FanPost

Player Ratings from the Spurs-Palace Game in the theme of Game of Thrones




I realized that LE would never get around to do this and Out-Zen basically called me out in the Reactions thread so..This is my first fanpost and I hope I don't get too much hate in the comments box, but here we go. I decided that if I try to do player-to-character summations, it could very well end up with "That's RACIST!" implications, and I'd rather not have that. Noticing that, I decided to do one based off the characters I liked most in the books. If you have only seen the show, suck it! Pick up the book sometime, because it will change your life (I know it changed mine). That being said, the characters aren't that different from the books that there should be much debate and I implore all of the book readers not to spoil anything for those who haven't read it. In other words, USE SPOILER BARS AND INCLUDE "BOOK SPOILERS" IN THE HEADLINE. Anyway, here's how I saw it. Also, if you haven't at least seen the show, STOP NOW.

5 STARS

There's so many characters in A Song of Ice and Fire that it's hard to rate them, but if I had to depict the cream of the crop it would be this: Tyrion, Jon Snow, Arya, Eddard, Tywin, Littlefinger. All of these characters offer something different to the table (except for maybe Jon and Eddard), but all of them are magnificent and I wish Littlefinger and Tywin had their own chapters so I could learn more about them.

Christian Eriksen- So far, Sherwood's team seems to go how Eriksen goes. He has 3 goals and an assist in the PL games Sherwood has managed and just the overall play seems revolved around him. He was terrible in the first half, like the rest of the team, but got a nice flick on by Adebayor in the second to break the deadlock. I'm expecting this rate of return to continue to the end of the season.

4 STARS

These were harder to place because it's hard to separate great from good. Since I had to, I decided on this: Jamie, Quorin Halfand, Cersi, Davos, Sandor Clegane, Varys, and Samwell. Jamie and Cersi are wildcards in the series, but you need the characters like Varys and Sandor to not only hate but fear.

Aaron Lennon- Again, he didn't have a great first half, but he was the only one I saw really busting a gut out there during that 45 minutes and got the assist for the insurance goal from Defoe. Saying this, I love our little Wazza, but I want to see Lamela cut into his PL minutes whenever he is healthy.

Jermain Defoe- I really don't know what to say about the lad. He's the reason I started following Spurs over Everton and wish him luck in Toronto. I know why we sold him, though. His goal was nice and pure Jermain Defoe but we could have had the death goal if he would have picked up his head and passed back to an unmarked Bentaleb instead of shooting from a ridiculous angle across goal. That being said, he scored in a limited amount of time, so he deserves 4 stars.

Nabil Bentaleb- Is anyone as excited about this player as I am? He seems to be a mix of Sandro and Dembele (imagine that for a second) and has the awareness of a seasoned player even though he's only 19. He made a lot of great and strategic passes with the stylish pass to Rose down the wing standing out in the mind. I can't wait to see what he does.

3 STARS

Good characters are ones I never really cared about but ones I didn't hate either These characters included: Sansa, Jorah and Joer Mormont, Stannis, Brienne, Bronn, Robb, Ygritte, Yoren and Catelyn. Even though I am House Stark through and through, there's actually a few of them that I don't really care about, although I'm excited to see how Sansa's character matures.

Hugo Lloris- Lloris is staring to look like his old self and not like the one we've seen from the past couple months where he's palming everything away. He made a lot of quick movements off the line to catch balls that were easily catch-able and didn't seem hesitant at all. He also made a great fingertip save off a corner to save a goal in the dire moments to cement the victory. Keep it up, Hugo.

Kyle Naughton- If you follow these boards a lot, you know I'm not the biggest Kyle 2 fan, even in his natural position. It looks like I'll have to get used to him, though, since Kyle 1 was subbed off a few minutes after halftime with a calf injury. That being said, he made a beautiful cross over to Ade that led to the opening goal and looked pretty dangerous down the right side the entire time he was on the pitch. I hope this is signs of hope to come, because we will need it if Walker has to miss extended time.

Emmanuel Adebayor- I'm only putting him here because of the flick on. He looked lazy in the first half and didn't do much besides that, but when you have an assist for the opening goal you deserve a 3 star rating.

Danny Rose- The lad needs to learn to pick his head up before he crosses into the box because of a number of occasions he sent some in when there was a 1-on-4 matchup. He was pretty solid defending but if Eriksen keeps playing on his side we need his overlap to create with down the left.

Michael Dawson- He's done what he's needed to for the past several games: no horrible decisions and nice last ditch tackles. Dawson's saved our behinds on more than one occasion recently and has been immense since Sherwood has taken over.

Vlad Chiriches- I personally didn't see the scariness that Kevin was eluding to in the Reactions article, but Vlad didn't do anything to really impress me either. Usually he's striding forward like he's our CAM, but his game he wasn't bad nor good, so a 3 star rating seems adequate.

2 STARS

These are characters I really didn't like but not so much loathed: Daenerys, Margarey, Khal Drogo, and Renly.

Roberto Soldado- I love you, Bobby. Now that I got that out of the way, he was bad. Like, REALLY bad. I was actually wondering if the first half if Ade said something to him about not needing to work hard and waiting for the ball to come to him in the first half. I don't usually agree with US announcers, but the color man was on point when he said both Soldado and Ade weren't doing anything to create space in the first half. He created one nice chance in the opening minutes of the second, but not enough for me to feel sad when he was subbed off for Defoe.

Kyle Walker- What the hell was that??? Our most consistent player on the year turned in the worst performance I've seen since his inauguration and I'm sure opened up the "Walker isn't that good" debate on ESPN again. I hope the calf injury isn't serious because other than Sandro, Vertonghen, and Lloris, Walker is our most valued asset and we need him to do well to have a chance at Top 4.

Nacer Chadli- He got injured 2 seconds after he came on so I would give him a pass on the day if I could. Since I can't, I have to rate him here because he was nonexistent.

1 STAR

These characters I entirely loathed and hope they all die a painful, wrenching death (true GRRM style) along the way: Joffrey, Theon Greyjoy, Melisandre, Viserys and Shae

None of our players were this bad and hope will never be.

I understand that this forum will be mostly debated on how I rated the ASoIaF characters rather than the actual player ratings and is what I'm hoping for. I wouldn't mind this becoming just a ASoIaF thread for the CartyFree Captain site for years to come (or at least until Winds of Winter finally comes out). THAT BEING SAID, please do not get into such a heated debate that the entire thread gets nuked and ruins it for everyone and again, NO BOOK SPOILERS WITHOUT MENTIONING SO! Other than that, I hope everyone has a great time depicting and debating.

Anyone can write a FanPost, and we encourage you to do so! FanPosts are the voice of the Cartilage Free Captain readership. But before you write one: Lurk! Comment! Talk with your fellow members and get to know the site.