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Harry Winks

Lots of technical ability, but you need alot more to be effective at the top end of the best league.
Modric developed after one season into a player who looked like he could control a game and destroy a team.
I would expect to see more signs of Winks significantly affecting the game or the opposition by now - but it's only been in flashes. As an opponent, I wouldn't look at him and think we need to do anything about him.
Need a rapid step up. I'd love to be wrong, but I don't see it.
Modric always had that capability and was doing it before he joined us both domestically and importantly internationally. The only reason you think he developed this ability after a season is that it was only after Harry's first season did he play Modric as a CM beforehand he was playing him first as an ACM and then a nominally left sided player but he always tucked in because his natural game was always as a CM.

Winks in comparison while I like him he doesn't have that playmaking ability or at least has demonstrated 0 that suggests he will ever develop it. I don't think you can develop that sort of understanding of the moving strands of a teams shape, you either have that overall vision or you don't. He doesn't, that doesn't mean I think he's a write off. He needs to be more progressive and quicker with his passing and maybe he can develop into something very useful at the moment he is a partner in a failing centre midfield.

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Hopefully, as Bedford says, Ndombele (and Lo Celso) will fill that Moussa hole in midfield when they’ve settled.

As whilst Winks is a tidy little player he don’t appear to have the attributes to play at the base of a diamond whilst (judging by Pochettino’s reluctance to bring him off the bench) Dier seems to be a long way from match fitness.

https://statsbomb.com/2018/11/whats-up-with-tottenham/

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Although Winks is the same age as Modric when he joined us, so perhaps he’ll overcome his lack of physical prowess and become world class too...

https://statsbomb.com/2014/06/gifolution-luka-modric-croatian-talisman/

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Wow.... how bad is that Dier chart?

I’d also like to see a Winks chart showing his last three years to see if he is progressing or stagnating.
 
Honestly fail to see what winks does. He looks busy and like he is doing things but all he does is pass it safe. He can't tackle, he doesn't assist, he doesn't play forward balls, he is like Scott Parker.

I'm sure some may have an alternative view please help me understand
 
Honestly fail to see what winks does. He looks busy and like he is doing things but all he does is pass it safe. He can't tackle, he doesn't assist, he doesn't play forward balls, he is like Scott Parker.

I'm sure some may have an alternative view please help me understand

I don't get it either. I'm wondering if the problem really is the diamond or if it's more about the players selected. Replace him with a proper DM and we'd be more solid IMO. Maybe drop Sissoko and move Winks further forward, but I'm far from convinced about his abilities in a more attacking role.
 
The ease that teams get at our back four is alarming. Any time we attack we're liable to enend up getting countered.

It's not his fault, he should be played in a pair or at least not be the deepest of the midfielders. You need someone in there just plugging that hole creating a foundation to play from.
 
The ease that teams get at our back four is alarming. Any time we attack we're liable to enend up getting countered.

It's not his fault, he should be played in a pair or at least not be the deepest of the midfielders. You need someone in there just plugging that hole creating a foundation to play from.

Trouble is if we play someone defensive alongside him then we are so poor creatively, Winks + Wanyana/Dier really won't do much in the middle. We'd need to play 3 in the middle to get the balance right.

Winks is so poor defensively, never tracks his man at all.
 
Crazy the way this guy divides opinion. He’s been suggested for the MOTM in the ONT and got a standing ovation when he was subbed today.
 
Today isn't really a day to be judging the forward ball playing abilities of our midfielders. For what it's worth though I thought that Winks had a decent game, he made some decent tackles and interceptions and moved the ball forwards with pace when required.

The downside is that he and N'Dombele do not see the space behind them. There was one moment in the second half where the ball was threaded through the pair of them and the guy receiving it probably had >6 yards of space all around him.
 
He improved but showed other weaknesses... He completed more forward passes, but none of them were key passes, a lot put receivers under pressure. You can see how our own players are not used to winks playing forward passes, it will take time to get there.

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Trouble is if we play someone defensive alongside him then we are so poor creatively, Winks + Wanyana/Dier really won't do much in the middle. We'd need to play 3 in the middle to get the balance right.

Winks is so poor defensively, never tracks his man at all.
Here I thought that with a 4-4-1 formation, Winks and Ndombele in the centre playing with ten men we rarely let Southampton through the middle at all for a half where they naturally put us under quite a bit of pressure.

Most of their attacking play came down the flanks I thought.

Funny how we can see things so differently.
 
Here I thought that with a 4-4-1 formation, Winks and Ndombele in the centre playing with ten men we rarely let Southampton through the middle at all for a half where they naturally put us under quite a bit of pressure.

Most of their attacking play came down the flanks I thought.

Funny how we can see things so differently.
Add to that the creativity and between-the-linesness of 4-2-3-1 with those two and we'll be a force.
 
Honestly fail to see what winks does. He looks busy and like he is doing things but all he does is pass it safe. He can't tackle, he doesn't assist, he doesn't play forward balls, he is like Scott Parker.

I'm sure some may have an alternative view please help me understand
Also, in defense, numerous times, he was the closest to the ball carrier, he had no one else to mark, there was no dangerous space behind him to cover, yet he just backs off, and backs off, and backs off, until they got inside the penalty area!
He's incredibly weak in that area, and his lack of "engagement", for lack of a better word, lead to us facing dangerous situations, that could easily have been avoided by just stepping up instead of constant back peddling.
 
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