any long term contracts right now) as the environment is skewing performance . He said it was making average players better and established players worse as seasoned pros get better with the hostility of crowds and poorer players equally thrived with out the pressure. That's Locelso.

Then there are the training ground stories about him. One in particular I can't won't break confidence on but suffice to say he is not widely admired as a bloke. Here's the unpalatable bit the rightly derided Tanguy Ndombele was much more popular at the ground. I'm delighted both are gone and well likely have neither back.

 

[Deuterz]

This is a bigger myth than the Lockness monster. This 'he was great under Jose in a very tough period'. A while ago I went back and looked in detail at this great heroic shift of his. He was not scoring or assisting beyond the odd occasion. He was par or above in about four games when we were really horrible interms of XG and ball progression. He excelled very briefly in a deeply artificial period of time, COVID lock down, when suddenly players like Todd Cantwell were tearing it up.

I recall a professional coach telling me (I posted it here) don't be signing any long term contracts right now) as the environment is skewing performance . He said it was making average players better and established players worse as seasoned pros get better with the hostility of crowds and poorer players equally thrived with out the pressure. That's Locelso.

Then there are the training ground stories about him. One in particular I can't won't break confidence on but suffice to say he is not widely admired as a bloke. Here's the unpalatable bit the rightly derided Tanguy Ndombele was much more popular at the ground. I'm delighted both are gone and well likely have neither back.

As useless as Ndombele was, he offered more than Lo Celso did. There's a few games I can recall from Ndombele against good opposition (sides like City & Liverpool) where he stood out, and there's others like Newcastle or his lob vs Sheffield where I can look back and remember he showed quality.

I only remember GLC for a goal vs City. That's it. I honestly don't even remember any good moments from that apparently really good period of form. I vaguely recall one good game in the CL vs farmers? But that's all.

Ndombele was infuriating because you could see the talent but it wasn't working out. GLC was just a non-entity to me the whole time he was here. I never saw much talent. He just looked mediocre and was injured most of the time.

 

[Pathfinder]

 

[Pathfinder]

Garth Crooks names three Spurs stars in his team of the week - No Heung-min Son - Spurs Web - Tottenham Hotspur Football News

Garth Crooks has named Harry Kane, Dejan Kulusevski and Matt Doherty in his Team of the Week after Tottenham’s clinical win over Leeds United on Saturday. Doherty replaced Emerson Royal in the starting eleven at Elland Road and the Republic of Ireland international showed the marauding qualities...

www.spurs-web.com

Garth Crooks has named Harry Kane, Dejan Kulusevski and Matt Doherty in his Team of the Week after Tottenham’s clinical win over Leeds United on Saturday.

Crooks wrote about Kulusevski: “I said when I selected this kid for my team last week that he looked very comfortable in a Tottenham shirt. Well, he’s rapidly becoming a favourite of mine. The way Dejan Kulusevski took his goal against Leeds was just pure class.”

 

[Mrs Perryman]

Yeah. It's a bop.

Thanks, can't get that out of my head now!

 

[Steve73]

I had concerns based on what I'd seen at Juve (where he contributed I think 2 goals 3 assists in the last 20 odd games, so he's turned up as a different player thus far at Spurs) especially based on his ability to accelerate quickly and operate in tight spaces. I still think those attributes are concerns going forward vs sides who don't permit space. Leeds and City did (the defending for the goal vs Leeds was ... horrific) and he has bags of technical ability so thrived. I do think he offers attributes we need and thus far has been better than I expected.

He's had a great start. Long may it continue. But there's definitely a few in this thread who seem to have decided he's now 100% a success, and people who suggested they had doubts are already proven wrong. It's all a bit odd when we've seen plenty of times how players can have a fast start and then tail off. I believe he did very well for Juve when he first signed and then it seems lost his way for whatever reason. He's certainly settled here impressively well, and fingers crossed he continues to flourish.

Change of manager, never happens at Spurs...

 

[ArcspacE]

I thought Kulu was shit? A reject?

One eyed is king in the kingdom of blind