HARPER A LEGEND?? mY A*SE!

[Royalee]

Harper isnt helped in the slightest when he has a midfield partner who has failed to grasp the movement/positional play of what the Premier League is all about.

Irony alert.

Harper has no positional sense whatsoever, he's as thick as a brick.

[rg6royal]

Harper isnt helped in the slightest when he has a midfield partner who has failed to grasp the movement/positional play of what the Premier League is all about.

Irony alert.

Harper has no positional sense whatsoever, he's as thick as a brick.

Harper is a motivating player who will run around the park like a mag dog for 90 minutes with no real effect!

[Royalee]

Harper isnt helped in the slightest when he has a midfield partner who has failed to grasp the movement/positional play of what the Premier League is all about.

Irony alert.

Harper has no positional sense whatsoever, he's as thick as a brick.

Harper is a motivating player who will run around the park like a mag dog for 90 minutes with no real effect!

Indeed - what did we do when we got rid of the last one of those in Hughes? Oh yeah, we got promoted.

[madreadingfan]

Harps lives an extremely charmed life. The way he is anonymous in the majority of games sometimes leaves me saying to myself " I forgot Harper was playing"This shouldn't be happening - we need 11 influential players out there.
How some of you doubt Matejovsky's class and him in general is a joke- he is our most creative player, the other players aren't as clever as him though meaning some of his passes go astray.

OK, apart from the goal against liverpool where has he actually created a goal for us, or scored a goal? Marek is overrated i say.

The only reason Marek has not created goals is because our strikers make f*ckin awful runs, if they even run at all, and if they do get in a good position they oxf*rd it up.

I take it you are one of the fans who judges players on how far they run rather than actual class

Nope i judge the players by if they actually want to wear the shirt for pride, and whos always looking to win and how much effort they put in, if they dont want to wear the shirt they can feck off (doyle in particular)

[leon]

[Nope i judge the players by if they actually want to wear the shirt for pride, and whos always looking to win and how much effort they put in, if they dont want to wear the shirt they can feck off (doyle in particular)

You're struggling with puberty, aren't you?

[11.30 from paddington]

Harper and Matesjovesky were outnumbered in the centre of midfield today, up against Bullard, Davies and Murphy.

Arguably, Hodgson won the tactical game against Coppell, as the three Fulham players were able to snuff out the attacking threat from our two midfielders, and then play triangles past them when they were in possession.

But hey - don't let a proper analysis of the game get in the way of your opportunity to slag off a player who's played 300 games in the most successful period of this club's history.

Of course he played poorly today, by his usual standards. Everybody did (with the exception of Marcus).

[Ian Royal]

Harps lives an extremely charmed life. The way he is anonymous in the majority of games sometimes leaves me saying to myself " I forgot Harper was playing"This shouldn't be happening - we need 11 influential players out there.
How some of you doubt Matejovsky's class and him in general is a joke- he is our most creative player, the other players aren't as clever as him though meaning some of his passes go astray.

Don't get me wrong, I like Marek and I think he could play a big part in our future, but:

He created nothing yesterday. He gave the ball away as much as anyone else if not more. He carried on giving away silly freekicks, he acts like he'll die if he shoots (liverpool excluded) and he's not got any pace.

Harper may not tackle or play defence splitting passes (to the ball boys or keeper) but he closes down and rarely gives the ball away.

Harper looks ineffectual defensively in games like that, because he can't close down an entire team. If the rest of them are leaving players wide open then of course he is going to be utterly useless. Not to say I thought he wasn't poor as well.

[Alan Partridge]

I'll just put this to the board.

Is it any coincidence that we have a thread (usually at least 6 or 7 pages long) about HArper and his worth/lack of worth to the team EVERY season. In particular when the team is struggling as a whole.

Is he just an easy target? Or does his form really depend on how the team is playing?

When we play well he rarely stands out, when we play bad he's the first for criticism.

He has these spells every year, always has done and as long as he's here will continue to do so.

[Ian Royal]

The answer to that is that Harper is not a player who takes the ball and wins games, or makes spectacular tackles.

Now many may say that that means he is useless. But a successful team needs more than just that and Harper offers a lot, but when the team play badly he is left standing in the middle looking clueless because:

a) he has no decent options for passes
b) he can try and close down all he wants but it doesn't matter if the player he's closing down has 4 easy attacking passing options.

[Royalee]

b) he can try and close down all he wants but it doesn't matter if the player he's closing down has 4 easy attacking passing options.

Yes, but the thing is the player doesn't even need to pass the ball - he just has to run through Harper, which has been the case in so many instances this season where the opposition midfield are able to take the ball and dribble it to the edge of our area completely unchallenged.

As for attacking options, when we have the ball Harper often hides and gets into the wrong positions. How many times is one of our defenders on the ball only to find that Harper, our central midfielder, is ten yards BEHIND them! The guy has so little anticipation and tactical awareness that I'm embarassed for him - the amount of times I've screamed at him to get out from our defence's toes is unbelievable. To play in central midfield, you have to be able to do one of the following: tackle and defend, run at players with the ball and hold off opponents, or pick killer passes. Harper can't do any of these, which is why he simply isn't good enough and we have been carrying him for most of the season.

[Gordons Cumming]

HNA is pathetic when we lose.

[3 veesinarow]

HNA is pathetic when we lose.

Absolutely, totally agree.

We were absolute garbage on Saturday (apart from Bikey and Marcus - who was given 4/10 by the Sunday Telegraph ), but to rant and rave in the manner exemplified by this thread just shows how pathetically small-minded an awful lot of you keyboard warriors are.

Just one example sums it up - "300 games for Reading and all of them shit".

I can't begin to think what the rest of the squad must have been like in the season he was Player of the Year if that statement was anywhere in the same universe as the truth.

Some of you need a new pram and an awful lot of new toys to play with...

[IMAMATEOFJOVSKY]

Haper has been a good servant to the club, 300 games supports that and no disputing that,however the vast majority of the 300 games have been played in the lower leagues. If you isolate the games that Harper has played in the premiership and count how many of those have been effective, it won't be many.

Despite the fact that he's English, Wenger did not see anything in him to suggest he could cut it at the premership level otherwise he would have kept him.

its fair to say that there is a wide gulf in what makes a player successful in the championship and what makes them unsuccessful at premiership - if we are being honest Harper amongst many of the current squad are finding it hard to bridge that gulf and this second season has proved it. He's up against world class quality midfielders and on most occasions has been found wanting.

If ever there was an area that needed improving, its our midfield - and lack of improvement there I feel will cost us dearly otherwise

[West Stand Man]

Royalee in ' I'll ignore the facts and stick to my dogmatic dislike of a good player' shock headline - again.

No surprise there then!

[Ian Royal]

b) he can try and close down all he wants but it doesn't matter if the player he's closing down has 4 easy attacking passing options.

Yes, but the thing is the player doesn't even need to pass the ball - he just has to run through Harper, which has been the case in so many instances this season where the opposition midfield are able to take the ball and dribble it to the edge of our area completely unchallenged.

As for attacking options, when we have the ball Harper often hides and gets into the wrong positions. How many times is one of our defenders on the ball only to find that Harper, our central midfielder, is ten yards BEHIND them! The guy has so little anticipation and tactical awareness that I'm embarassed for him - the amount of times I've screamed at him to get out from our defence's toes is unbelievable. To play in central midfield, you have to be able to do one of the following: tackle and defend, run at players with the ball and hold off opponents, or pick killer passes. Harper can't do any of these, which is why he simply isn't good enough and we have been carrying him for most of the season.

I haven't been a huge amount, but I can't ever recall seeing Harper BEHIND the defence when we are going forward. I'd also suggest the reason he drops short is because he's just been helping them defend and he wants to give them an option other than a 60 yard ball to the other team.

I won't argue that we don't often have gaping holes in our midfield, but thats because all 4 are not playing as a unit and are leaving space everywhere.

It's no good Harper going in with a challenge if the player can see him coming a mile off and offload the ball elsewhere. He gets caught in the middle not able to mark 3 players and not able to go to the ball because it leaves 2 players wide open.

[brendywendy]

oh great yet another, "we lost, so lets pick on a few players and slag em off thread
just what we need

harper wasnt even in the top 5 bad players yesterday
we were just crap all over, get over it

harps=legend

[Platypuss]

Harper is no way as bad as some are making out, but by the same token many are severely overstating his ability.
He does have boundless energy, but he does have a really annoying habit of marking space rather than men.

It is the sheer lack of midfield options that has hobbled us this season - there is just not enough competetion which means it's hard to squeeze out the extra couple of percent you get from a player who really feels he has to fight for his place.

[Ian Royal]

Harper is no way as bad as some are making out, but by the same token many are severely overstating his ability.
He does have boundless energy, but he does have a really annoying habit of marking space rather than men.

It is the sheer lack of midfield options that has hobbled us this season - there is just not enough competetion which means it's hard to squeeze out the extra couple of percent you get from a player who really feels he has to fight for his place.

How anyone can talk such sense in one thread and such bollocks in another is amazing.

[Daniella]

Harper is no way as bad as some are making out, but by the same token many are severely overstating his ability.
He does have boundless energy, but he does have a really annoying habit of marking space rather than men.

It is the sheer lack of midfield options that has hobbled us this season - there is just not enough competetion which means it's hard to squeeze out the extra couple of percent you get from a player who really feels he has to fight for his place.

Nail on head.

[bcubed]

Harps lives an extremely charmed life. The way he is anonymous in the majority of games sometimes leaves me saying to myself " I forgot Harper was playing"This shouldn't be happening - we need 11 influential players out there.
How some of you doubt Matejovsky's class and him in general is a joke- he is our most creative player, the other players aren't as clever as him though meaning some of his passes go astray.

OK, apart from the goal against liverpool where has he actually created a goal for us, or scored a goal? Marek is overrated i say.

The only reason Marek has not created goals is because our strikers make f*ckin awful runs, if they even run at all, and if they do get in a good position they oxf*rd it up.

I take it you are one of the fans who judges players on how far they run rather than actual class

So the forwards are making poor runs and Marek can't be blamed.
Ever thought the same thing could be applied to Harps? I guess not