By: Robert Reed | January 10th, 2011
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David Beckham Today, Arriving At White Hart Lane For His Medical
It’s on, and off, and on again as Status Quo would say. At the time of writing this article David Beckham’s proposed loan move to White Hart Lane is not happening, save for a couple of months training with the squad. By the time I’m finished writing though, that could all have changed. And possibly changed back again.
I can see no real downside to Beckham joining up with the club to train. We have a talented group of lads, but no real prima donnas. Nobody will get upset about the Beckham roadshow rolling into town and hogging all the publicity for a couple of months. I don’t believe either that it will be a distraction in our push for the title.
In fact I can only see good coming from it. He’s a winner at club level, and just having him around the club would raise morale. Having Harry telling the squad they can win the league is one thing, but having a fellow player of his stature whose been there and done it tell them they have what it takes could be a different matter.
Individual players would undoubtedly benefit from some guidance. Lennon has spent time with Beckham on England duty, so I wouldn’t expect any great strides on that front in a couple of months.
Gareth Bale though, is a different matter. Not with his crossing so much, Gareth seems to be doing fine on his own. I mean with his free kicks. Remember when Bale used to hammer goals in from free kicks? He’s gone off the boil in that department, and who better to help him with that side of his game?
The one player who could really learn something from Beckham will probably not be around to benefit. David Bentley has apparently tried to model himself on David Beckham to a certain extent. He was hoping for the number seven shirt when he joined Spurs, and in the past even had his own version of Beckham’s ‘DB7′ embroidered on his boots. While he was mimicking his image though, he should have been mimicking his attitude.
Harry Redknapp was excited about working with David Bentley when he joined the club. Lennon’s star had faded somewhat at the time and Harry saw Bentley as the answer on that right flank. Even then David Beckham was being linked with the club, but on being asked about him joining Harry replied, ‘I don’t need David Beckham, I’ve got David Bantley, and he’s just great.’
The way Bentley killed all that good will and enthusiasm in such a short period of time is testament to what a complete prat this lad must be. I don’t know how long Harry stuck with him for, but it took Capello no time at all to decide he didn’t want him around. He was very big headed and loud around the England squad, apparently having elected himself Squad Joker. He messed around in training and Bentley’s sense of entitlement and lack of effort put Capello off him permanently. The same sense of entitlement which made him turn down his England U21 place in the European Under 21 Championships. He cited tiredness but the feeling was that he thought the U21 squad was beneath him. It led Stuart Pearce to question his commitment, but then I’ve seen Pearce arguing to be allowed back on the pitch with what later turned out to be a broken leg, so..
The prime example of David Bentley’s idiocy is his soaking of Harry Redknapp after Spurs qualified for the Champions League. While Harry had a fixed grin for the cameras it’s well known that he wasn’t impressed. Can you imagine the reactions of Wenger, Ferguson or Mourinho if some fringe player did that during an interview? It would be an unwise thing for any player to do, but especially David Bentley. He was already out of favour and it wasn’t like we’d won the Champions League, we’d finished fourth in the Premiership.
Never in a million years would you see David Beckham do anything like that. Publicly humiliating the manager and then jumping around on live TV in his pants. Great career move.
So while his experience and enthusiasm can only be good for the squad, having to find playing time for Beckham I am not so enthusiastic about. I can’t see him getting a game on the right. Lennon is playing very well and if he was injured I would replace him with Kranjcar. Much of our success this season has come from our speed down the wings and we don’t need to be changing our game plan for Beckham.
He will be easy for the opposition to pick up, and he won’t have remotely as much time to key up his big Hollywood passes as he has had in the MLS and in Italy in recent years. ‘He’ll put the ball right on Crouchy’s head,’ is what I keep hearing. I was hoping we would be signing a forward so Crouch wouldn’t even be playing. The repeatedly spurned chances due to his constant failure to control the ball and shoot during the Birmingham game, which we eventually drew 1-1, convinced me once and for all that Peter Crouch is not good enough.
It has been mentioned that Beckham could play in the middle, but what could he offer us there that we wouldn’t have from Huddlestone? Playing him centrally, in what was at the time referred to as his ‘quarterback’ role, proved a complete failure for England and was never tried again. It is not unlikely that Redknapp will sign another central midfielder in this window anyway.
All that said, it isn’t wise to entirely write off David Beckham’s possible contribution as a player. If he should play for us you can guarantee he would give his all, particularly as he is very much aware that the manager he is playing for will probably be picking the England squad in the next year or two. Also if used intelligently late on in a game he could calm everyone down and help keep possession until the final whistle.
The main problem with his signing is that he would only be here a short while and yet would have to be named in our twenty five man squad. It cannot be changed, and we would see out the rest of the season a man short after he left.
Beckham playing for Spurs appeals to Daniel Levy because of his many off field benefits, merchandise sales and promotion of the Spurs brand worldwide being chief among them. It also has to be said that (although I detest her constant and pathetic Spurs bashing in the papers) Karen Brady is surely not too wide of the mark in her assertion that Beckham’s move to Spurs holds the added benefit of lending weight to Levy’s bid to gain possession of the 2012 Olympic stadium site. Beckham worked closely with Sebastian Coe in the push to bring the Olympics to London in 2012 and his presence at the club would give Spurs’ bid added credibility. AEG, Levy’s partners in the bid for the site, are also the owners of LA Galaxy. Not the most unlikely of conspiracies but she should still calm down, it’s hardly JFK.
So if he plays for us it will be interesting, but if he doesn’t it will probably be for the best. Whatever happens, Spurs will be getting a lot more column inches in the paper over the next couple of months.
COYS!
Some Related Spurs Posts:Van Der Vaart Was Too Good For You, José“Bale’s Going Nowhere” Says Redknapp. About Time TooFinally, We’re BackAC Milan? Spurs Always Do Things The Hard WayHarry Needs To Toughen Up To Save Spurs’ Season
Category: Harry Redknapp, Players, Team News, Transfers
Tags: 2012, aeg, beckham, DANIEL LEVY, David Beckham, David Bentley, Harry Redknapp, karen brady, LA Galaxy, olympic site, Players, Team News, Transfers
Tweet « Spurs will dispose of troubled Addicks | Home | Comments | Add your comment woody2221 | January 10th, 2011 at 3:31 pm
i have seen that karen brady has said beckham is only coming to spurs to help with our os bid, i also hear that westham wanted him at their club for his loan period, makes you wonder what their motives for the loan were doesnt it?
davspurs | January 10th, 2011 at 3:34 pm
I cant believe you are slagging Bentley off his only crime was soaking Harry and Football will always have players like Bentley its called dressing room banter. Having a happy dressing room is just has important to a successful team on the pitch. Lets look at Harry gaffs he praises players the leaves them to rot even when we are getting beat. He says things to the media he should keep in house like his Sandra gag about Bent the one about Dosantos cant pass a pub the slating of Bostock whose father rang Talk Sport to Complain about Harry. The snubbing of Kranjcar for five weeks on the bench with out playing once, Palacios his mother had Harry while he was shopping and told him to pick her son all these storeys where told to his favourite pass time the media Sky and the Sun Paper. My advice to Harry ring Jamie before you speak because he his excellent at the media circus you are a great Manager.
Robert Reed | January 10th, 2011 at 4:09 pm
That’s my point. If he were playing out of his skin and he was Harry’s golden boy, it still would be something that would piss almost any manager off. That’s not banter. The fact he did it when he was already falling out of favour at the club makes it a completely brainless thing to do, and it’s that kind of idiocy and the fact that on most accounts he doesn’t know when to stop pissing about which is blighting his career. He clearly has talent.
Harry likes a gaffe, but he’s the manager and he’s coming up with the goods. If we were in the bottom three it would be a different matter.
Elmesy | January 10th, 2011 at 4:37 pm
How can you say that Harry is bad with the press. His honesty in interviews after and before matches is what appeals most about him. I would much rather listen to Harry talk about how he is scared of Wilson Palacios’ Mum than have him give out the same monotonous rubbish that all the other managers read from their scripts. I think Jamie gets his skill from his father.
AS | January 10th, 2011 at 4:42 pm
I think signing Beckham is a master stroke from Harry and it would be a complete waste to go through all that for him not to play.
He will give the players a lift and can pass the ball out from the back to the flanks and forwards.
Plus with Pav and Defoe and Crouch all playing poorly Beckham’s free kicks could make a crucial difference getting us goals that turn draws into wins.
As for Bentley I wish we had never bought him. He has never lived up to the billing and that is £15m that we will never see again.
Sir Cecil | January 10th, 2011 at 8:02 pm
If any other teams got Beckham on loan, you’d all laugh and say they were desperate – either for publicity or shirt sales. As Jimmy Greaves said on Sunday, he’s a poseur. This is very lowering for Spurs, like when the faded George Best and Rodney Marsh joined lowly Fulham.
Robert Reed | January 10th, 2011 at 8:52 pm
Not so much the shirt sales but we could certainly do with the publicity, and that’s just good business sense. We lag behind the likes of Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal and now even Chelsea when it comes to support abroad. For the whole time that Beckham is with us the name of Tottenham Hotspur will regularly be in the sports pages of newspapers all over the world. Some people will watch games out of interest and realise that Spurs are one of the most entertaining sides around right now. That’s just one of the commercial advantages of having him train with the club. It’s already been reported that if the deal with Spurs fell through there was an arrangement in place for him to go and train with Arsenal again anyway, so I don’t see that there is any lowering involved.
As far as him actually playing, I of course agree we don’t need him at all.
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