You may well remember the name Marcus Edwards. He was signed on loan in January by Norwich from Tottenham with a big billing, huge in fact. Old news reports surfaced where Mauricio Pochettino had described him as being ‘the news Messi,’ which by Poch’s own admission perhaps wasn’t too helpful.
Anyway, without any of us having seen him play, he was labelled as some sort of wonder kid saviour for our season. Almost two months later we’ve still not seen anything of him. He arrived with a niggling back injury and from what I can make out that lasted the first 3-4 weeks and since then he’s been back in full training.
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The reason I decided to write something about it today was an article I read online about Edwards at football.london
Daniel Farke is quoted talking about Edwards and his ‘attitude without the ball’ and this seems to be sparking some debate among other sites about Marcus having a bad attitude.
This is what Farke is quoted as saying:
‘Marcus improves a lot but he is still not there, in terms of his attitude without the ball. After letting in four goals at Hull it wouldn`t be the best sign to bring him immediately to the pitch.’
He added: ‘I was not happy with us defensively (at Hull) and we have to show a reaction in this game (Barnsley). It is not the right time to bring in a player who needs to grow up with his attitude without the ball.
‘If we had won the last three or four games then it helps to introduce a player like Marcus with his technical ability.’
The issue is with some of the reports I’ve read this morning like this one at Football Insider
That report, based on Farke’s quotes, suggests that Farke has ‘destroyed’ the youngster, he’s ‘frozen him out’ and that Edwards needs to ‘grow up.’
That must be quite a depressing read for Tottenham fans but I suspect the reality is far from it.
We all know that English is not Daniel Farke’s first language but even so, he speaks English fluently as many German people do.
When I read his quotes on Marcus and ‘a player who needs to grow up with his attitude without the ball’ I read that he needs to improve his ability without the ball.
Not that he needs to grow up generally or that he has a bad attitude.
FFS.
His technical ability with the ball doesn’t seem to be in doubt but if you cast your mind back to last season, Alex Neil treated his own £8m signing, Alex Pritchard in a similar way and I remember him commenting that Pritchard needed to do more when he didn’t have the ball before he became a regular starter. In other words work harder defensively.
So, if you’re a Spurs fan I wouldn’t panic with all this talk about Marcus Edwards having a bad attitude. I think it’s just been lost in translation by people looking to make a dramatic headline out of nothing.
OTBC