Harry Winks

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I'm not going to pretend to be as technically astute as many here, but if Winks sees somewhat regular time while out there doing not what Poch wants, but only what he's capable of, then why does Poch keep putting him out there? We can all speculate and demand he do X instead of Y, but if he's only doing X, and Poch keeps rolling him out there, then we can logically deduce that he's doing what Poch wants. Or at least enough of what Poch wants to keep playing.
Most are very happy with him I think.
A 22 year old who is already a full international and still learning his trade, he will get better and better with more games under his belt.
It is just a few who are on his back.
 
The question is how Winks was able to achieve such a high pass completion rate. If you watched the game you'd know exactly how it was done. He passed the ball to Sanchez and Toby the entire game. Even my fat arse can probably do 80% if all I had to do was pass it back to the center backs against a gutless Cardiff team. Before you boast about 99% let's bring some context into the fold yeah? If Dier did the same thing people would be shitting on him for being a useless scarecrow in the middle of the field. He needs to stop being a lazy prick and start putting in long passes instead of being so predictable.

You make a fair point so back it up, show me statistics from other players who have managed 95/96 passes in the EPL this or any other season, if it's 'that easy' why isn't everyone else managing it?

Your comment "stop being a lazy prick and start putting in long passes" makes no sense, Winks could give the ball to Toby as his cross-field passing ability is better, or give it Sissoko as he runs with it better, or give it to Eriksen as he creates with it better, oddly that's exactly what he does, and very clearly exactly what he's been told to do.
 
You make a fair point so back it up, show me statistics from other players who have managed 95/96 passes in the EPL this or any other season, if it's 'that easy' why isn't everyone else managing it?

Your comment "stop being a lazy prick and start putting in long passes" makes no sense, Winks could give the ball to Toby as his cross-field passing ability is better, or give it Sissoko as he runs with it better, or give it to Eriksen as he creates with it better, oddly that's exactly what he does, and very clearly exactly what he's been told to do.
95/96 passes to our centerbacks is not that impressive mate. Sorry to burst your bubble. If he wants to improve as a player then he needs to become more creative in his passes - think a bit more rather than passing it to the nearest man all game long.
 
The question is how Winks was able to achieve such a high pass completion rate. If you watched the game you'd know exactly how it was done. He passed the ball to Sanchez and Toby the entire game. Even my fat arse can probably do 80% if all I had to do was pass it back to the center backs against a gutless Cardiff team. Before you boast about 99% let's bring some context into the fold yeah? If Dier did the same thing people would be shitting on him for being a useless scarecrow in the middle of the field. He needs to stop being a lazy prick and start putting in long passes instead of being so predictable.

Get a grip.
 
95/96 passes to our centerbacks is not that impressive mate. Sorry to burst your bubble. If he wants to improve as a player then he needs to become more creative in his passes - think a bit more rather than passing it to the nearest man all game long.

41 of them were forward.

He made more forward passes than both Eriksen and Sissoko.
 
It’s not the “ok until better” I have an issue with. I said last night he was good.

It’s the kind of stuff in bold that is the problem. Because he’s a big athletic unit there’s a misconception that he’s actually doing things better than he is. There are 12 players who average as many tackles or more a game as he does, including Eriksen, Son and Moura. There are 15 in our squad that average as many or more interceptions.

His occasional forward runs might catch the eye because the sight of a powerful athlete charging forwards promises much, gets people excited, but I posted the realities above. He isn’t creating much at all.

Despite perception, he’s really not doing anything exceptional.

So forgive me if I’m not as bowled over as some by an experienced pro footballer doing what is generally ok things...ok.

Which is what I gave acknowledged, repeatedly. It’s the bullshit hype wagon that now circles him that needs reigning in, not my appraisal of him.

I’ve caveated praise of Winks with some criticism, Alli (bumbles about), Son (capable of the sublime and the ridiculous), Moura (Fast legs slow brain), when Kane was underperforming similarly. Trippier I acknowledge he’s compromises, Rose (defensive and attacking flaws), Davies (meh too often) etc.

I’ve backed up my opinion with plenty of evidence, factual and anecdotal.

My underlying point was, in this system, Winks is pretty much doing what he supposed to, Sissoko is doing a lot less of what he’s actually supposed to. I wouldn’t actually mind Sissoko not being Kanté without the ball if he was a clever instigating type of 8, with some drive and incision but he’s not, he’s a bit hesitant and reluctant, takes no risk, creates almost nothing.

Of all the areas or players that are compromised or flawed, he’d be the easiest to upgrade IMO. We could do it without even spending money. IMO.

Maybe Sissoko is doing exactly what he's been told to do by the manager. In the same way Winks is getting criticised despite our good run of performances because "he's too safe", maybe Sissoko's physical dominance is
the orders and anything more is a bonus. I disagree with the bolded part because for my mind he is showing a lot of drive. How often has he picked up the ball and carried it forward pushing the opponents defence backwards? He is hesitant in and around the box like when he refused to shoot against Burnley three times in the box. But then he should have had a few assists notably when he squared for Kane against Chelsea who blazed over (would have been 4-0).

Against Inter Milan with us having 15 minutes to save our UCL season it was Sissoko who picked up the ball and drove forward to give us that inspiration and give the "pre-assist" for Eriksen's goal.

Sissoko has his limitations so we can and should be getting in an upgrade. But what he is showing now is he can be a very good squad player as opposed to just another body.

Sissoko is not just a Poch blind eye of a player. Deschamps likes him too starting him in the Euro 2016 knockouts including the final itself and most of the WC qualifying. Sissoko spoke at how disappointed he was not to make the cut for the summer but knew it was his own doing. But now he is back in the squad.
 
41 of them were forward.

He made more forward passes than both Eriksen and Sissoko.
All of which were to Sissoko, Eriksen, Ali 5 yards ahead of him. I know he has more to his game than playing ball recycler. He needs to do more with his passing if he wants to improve. That is all.
 
All of which were to Sissoko, Eriksen, Ali 5 yards ahead of him. I know he has more to his game than playing ball recycler. He needs to do more with his passing if he wants to improve. That is all.

And when he's playing in a different role that doesn't require recycling possession, I'd expect more creative passes too.

Until then, I'm happy with what I see.
 
95/96 passes to our centerbacks is not that impressive mate. Sorry to burst your bubble. If he wants to improve as a player then he needs to become more creative in his passes - think a bit more rather than passing it to the nearest man all game long.

My money says he's being asked to play that way; safe, tidy... The things Sissoko isn't being relied upon for being. .. Playing to the strengths of others (See Sissoko, Toby, Eriksen as per earlier posts). We've had to constantly chop and change at the back end of our line-up all season. I think the kid's doing well considering how much he's being leaned upon to be disciplined. Maturity beyond his years.

Earlier doors, when he's played with Dembele & Dier we've seeing more forward impetus from him. I accept the concerns about the defensive aspect of his game, but in the short-term we're looking to strike a different balance with Sissoko as our current go to CM. In the meantime, at a mere 22 y/old he can practice the 'hollywood' passes in training for now.

Looking towards the summer, if we're bringing CMs in we'll do well to free up two slots via Dembele & Vic given their physical condition as it is... Time is on Winksy's side now; so long as he steadily shows improvement season to season. Short-to-medium-term we don't necessarily need him to run our midfield if we're resigned to recruiting in that area anyway. Let's remember the two long spells he had out injured; he's a relative pup still.
 
95/96 passes to our centerbacks is not that impressive mate. Sorry to burst your bubble. If he wants to improve as a player then he needs to become more creative in his passes - think a bit more rather than passing it to the nearest man all game long.

Sorry but you're just plain wrong, he made 41 forward passes (so probably not all to our CB's) that's more than any other midfield player on the pitch. Only 21 of his 95 completed passes were <10 yards nearly all were 10-20 yards.

You just don't seem to understand the role of the holding midfield player very well ....
 
Nor is writing crap on the internet, one which you've clearly already mastered. So Winks managed what's not a difficult skill, that is recycling possession with 95 out of 96 passes completed, as this is not a difficult skill can you please tell us the last Spurs player to complete over 90 passes in a game with a completion rate of over 98%, or indeed any player at any EPL club to have managed this not a difficult skill on any occasion in the last ten years.

It's not a not a difficult skill so producing names should be easy for you ... look forward to seeing a huge list ....
Whens the last time two of our centrebacks got 123 and 141 passes ? Whens the last time Sissoko got 88 passes? Its the first time any of these numbers have ever happened.

Once we we up 3-0, our CBs, Winks and even Sissoko were taking it easy and just passing it to each other while not doing anything very creative. Still at least Sissoko was involved in creating 2 of our goals.

Its probably wrong to say 'its not a skill to tippy tappy with your centrebacks and not do anything creative while we are already 3-0 up and its all about wasting time', its just not as difficult a skill as passing to someone in enough space so they are able to do something useful with it.
 
Sissoko has his limitations so we can and should be getting in an upgrade. But what he is showing now is he can be a very good squad player as opposed to just another body.

See, this is exactly how I feel, and have explained why I feel it. I don't really understand why if you feel this way, you feel the need to reprimand me for explaining why I feel this way?

As far as the other stuff, the maybe/could haves odd assists etc I'm sorry mate, but that just isn't good enough. All our players have a shitload of them (Eriksen would have about 30 assists already if players finished his chances), and have the actual assists and key passes as well. KWP has two more assists than him in one game. Winks has the same amount of pre-assists.

You talk about physical dominance but that's one of the misnomers I'm questioning. Just being big and running around isn't actually dominating. Kante is tiny and he dominates. Sissoko makes the same amount of tackles per game as Eriksen and Son (you'd hardly call either dominating). Alli and Moura make twice as many tackles per game. There's 12 players that make the same or more tackles per game. Eriksen has dispossessed opponents the same amount as Sissoko, Winks slightly more per minute. Far from dominating, for a player that isn't creating much at all, he's not really giving us much defensively either. If you watch him in games he often allows men to run off him (he's not the only one, I'm not saying he is, but he's no Kante either in that respect).

I think there are games where he's doing OK. I think he was perfectly decent last night (and said so). But I just don't accept that he's really excelling at anything and if we are going to become more than nearly boys, we can easily do better. And that's the point, I know other players we have are compromised but they are mostly muckiest harder to upgrade than Sissoko.
 
Whens the last time two of our centrebacks got 123 and 141 passes ? Whens the last time Sissoko got 88 passes? Its the first time any of these numbers have ever happened.

Once we we up 3-0, our CBs, Winks and even Sissoko were taking it easy and just passing it to each other while not doing anything very creative. Still at least Sissoko was involved in creating 2 of our goals.

Its probably wrong to say 'its not a skill to tippy tappy with your centrebacks and not do anything creative while we are already 3-0 up and its all about wasting time', its just not as difficult a skill as passing to someone in enough space so they are able to do something useful with it.

You're actually wrong. We created better quality chances second half than first half where we scored a ricochet, a long shot and an acute finish from Son. Our x/g at HT was 0.33, our x/g for the second half was 1.0 (so 300% better). We had twice as many shots second half.

We played that second half to perfection, starved them of the ball, moved it around, pulled them around and then opened them up a few times, we just wasted the chances.
 
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You're actually wrong. We created better quality chances second half than first half where we scored a ricochet, a long shot and an acute finish from Son. Our x/g at HT was 0.33, our x/g for the second half was 1.0 (so 300% better). We had wine as many shots second half.

We played that second half to perfection, starved them of the ball, moved it around, pulled them around and then opened them up a few times, we just wasted the chances.
You are the stat man, can you find stats for how many passes did we have in the first 26 minutes compared to the rest of the match. You will find our possession would have gone through the roof in the remaining 64 minutes.
 
You're actually wrong. We created better quality chances second half than first half where we scored a ricochet, a long shot and an acute finish from Son. Our x/g at HT was 0.33, our x/g for the second half was 1.0 (so 300% better). We had twice as many shots second half.

We played that second half to perfection, starved them of the ball, moved it around, pulled them around and then opened them up a few times, we just wasted the chances.

Well spotted Blakey, this to me was the big change from the Wolves game, against Wolves in the second half we started looking for the 'killer pass' or 'defence splitting long ball' far to early every time we had possession, this gave away the ball time after time allowing Wolves to both stay deep and block our attacking game, whilst still giving them enough possession to counter-attack.

Against Cardiff we did the exact opposite, in the second half we cut out the long game and played total possession football, this both starved Cardiff of possession preventing them any meaningful attacking game, and forced them to push out thus allowing us to create (but not score) far more opportunities than in the first half.

Wolves was a brutal lesson in us believing we were to good to have to stick to the basics, let's hope it's a lesson learned.
 
41 of them were forward.

He made more forward passes than both Eriksen and Sissoko.

Just because they were forward passes doesn't mean they were the kind of forward passes we would like to see from him. I want to see passes into space, key passes, one touch football, a bit of belief and tenacity when it comes to wanting to genuinely hurt teams.

I really like Winks but unless he kicks on a couple of gears he will soon miss his moment to cement his place as a starter for us. I think he'll end up being a good quality academy player and one that you can consider a good squad player but I have higher hopes for Skipp long term and think we need two new midfielders long term so I don't know where that leaves Harry.

I like him but he needs to take more genuine risks and he needs to be prepared to lose the ball in order to make stuff happen. Killer passes required from him in his development years, I want him to kick on a lot more than I'm seeing
 
95/96 passes to our centerbacks is not that impressive mate. Sorry to burst your bubble. If he wants to improve as a player then he needs to become more creative in his passes - think a bit more rather than passing it to the nearest man all game long.

41 were to the CB's, 54 the rest.

Of course he needs to improve, all aspects of his game, but a few points. One is that he's now still only started 21 games. He's being asked to play a role that's not exactly natural. In this set up, we are playing with Winks deep and two more progressive 8's (Eriksen and Sissoko - both am's by nature) there is no DM covering Winks in our system, he's it. Even in Cheslea's system where they have Jorginho playing a similar role, they keep Kante in there as insurance.

I'm not sure who it was that said "would we be impressed if Dier did what Winks is doing". Dier's passing wouldn't be any more incisive, probably wouldn't see it as much either, would probably give it away a few more (and he's often got a real sloppy one in him) but he also doesn't receive the ball under pressure as much as Winks does, and he also doesn't move the ball to where he wants it as quick, which helps our transition and catch teams before they are set often.

Sure there might be days when in this 3CM system Dier might be viable, and there are defensive risks with Winks, but it's not like we've been defensively solid with Dier, and I'm quite liking the different, more proactive approach of putting a "footballer" at the hub and saying "right, we're going to dominate the ball, and that's not going to stop just because we score" which is what was happening at the start of the season.

For the record here's the record with both:

Dier started 13 games. We've won 10 lost 3. 30 points. Scored 25 conceded 12. clean sheets 5

Winks started 12 games. Won 10 lost 2. 30 points. scored 30 conceded 10. Clean sheets 7

We also got mullered by Arse in the league with Dier and beat them in the cup with Winks. He also started the last three CL games that got us through, Dier started the first three that nearly put us out.

If you look at the last few games they have undoubtedly been our best

It's not like there is much "team based results" evidence to suggest we are more vulnerable with Winks in the side.
 
You are the stat man, can you find stats for how many passes did we have in the first 26 minutes compared to the rest of the match. You will find our possession would have gone through the roof in the remaining 64 minutes.

342/388 first half. 348/393 second half

First 30 mins 223/258
second 30 mins 226/255
third 30 mins 236/260

No real difference at all.
 
Just because they were forward passes doesn't mean they were the kind of forward passes we would like to see from him. I want to see passes into space, key passes, one touch football, a bit of belief and tenacity when it comes to wanting to genuinely hurt teams.

I really like Winks but unless he kicks on a couple of gears he will soon miss his moment to cement his place as a starter for us. I think he'll end up being a good quality academy player and one that you can consider a good squad player but I have higher hopes for Skipp long term and think we need two new midfielders long term so I don't know where that leaves Harry.

I like him but he needs to take more genuine risks and he needs to be prepared to lose the ball in order to make stuff happen. Killer passes required from him in his development years, I want him to kick on a lot more than I'm seeing

Again, we've got to accept how we are currently setting up. His job in this system is to fundamentally carry water for the players ahead. And what he does better than Dier would in this system is receive the ball under duress, move it quicker and occasionally he can drop a shoulder and move away from the marker.

If he gets moved into Sissoko's 8 role, which was his more natural type role, then yes definitely he would need to take more risk and be more creative. But so far he's mostly really played this central hold/distribute role, or in the CM2, again as the more "holding" type.
 
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