Sigurdsson or Holtby?

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Who do you think is better?

  • Holtby

    Votes: 86 89.6%
  • Sigurdsson

    Votes: 10 10.4%

  • Total voters
    96
Two gifs can't tell the whole story, but I have to admit that watching those two gifs gets me all hot and bothered.

At least it shows that he's looking for the pass, which I don't think is something that could be said for all of our deep midfielders.
 
Two gifs can't tell the whole story, but I have to admit that watching those two gifs gets me all hot and bothered.

At least it shows that he's looking for the pass, which I don't think is something that could be said for all of our deep midfielders.

That is one of the reasons I'd take him ahead of Dembele and Paulinho.

Tbf to Holtby as well, he was trying through passes to the likes of Lennon who seems to have forgotten how to make runs behind the defence.
 
Holtby.

Clutch goals notwithstanding, I've always been frustrated by Sig's slowness, poor first touch, and immobility. The goals that he has to his credit have always been despite his poor performances; I don't think I've ever watched Sig play and thought to myself "Sig is absolutely tearing them apart."

Holtby never quits. Even when he's having a poor game his vision is apparent; he's always looking for that perfect through pass.

Siggies first touch imo is excellent. He has great close control and can dig the ball out quick.

My problem with him are all off the ball. No imagination and makes plodding predictable runs and can get marked out of games.

His ability to get himself into the danger zone or keep defenders guessing is his weakness.
 
That is a reasonable assessment of a hypothetical situation. And in my opinion, an overtly defensive set up. I've noticed in other posts that you seem to favour a 4-4-2. which would allow for the 'slightly' defensive set up that you advocate. In an 11 man game, where you have to give up something, and cannot possibly cover all bases, I would prefer to push forwards with an an attacking philosophy.
Oh no, I'm very far from a proponent of 4-4-2.

Much more a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 man myself, as I thought I've made perfectly clear through my time here. I simply maintain that formations fluidly change depending on who is on the front foot; there's a reason why people can post an average position map of a game and there are three or four different opinions as to what formation we're playing. I just take this one step further and maintain that there's a difference between offensive and defensive shape; defending with just 4 men against heavy pressure simply doesn't cut it. In the modern game that "hypothetical situation" is one that happens quite frequently. Even when he wasn't lighting it up in attack, Chadli did track back well and covered up some terrible mistakes by Rose. When Sherwood took over and put Eriksen on the left we had an extra man in attack that helped out, but Rose was thrown to a pack of wolves and couldn't manage the situation.

I just think we should play to what we've got before standing on principle and putting out a squad that's incompatible with the playing philosophy. If one thing is apparent to me it's that AVB's failure was for sticking with a formation that had too many jack of all trades central midfielders and un-creative pacy wingers to work with his high-line; that just left us pinning opponents back but lacking the ability to put them to the sword. In turn, Sherwood exposed our greatest weakness by placing Eriksen on the left and leaving Rose open to assault.

If we get a new left back that can handle it, great. Otherwise, that's just the reality that we're facing, and we shouldn't stand on principle to say that Rose shouldn't need assistance in defense in the first place, so we're not going to give it to him.
 
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Holtby needs to learn to conserve his energy. He's just too wasteful. His passing skills are next level though.
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L2Quote.

But I think the criticism is a bit OTT here, he's probably not good enough for Spurs if we are planning on progressing sure but, I'm not sure how Holtby has shown he's such a great step up so far? (I like Holtby btw, just trying to look at this objectively, as opposed to saying I like Holtby therefore he's better.)
 
Holtby, but only just. I just think he has a higher ceiling and more of the ingredients our soupy attack misses.

However, we need both. Squad players of Siggy and Holtby's calibre are must haves for any serious top 4/title contender. We just to have improve our rotation a bit.
 
Box to box, yes. No denying that, but he's always got his head up and has shown much more willingness to attempt through balls and forward passes than any of our other deep midfielders.

Case in point:
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Yeah, he's been very hit or miss, but he's also not had any sustained run in the squad as a starter to really establish himself. I account for his hot and cold nature as mostly being a more ambitious passer than Dembele, for example.

Jesus wept those passes are surreal. Reminder of his potential and most valued abilities
 
Good, i already dont like you. :eriksenlol:

Lol that's fine. But your opinion is just wrong. I don't care how nice a guy Siggy is, or how Holtby has tons of energy. Nether of these players ever will be good enough to be in the starting 11 of the team Spurs is trying to be. I think that's all anyone needs to know about them. If they want to sit on the bench their whole Spurs career, that's fine. Holtby makes a fine sub. Siggy is just a poacher and too slow for anything else we want. Why bother with him? Honestly. Dempsey was better at doing the same thing and we really didn't need him either. Just because a guy can score goals under certain circumstances does not mean he's good for us. Siggy will never be the player many want him to be. Holtby is never going to be a good enough number 10 for us, and he will unlikely be a good enough deep lying playmaker for us because he LACKS the SKILL to be. Nothing against him personally. It's pretty obvious though if you've watched last years games. So yea, if Holtby wants to be a sub and stay on cheap, let's keep him. Otherwise, see ya. If we want to be winners then we need to be as Darwinian as possible about this. We want to compete with Chelsea and Man City? Then we need to find players of a good enough caliber to play and start for either of those teams. Holtby and Siggy? Not good enough. It's time to be cut throat about this, or we will stay as a midlevel team.
 
Holtby any day although I've been quite disappointed with how it has been going for him at Spurs. Was hoping that the season we signed him he would have provided a bit of the creative spark we badly needed.

Tbf, he was initially played out of position (LW) upon his arrival, and he struggled to get a bit of rhythm. After that, his passing just declined as he lost confidence and the squad had moved on a bit to rely so heavily on Bale. Just really poor timing. Was very excited to see him finally hitting his groove late last fall, and then it was so unfortunate it happened right before AVB got the axe. Sherwood's two man midfield of Holtby and Eriksen against West Brom was just insanely stupid, and the writing was on the wall for his move from that point on.

Funny though that Sherwood lamented later that spring he had no passer from deep, and then in his column on the WC in which he criticized Paulinho. Well guy, you dug your own grave.
 
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