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Tom Carroll

the dza said:
I thought he had another decent game today, but he needs to improve defensively if he's gonna play deep. Currently, Dembele is a long way in front of him for this reason, imo.
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The way Dembele has been playing so far this season, for sure, but going by today's performance Carroll is increasingly asking the right questions. Very impressed the way he smartly and regularly recycles the ball forward to start another attack. True he can be too-easily thown off the ball and he also needs to curb the stray passes but these things can improve with regular game time.

Good to hear he's been offered an extension to his contract if true, he has potential.
 
Spur of the moment said:
The way Dembele has been playing so far this season, for sure, but going by today's performance Carroll is increasingly asking the right questions. Very impressed the way he smartly and regularly recycles the ball forward to start another attack. True he can be too-easily thown off the ball and he also needs to curb the stray passes but these things can improve with regular game time.

Good to hear he's been offered an extension to his contract if true, he has potential.
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I think it's because he will never be physically strong that it's very important he gets himself in the right positions when defending, and he has to work very hard to do so. Someone like Dembele can use his strength to get him out of jail if he gets the wrong side of a player when making a tackle. I think Poch will be able to coach him to improve his defensive game though.
 
I was pointing out to my son today while watching the match (a bit of lecture really...boo) how aware Carroll is of the space and players around him. His head is on a 360 degree swivel even as the ball is on the way to him. The littleun's have to use everything in their locker to their advantage and awareness is Carroll's strength. You don't have to be a brute or an Olympic athlete to succeed in the middle of the park. You just have to be smarter than the rest and then the physical side is less important.

Delighted to hear about the contract rumour. Hope it is true.
 
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I'm not one of his biggest fans, I see him as a nice tidy player with a good technique, but I thought he did well yesterday and tried to play a more expansive game and some quick forward passes. It may have been a bit easier as Leicester did not offer any offensive movement from their forward defensive four.
 
Rorschach said:
I was pointing out to my son today while watching the match (a bit of lecture really...boo) on how aware Carroll is of the space and players around him. His head is on a 360 degree swivel even as the ball is on the way to him. The littleun's have to use everything in their locker to their advantage and awareness is Carroll's strength. You don't have to be a brute or an Olympic athlete to succeed in the middle of the park. You just have to be smarter than the rest and then the physical side is less important.

Delighted to hear about the contract rumour. Hope it is true.
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Would agree with this I have said a few times before that I like the way he plays the game, he is always on the move and looking for angles ( usually a sign of a very good player). He is defiantly improving with every games and I hope Poch ( who obviously see's the same in him) keeps faith with him.

He was my MOM today and I hope the contract talk is correct.
 
K.D.D.D.D.Soc said:
I'm not one of his biggest fans, I see him as a nice tidy player with a good technique, but I thought he did well yesterday and tried to play a more expansive game and some quick forward passes. It may have been a bit easier as Leicester did not offer any offensive movement from their forward defensive four.
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Leicester defending deep and not giving us any space makes it harder to play good expansive passes, not easier.
 
I was on the fence about Carroll, but his last few performances have convinced me that he should be part of the future and not just as a squad player. He can fill in for CM and even one of the AM spots. 20-25 games a season can be his, I reckon. Whether he feels that's enough for him is another story.
 
Was getting a lot of praise for his performance against Leicester on the football weekly podcast yesterday. Was being talked of as perhaps the next "Spurs have the best player in the world, but it's a different one every month" or something like that (follow up on Kane, Dier and Alli), and also had his passing compared to Xabi Alonso's.
 
braineclipse said:
Was getting a lot of praise for his performance against Leicester on the football weekly podcast yesterday. Was being talked of as perhaps the next "Spurs have the best player in the world, but it's a different one every month" or something like that (follow up on Kane, Dier and Alli), and also had his passing compared to Xabi Alonso's.
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That is a very generous assessment... he had a decent game but was by no means amazing. Xabi Alonso comparison is just silly. He has a long way to go before he deserves anything like the praise that Kane, Dier and Alli have been receiving.
 
Pandy said:
That is a very generous assessment... he had a decent game but was by no means amazing. Xabi Alonso comparison is just silly. He has a long way to go before he deserves anything like the praise that Kane, Dier and Alli have been receiving.
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I agree it's generous. Just pointing out that he's starting to attract praise from neutrals. And considering he's not really a goalscorer and plays a role that often goes a bit unnoticed I thought it worth mentioning.

He's also played a lot fewer games than those 3. Would be shocking if he deserved their levels of praise at this point.
 
I've defended him enough to hopefully get cut some slack, so I will say this: he disappointed me today, at least from the defensive side. I've mentioned before how I liked that he had a way of teaming up with Dier to nick the ball off opposing players, thereby negating his own physical limitations: today, I saw none of that. Just him being crowded out by Leicester players, losing the ball, and then bouncing off them like a balloon when trying to win it back.

Maybe that's Dier's fault for not backing him up, but either way, he was unimpressive in my eyes.
 
DubaiSpur said:
I've defended him enough to hopefully get cut some slack, so I will say this: he disappointed me today, at least from the defensive side. I've mentioned before how I liked that he had a way of teaming up with Dier to nick the ball off opposing players, thereby negating his own physical limitations: today, I saw none of that. Just him being crowded out by Leicester players, losing the ball, and then bouncing off them like a balloon when trying to win it back.

Maybe that's Dier's fault for not backing him up, but either way, he was unimpressive in my eyes.
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I agree. It was too fast an physical for him today. The ball was over his head a lot which didn't help him a whole lot either.
 
I thought Carroll was ok again, but defensively he isn't as good as we need him to be. But he's come in at a point in the season where we have had lots of games, and he's kept things ticking over whilst Dembele and Mason have had injury problems. Can't ask much more from the lad than that imo.
 
Rorschach said:
I agree. It was too fast an physical for him today. The ball was over his head a lot which didn't help him a whole lot either.
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True, and that shouldn't be overlooked. Still, I'm glad Dembele's back, and I wouldn't have said that with quite as much relief had Carroll kept up his form over the last few weeks. With Dembele, we don't get Carroll's metronomic passing, but we do get physicality, an easy (almost unfairly easy) 'out' ball when we're under pressure and a guarantee that we'll win free kicks and fouls in the final third given his dribbling ability.
 
DubaiSpur said:
True, and that shouldn't be overlooked. Still, I'm glad Dembele's back, and I wouldn't have said that with quite as much relief had Carroll kept up his form over the last few weeks. With Dembele, we don't get Carroll's metronomic passing, but we do get physicality, an easy (almost unfairly easy) 'out' ball when we're under pressure and a guarantee that we'll win free kicks and fouls in the final third given his dribbling ability.
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Carroll was OK tonight but it was made for Dembele to me. There a physical side despite their size and Carroll doesn't excel in that area. He did swap positions with erisken in the first half and for a period we looked dominant again. I would have swapped him for Moussa on 55 and kept erisken on personally
 
When Lamela slipped it through for Kane to strike and hit the bar... it was Carroll that flew past them, opening up the space, getting to the line, then scrambling back to defend.

When Leicester were pinging it around our box it was Carroll stood behind Lloris and Vertonghen, on the line, defending.

He gets around a lot without being noticed as the commentators don't see him. Perhaps he should adopt a pink mohican hairstyle to stand out a bit more.

Overall he was average, some good and some bad.
 
Agree with Bullet he isn't mentioned by commentators because half of them still don't know who he is.
Danny Murphy praised his pass that set away the goal on Sunday "as other great ball by Wimmer".

If people are gonna knock what he did defensively tonight they need to look at the rest of the team as well.

Walker: 0 successful tackles, 3 successful interceptions
Alderweireld: 1 successful tackles, 2 successful interceptions
Vertonghen: 1 successful tackles, 1 successful interceptions
Davies: 0 successful tackles, 2 successful interceptions
Carroll: 3 successful tackles, 1 successful interceptions
Dier: 3 successful tackles, 3 successful interceptions
Lamela: 0 successful tackles, 1 successful interceptions
Eriksen: 0 successful tackles, 0 successful interceptions
Alli: 2 successful tackles, 1 successful interceptions
Kane: 0 successful tackles, 0 successful interceptions
Dembele: 0 successful tackles, 0 successful interceptions
 
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