Tommy Gravesen

Tommy Gravesen's Celtic career is still quite a mystery to this day.

He was a fan's favorite at Everton playing as an attacking midfielder, then he had a successful period with Real Madrid as a tough tackling defensive midfielder.We signed Tommy a seasoned Danish Internationalist, capped 66 times, for £2 Million and after a bright start with us, including two goals against Rangers, his career just seemed to nose dive, and he never got a look in again with Evander Sno taking his place in the team. There were all sorts of rumours that Gravesen was a bad trainer, had personal differences with Gordon Strachan, was a wild partyier, and even had psychological problems.

What was the real problem with Tommy or was it Strachan ? Or will we never really find out ?

 

Most likely a combination of all of those :smiley-laughing002:

 

Same with riordan and strachan that was a weird one

 

Riordan had a * attitude that much was obvious.

 

Gravesen??

Sounds like a decent player, hope we get him.

 

What I recall being said is he was a bit insane and also he did not stick to his role and would mean he kept pulling the formation out of shape

 

Strachan liked central midfielders being disciplined in there positioning, it was the one thing Gravesen wasn't.

 

Only reason Real Madrid signed him was because they got mixed up between him and Lee Carsley

 

He was a bit of a joke figure among the Madrid fans. Had all the attributes to be a very good signing for us, but I think it was his attitude that blew it for him.

I remember him being brought on for Naka in a Cup Semi against St Jognstone. We were 2-1 up but under a bit of pressure. He was clearly instructed to sit in beside Lenny and close the game down.

He then took it upon himself to run about the park like a headless chicken ignoring Strachan, Pendry and Lennons instructions to get back into position. He even ran 20 yards to take a throw in, deep inside the Saints half, while gesticulating to the bench who were ordering him to leave it alone.

If I was Strachan he wouldn't have kicked another ball for me after that.

 

I think he just came up here for a bit of a laugh tbh, he had obvious talent and did play well for us at times however his indiscipline and general 'can't be arsedness' robbed us of a very effective player.

 

Can't be arsedness? That's the last thing you could say about Gravesen, his workrate was incredible.

Just the fact he couldn't stay in position.

 

He got a raw deal for me. He scored 6 times in that season despite being frozen out by Christmas, including a hat-trick at Love Street and 2 goals against the huns.

We brought in Paul Hartley in the January transfer window, who contributed 0 goals and was absolutely * every game, yet was never dropped and Gravesen never got a look in. I was at every game that season more or less and Hartley did absolutely nothing, yet WGS left Gravesen on the bench.

We knew he was a nutter when we signed him, he was the kind of guy that you had to give a 'free role', which was never a role encouraged by WGS, which makes you wonder why he ever brought him in.

He still loves Celtic and has never said a bad word against us, which he could have done pretty easily if you ask me.

 

Hartley done nothing my baws

 

That season, 2006-07, he did nothing.

I found myself screaming for him to get subbed every week.

Utter pish.

 

Think you might be on to something there. My abiding impression of Tommy was he was a workaholic on the pitch,headless chicken if you like, something like Scott Brown, but Strachan insisted that Tommy play the defensive midfielder role which I never thought was Tommy's best position, I always thought Tommy was more suited to being in the " Hole " as an attacking midfielder.How Strachan could prefer a young, rough edged inexperienced Sno to Gravesen always beat me, but Strachan had his favorites and was known to hold a grudge against certain players who crossed him like Mulgrew, Riordan and maybe Gravesen, not unlike another certain manager *cough * I know.

 

Ran about like a headless chicken and strachan didn't like it.

 

I remember one time he got took off and instead of going to the bench jumps into the main stand next to the blind and death people and started to watch the game and speak to them guys nuts :smiley-laughing002:

 

And his debut against the Huns he broke his hand or something like that and got it pushed back into place all he did was screw his face a little and back on he went :smiley-laughing002:

 

Nah, he just mucked about with not much purpose most of the time, like he didn't really care.

 

The gravesen in a celtic shirt draws a lot of comparisons to the kayal of the last year and a half or whatever..

Runs around,nipping away like a little terrier giving away fouls and completely losing position..

Sounds harsh but at the minute kayal is our poor mans gravesen..


It's what I immediately thought when I thought of his overall time here and the similarity..