http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070901091755AAnDJIk Have a read. This is exactly what is happening now at fulham, and therefore one must feel that such things; the late goals, useless second halves due to uninspring drivel, is not down to our players as some our saying, but down to a man who is completely useless but as been lucky enough to manage to very good teams, (I feel fulhams current squad is perhaps our best ever in the premier league, if only we had someone to manage it properly)
Are we seeing the same History on Martin Jol ? In 2005/6 Spurs finished 5th. Nevertheless, Jol had led Tottenham to their highest league finish since 1990. The season saw Tottenham concede just 38 league goals, the fewest the club has conceded since 1971. We all know that Spurs fans were the worst moaners in the Premier: 3 wins and they were going to win everything from the Premier to the world club championship. 2 deafeats and they were phoning the Samaritans. Ajax 2009 under Jol, they ended the season with the league's strongest defence and the fewest league goals conceded by any Dutch team in 5 years, including just 4 conceded at home all season. Even more incredibly, they scored 106 league goals (an average of more than 3 per game), the most any Dutch side has scored since the 1997â98 season. This meant that Ajax ended the season with a goal difference of +86. PSV, who had the next best goal difference in the league, had only half of this with +43.
Gilly we are not bottom and we are coming of an extremely long spell of games. The players show that they can't play for 90 min on the same tempo. That is probably what comes out of the blood tests and other ergo metric data the team is using. Lets stop being negative all the time. The team is strong on paper only. BZ and AJ are both useless, Davies is out injured, Hughes is not the same after hi injury, Sidwell was injured and just coming back, no RB. These are hardly Jol's doing. He is late in doing changes but some players are not putting their weight either.
Sorry Gilly but I don't really think we can use a rant from 1 spurs supporter four years ago to justify what Jol is doing wrong. Yes recently the second half performances and substitutions haven't been up to scratch, but as SBM says we're talking about a man who's led spurs to 5th, which was fantastic for them at the time. There's not really any stronger candidates available, so lets give him a chance and judge him at the end of the season. By then it will be the time to decide whether he's the right man for the job or not.
I'd like to scrap Jol's impressive spell at Ajax from the record. McLaren has proven that managing a Dutch team and managing an English team are two totally different prospects. In hindsight, you would now say that Spurs were right to sack Jol, who may or may not have eventually transformed them into title challengers but looking back it's more likely than unlikely that they would have fallen at the necessary hurdles. Villa's win against Chelsea yesterday shows how much Chelsea have declined over the past year, which makes our draw against them now seem a little less special. The first half yesterday was impressive so why the need to take off Murphy so early in the second half and replace him with Etuhu? Why not a like for like replacement in Kasami? Jol obviously wanted us to sit back and soak up the pressue, in hindsight it was a bad move by Jol and ultimately cost us the game, as did bringing off Sa (with Dempsey forced into attack) and Frei (Duff didn't attack the full back as much therefore allowing him to attack) I still support Jol but the second 45 minutes yesterday has almost become a formality. We made Norwich, who are albeit a good team, look like Barcelona with their attacks yesterday, whenever we got the ball it got passed around all the way back to Stockdale who would pump it up-field and we would lose possession. People keep saying that we are only 13th and much better off than we were last year. I remember the football under Hughes, albeit not results, was a lot better. We also had players out injured such as AJ and Zamora, using EJ and Kamara up front (Heaven forbid) so we now have a far better team with Ruiz and Dembele now having adapted to the PL. We are still in a position where we are more likely to be looking over our shoulders than looking ahead to the top half in my opinion.
Bandit is your glass half-empty or half-full? Don't agree that is easy to win any league title. As for McLaren he did a great job with Boro before passing reign to Southgate. If you count his spell on England's bench as a failure then I give up. It just shows that when players have the power a team is destined to fail. Chelsky is another examples with Terry, Lambard and co who think themselves as above the team. Just relax, plenty of time... It's a crazy league this year. Transitional for many clubs big or small.
FFC Complacency is the master of the under achiever,and its Jols job now to get results, not shrug his shoulders hoping something will turn up,a fate can be sealed in this league, within the next six weeks.
Jol was shouting on the sidelines for him not to close down the full back. I quote "Damien, Don't towel him, stand off" was the message from the touchline.
Shocking. Frei was the best player in the first half, Jol should have either kept Frei on or instruct Duff to keep doing what Frei was doing and had so much success doing.
I agree with the substitution actually. Frei was getting leggy in tracking back. If Dembele had passed on cue then Duff would have been 1 on 1 with the keeper and probably odds on to score with fresh pace, rather than Moose passing a second too late and Duff being offside. Bringing Murphy off was wrong though. Should have been Ruiz imo for Etuhu.
Going back to the original post - Most Spurs fans still look back on MJ favourably, as evidenced by the away supporters in their last visit to The Cottage.
I don't disagree that Frei should have been taken off, he wasn't doing too well in the second half, but Duff should have been instructed to do what Frei was doing, which was closing down the wing back and putting him under pressure so that he couldn't get forward.
Gilly I respect your opinion but don't judge the man on what happened 4 years ago, that is a pants article on Yahoo. Bandit, I think the football we're playing now is miles better than under Hughes. Stay positive peeps! COYW
I'm down with Cravingawin on this. I realize the point of these discussion boards is to debate the pros and cons of the players, other teams and the tactics and abilities of our own manager, but I think comparing the Spurs problems of four years ago with our recent spate of late game blunders is a bit of a reach ... it borders on conspiracy theory. Debate all you want, but I'd bet 100 to 1 that Jol will be at Fulham's helm a year from today. Jol is here and he's here to stay, so you might as well get used to it. And while a fabulous second-half does not a career make, I think Jol's vision, player acquisitions and tactics are starting to pay off.