Harte new contract

[Ian Royal]

Was there actually that much opposition to Harte's signing originally? Other than people wanting Bertrand back over him at least. I honestly can't remember. He'd just had a great season for Carlisle and we were desperate for an LB of any sort of quality at all. I can imagine a certain amount of reservation, other than from the usual doomtards of course.

I'm prepared for embarrassment if someone can dig up something from me saying he'd be shit when we after him / signed him. Preemptive:

[Snowball]

Was there actually that much opposition to Harte's signing originally? Other than people wanting Bertrand back over him at least. I honestly can't remember. He'd just had a great season for Carlisle and we were desperate for an LB of any sort of quality at all. I can imagine a certain amount of reservation, other than from the usual doomtards of course.

I'm prepared for embarrassment if someone can dig up something from me saying he'd be shit when we after him / signed him. Preemptive:

Short memory syndrome, outright lying or senile dementia?

I remember only too well how Harte was "Not good enough for Championship football"

There was a thread with roughly that title

[Snowball]

Was there actually that much opposition to Harte's signing originally? Other than people wanting Bertrand back over him at least. I honestly can't remember. He'd just had a great season for Carlisle and we were desperate for an LB of any sort of quality at all. I can imagine a certain amount of reservation, other than from the usual doomtards of course.

I'm prepared for embarrassment if someone can dig up something from me saying he'd be shit when we after him / signed him. Preemptive:

Perhaps you should read the thread Harte is Rubbish, not good enough for the Championship

[winchester_royal]

Was there actually that much opposition to Harte's signing originally? Other than people wanting Bertrand back over him at least. I honestly can't remember. He'd just had a great season for Carlisle and we were desperate for an LB of any sort of quality at all. I can imagine a certain amount of reservation, other than from the usual doomtards of course.

I'm prepared for embarrassment if someone can dig up something from me saying he'd be shit when we after him / signed him. Preemptive:

Short memory syndrome, outright lying or senile dementia?

I remember only too well how Harte was "Not good enough for Championship football"

There was a thread with roughly that title

Not surprised you remember it...given how you were the one who started it:

http://hobnob.royals.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=101135

Weren't exactly his biggest supporter on the last page there Snowy

Harte is sluggish, does get caught out of position at times and isn't the best left back when it comes to defending

[Snowball]

You mean THIS? by Hoop?

I've seen the majority of games this season thanks.

You on the other hand, appear to be blind.

To be fair though IR, you don't see a lot of things on TV coverage.

I know you'll say you see a lot of things better on there as well, but defending is 80% about being in the right place at the right time and snuffing out issues before they happen.

Harte is sluggish, does get caught out of position at times and isn't the best left back when it comes to defending (he is OUR best left back at defending though) because of those weaknesses. When he first signed he played pretty well, both defending and going forward. As he settled down his standards slipped at both ends too.

After getting dropped (a little late in my opinion, but then again he is, as I've said, our best left back) and then coming back into the side he's turned in some better performances and his deadball delivery has got back to where you'd hope it would be. There's no doubting his threat from shooting positions though. In this side his worth as an attacking threat is greater than the gap between him and the next best left back in the squad.

The funny thing is that I don't think there's been an outstanding left back in the Championship this season. Naylor at Cardiff is probably the best one in the league, but he's missed a lot due to injury. Similar story for Drury at Norwich who's been around for a while and is very competent but has missed a couple of months I think. Taylor at 'Boro always looked a promising talent but they've been pretty woeful and he's not played that many games either. Forest have had a number of leftlbacks and I couldn't even tell you who plays there for Leeds (Having said that I just looked and had forgotten all about George McCartney who again has only played 30 games).


That leaves Hill and Harte out of the top teams.

For my money the best left back performance I've seen this season was from the lad Peters (??) of Ipswich. He snuffed Kebe out 100% at Madejski.

I defended Harte solidly. Started that thread because of the idiocies being spouted against him.

Of course he's slow, always has been, but we've got the best defence in the Championship with him playing.

I DO however, think he will be ripped to shreds in the Premiership

[winchester_royal]

Ahh, apologies Snowball, but I shall be dragging this

I DO however, think he will be ripped to shreds in the Premiership

up in a years time

[bigmike]

by the sounds of it Cut n paste Fordham has been getting his stats from snowbaLOL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyxAeCdOeQ0&feature=player_embedded#!

[Upper West Ginger]

Good article about him in The Guardian today:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/may/29/ian-harte-premier-league-reading-leeds

Reading's return to the Premier League is an uplifting tale in its own right, the triumph of a bright, unsung manager and his squad of industrious players, whose relentless running, quick tempo and defensive solidity provide the foundations for their skill to thrive.

But within the Royals' redemption story there is one that stands out, a personal renaissance of an established international with 64 caps whose stock had fallen so dramatically that three years ago he grabbed the lifeline offered by a League One club and against all expectations has fought his way back to the top flight at the age of 34.

Many veterans have been written off before being rescued by a manager's hunch. Peter Taylor and Brian Clough revived the careers of Larry Lloyd, John McGovern and Frank Clark so spectacularly, for example, that they ended up as domestic and European champions. Yet precious few have rebuilt momentum from the third tier in the manner of Ian Harte.

In 1999-2000 he was named by his peers as the best left-back in the Premier League, a decade later received the same accolade in League One and now has back-to-back positional awards in the Championship. In the intervening gap, though, he went from the peaks of a Champions League campaign with Leeds, a World Cup with Ireland and two seasons in Spain's Primera Liga to a loss of form so miserable that it left him unemployed and carpet-bagging from trial to trial after his release by Sunderland in 2008.

The games of great players, in Geoffrey Green's lovely phrase, "have all the colours of the peacock's tail spread wide". Harte's gifts are more monochrome, yet as a corner and especially free-kick taker, and as a crosser of the ball less frequently, he has approached greatness.

At the beginning of the last decade it was not uncommon for Harte to be praised as a sinistral David Beckham. At free-kicks from the edge of the box he could affect a niblick chip into the top corner or a driven three-wood with draw or fade.

In Leeds's Champions League 3-0 quarter-final first-leg victory over Deportivo La Coruña, he smashed the first goal in from a free-kick via the crossbar Roberto Rivelino style, centred the ball on the run for Alan Smith to head the second and teed up Rio Ferdinand's third from a corner.

It was the perfect display yet he could never fully silence the criticism about the lack of pace that left him vulnerable when faced with a speed merchant at outside-right. In his defence he looked more exposed because increasingly Harry Kewell, yearning to be a No10 and indulging himself by roaming away from the touchline, sometimes abandoned his left-back to fend for himself.

It was then that the jibe about him being a "special teams player" gained currency in the stands, joking that as in American football he should be wheeled on for set pieces then hooked off again. This fixation with his weaknesses rather than his strengths took hold but greater positional discipline from his team-mates was rarely advanced as a remedy and gradually, as the club imploded under the weight of debt and the best players departed, his managers lost faith.

After leaving Elland Road following relegation in 2004 he spent three years with Levante, played eight games at Sunderland under Roy Keane when he returned to this country and eventually joined Carlisle after a short contract with Blackpool. In his only full season with the Cumbrians his confidence returned and he scored 18 goals from set pieces, the unerring accuracy that had once brought comparisons with the best left-footed dead ball specialists of his era such as Alvaro Recoba, Sinisa Mihajlovic, Rivaldo and Frank de Boer restored.

It is uncertain, though, that they endured the agonies to which Harte subjects himself, wearing size six-and-a-half boots on his feet which are two sizes bigger. "I know I'll have problems when I'm older – and I am getting on before anybody says it," he said. "But it has always worked with tight boots to get the ball up and down and try and trouble 'keepers."

Reading already had their own supreme free-kick exponent but when Hoffenheim bid £6.5m for Gylfi Sigurdsson after only four games of the 2009-10 season Brian McDermott had a vacancy and brought in Harte for £75,000. The Irishman repaid McDermott's gamble with 11 goals as Reading's late charge took them into the play-off final and though he scored only four times last season, his belter at the Riverside against Middlesbrough was as good as any of the century he has bagged for club and country.

As others derided as supposed one-trick ponies moved towards the latter stages of their playing days – Rory Delap and his missile throws, Beckham and Mihajlovic – the focus has been on their one enduring skill. Harte, though, to his and his manager's credit has been part of a back four that conceded only one goal per game in a season of crazy scorelines in the division. Not bad for someone once seen as a defensive liability.

"Sometimes you have to take a step back, or drop down the leagues, hope that your quality will shine through and that you will get the rewards at the end of it," he said last season. But few do it and not the two steps back Harte took.

And anyway he has earned enough money not to have bothered, which makes his return to the Premier League an impressive tribute to his dedication.

[Extended-Phenotype]

Good stuff.

To reiterate what I have written on here, I think his lack of pace is a much exaggerated problem. Apart from some broad allegorical team stat which claims to demonstrate Mills a better choice on the account of team conceded goals, (taken I might add, at a time when the team was different, the opponents were different, our form was different, with a disparity in the number of games compared and none of the conceded goals in Harte’s reign can be honestly aligned to him personally) I’m yet to hear a criticism of Harte that can be sustained. Certainly not one that would outweigh the positives he brings with his passing and set-pieces.

Despite the last two seasons, Harte’s cliché has changed from lacking to pace to being unlikely to cut it in the Premier League. It seems bizarre an individual would receive criticism for performances that haven’t even happened yet, and worse to come from a crowd whose general motto is to give people a chance before cutting them down.

Harte has been a great servant to us, his speciality has been and will continue to be an essential asset which may be the difference between success and failure, and I hope he is given the opportunity to prove his doubters wrong and once again be a key player in our season.

[Snowball]

EP, I defended Harte's signing, got a lot of stick for it, then he came good
and scored a bag-full of goals.

Then he lost form, was rightly dropped, came back, did well again
and I rate him very highly, love him as a player

But, I still think it's a season too far, a league too far and I think
he will be shredded in the Prem.

I dearly hope I am utterly wrong

[Extended-Phenotype]

But, I still think it's a season too far, a league too far and I think
he will be shredded in the Prem.

On what basis, though?

[pea]

I wonder if he could run faster in size 8 1/2 boots

[Snowball]

But, I still think it's a season too far, a league too far and I think
he will be shredded in the Prem.

On what basis, though?

1. Faster wingers

2. Trickier wingers

3. Cleverer wingers

4. Better, faster, cleverer overlapping FBs to keep McAnuff busier (so harder to help Harte)

5. Better, cleverer managers

6. Our CBs under more pressure due to better players attacking them (so harder to help Harte)

7. MUCH better play-makers in midfield able to stretch our defence.

8. Harte a year older, and a fraction slower

[Extended-Phenotype]

1. Faster wingers

- How many are faster?

2. Trickier wingers

- Surely experience/inteligence is a better tool than pace to deal with trickiness?

3. Cleverer wingers

- Ditto

4. Better, faster, cleverer overlapping FBs to keep McAnuff busier (so harder to help Harte)

- Ditto.

5. Better, cleverer managers

- Than ours?

6. Our CBs under more pressure due to better players attacking them (so harder to help Harte)

- Covering principle remains the same.

7. MUCH better play-makers in midfield able to stretch our defence.

- Gonna happen anyway?

8. Harte a year older, and a fraction slower

- Conjecture.

[West Stand Man]

1. Faster wingers

- How many are faster?

2. Trickier wingers

- Surely experience/inteligence is a better tool than pace to deal with trickiness?

3. Cleverer wingers

- Ditto

4. Better, faster, cleverer overlapping FBs to keep McAnuff busier (so harder to help Harte)

- Ditto.

5. Better, cleverer managers

- Than ours?

6. Our CBs under more pressure due to better players attacking them (so harder to help Harte)

- Covering principle remains the same.

7. MUCH better play-makers in midfield able to stretch our defence.

- Gonna happen anyway?

8. Harte a year older, and a fraction slower

- Conjecture.

I do wish you'd stop talking balanced sense. It makes agreeing with you so uncomfortable, yet I have to do so on this occasion. Harte has never been the quickest (but he isn't as slow as some on here claim). He has always relied on a mix of his own ability to read the game balanced with his own team covering the attackers before they get to him (to buy a bit of time). We successfully played to his strengths last year and ought to be able to do that again this.

[pea]

Agree with everything EP has said, why would wingers be any faster in the Premier League?

The only point that might have some merit is #7, better play makers. But in that situation surely you'd want an experienced left-back who can anticipate them better over a less experienced but faster left back

[winchester_royal]

Obviously I'm not going to go through the 20 teams one-by-one, but I don't think there can be much doubt that the wingers are quicker in the prem.

For example we have players like Walcott, Valencia, Hazard, SWP, Lennon, Agbonlahor, Sinclair, Dyer (who, incidentally, gave Harte a torrid time at Wembley mainly because of his pace), Bale etc. All of whom have pace to burn. Apart from Kebe and McCleary I can't think of too many wingers in the Championship last year who were that pacey.

I do think Harte will just about be okay next year, but he'll need a quick CB (Mariappa) alongside him to cover.

[Simon's Church]

Zaha, Phillips, Redmond, Adomah etc

There are quite a few.

[winchester_royal]

Not as many though..and those that are quick aren't as tricky.

Given that pace is a pretty crucial attribute for a winger, therefore implying that the quicker you are the better you are, it's not unreasonable to assume that the better league will have quicker wingers.

[pea]

They're no faster than the likes of Emile Sinclair, Danny Haynes, Quincy Owusu-Abeyie, Nathan Tyson, Kazenga Lua Lua, Tom Ince, Max Gradel, Wayne Routledge, Albert Adomah, and of course Jimmy,

You've probably seen those players pace as less of a threat because generally defences sit a lot deeper in the Championship so it isn't possible to utilise it as much. But (perhaps with the exception of Walcott) none of those players you mention are in the Premiership because of their pace, they are there because of their technical skill and so theres no reason to suggest that premier league players are much faster in general than some of the players in the Championship. Perhaps the opposite in my mind as in the championship there are more inexperienced younger players given opportunities (the ince's, redmonds, zaha's and sordell's) for whom pace is a bigger part of their game because they're younger and haven't developed the more technical side as much.

I think the only times I've generally been worried about pace against us has been Nathan Dyer last year, Emile Sinclair this season and Wilfried Zaha in October.