do we honestly know which of the players we signed this summer were players that AVB actually wanted? Or, Was Baldini instructed to sign players that were young with lots of potential, regardless of who our manager is? If those two questions don't fuse together to create an overall plan, then there is no plan at all. You can't have AVB in charge of a "project" and tie his hands behind his back by not letting him have the personnel he wants. At the same time, you can't sign a load of players who the manager doesn't really want but the club does, just so it covers the clubs arse in the long term if the manager is sacked. That's essentially the clubs hierarchy working against one another, and not at all in tandem. it's also a very negative approach where you're preparing yourself for failure, rather than preparing yourself for success. I don't know the ins and outs of the signings last summer and who was responsible, but I don't blame them for signing the players we got. Granted, we could have done with a LB, but at the time, the purchases looked like we'd pretty much sorted areas of the squad that needed addressing, or certainly made a damn good attempt. cast your minds back to last summer. Lamela - seen as a new wonder kid and very impressive/highly rated. £25-30m was pricey, but fees are ridiculous at the moment, as we all know. Eriksen - already an established international with a lot of CL experience for his age, Highly rated creative player - £11m - brilliant business. Soldado - consistent for 4 years in spain with over 20 goals per season. £26m seemed like a lot due to his age, but that's the price of strikers. buy or don't buy. after our failing for a number of seasons, we needed to do something. Paulinho - Brazil international, highly rated offering us something different in our midfield. £17m was pretty standard for a youngish player like him. Capoue - young, and seen as an improvement on Livermore. wanted by a few clubs. - £9m? - seemed like good business Chadli - great performances for Twente. Impressive for Belgium and looked like he'd be another decent addition offering us something different. £7m - typical spurs buy/player. Chiriches - similar to Chadli and highly rated. would be coming in as cover initially. £4m? - great business, and typcial "spurs business" again. Other than the fact that none of these players had any premier league experience (which has proven to be quite an issue), at the time, they seemed like good buys. No one would have seen soldado failing to score, chadli being so poor (for a long period), Paulinho not living up to expectations etc etc. This is why I struggle to blame Baldini, based on what I actually know. The signings made a lot of sense at the time. Other than the LB issue as we mentioned, on the whole, we were pretty satisfied with our business last summer and no one saw this coming. Something must have happened behind the scenes, as players don't lose their class/potential/ability over night. However, a lack of confidence can shatter sportmen/women in no time at all. That's all it is, IMO. we need a leader. Someone the players want to be coached by, someone who they respect, someone who they look up to, even as grown men. (please don't say AVB or Harry, as this is about moving forward.) Perhaps I've been too harsh on Levy. Perhaps I haven't. I don't know anymore. But if levy was restricted to just dealing with the financials, we'll do OK. But I feel that'll never be the case, and that's an issue. 12..13 managers later and we're still searching. You can't just get instant success. It takes time. It's even tougher for a club like us, when you're battling against endless supplies of money. - Even those other clubs with the clout don't necessarily get glory straight away. We now need continuity. The right man in charge of the squad. Our players have proven prior to signing for us that they've got the ability/class/potential. That won't disappear. But the confidence and morale will never be installed/rejuvenated until there's a plan which we stick to from the academy to the first team, which the players are aware of, where we have the correct boss, and where he has the vision and personal characteristics to get the best out of our players. I don't have any suggestions or names, and quite frankly, it's so bloody tedious constantly facing groundhog day/Deja vu. It's now down to Levy to sort it out. Or maybe it'll be wrong for what, a 14th time?
I managed to type over the part about us looking at Lamela for a while, given how clubs generally don't agree to £25m deals at the last minute. And I do mention the £7m we spent on Chadli. Since we'll soon start getting topics about which players are likely to leave in the summer, I'll get the ball rolling now: Chadli and Sigurdsson are both likely to be headed for the door.
We've been on a colossal rollercoaster **** up ever since the England manager's vacancy. Prior to that, things were going smoothly under Harry's leadership. England fiasco mixed with poor form saw Harry go, rightly or wrongly. AVB came in and was a huge catalyst for the downfall. His negative football and ridiculous dependence on Bale papered over the very big cracks. Bale goes, AVB gets his DoF which he wanted in his first season and we sign £100m+ of talent, mainly exciting attack minded players and chucks them into a defensive, low-risk boring brand of football. After realising things weren't working AVB finally got the boot and Tim takes the reigns. After an impressive start he has now decided to become a clueless, moronic twat like his predecessor. Putting a reliance and too much faith in his husband Bentaleb (who will no doubt have a great future but future being the stand out word, he's not good enough to effect the present), chopping and changing tactics and making some ridiculous selection and substitutions while finally doing his best to turn the whole squad against him in some weird hope they unify and begin to love and worship him. We're now left with a manager out of his depth, a playing squad in which the majority don't seem to want to be here and a fan base tired of spending a lot of their hard earned wages on dross. The solution isn't a quick fix but there's no doubt we need a LVG or someone of that ilk to come and take over in the summer. If Sherwood thinks he's too good for a number 2 or coaching role then see you later mate. Get rid of the deadwood once and for all and any of the players that think they're bigger than us can **** off too. We need players that want play for the shirt and not the pay packet it comes with. We need players that want to make this club into a force, not use it a stepping path to a hopeful trophy laden career with a Bayern Munich or Real Madrid. We need a manager that can understand his players' strengths and weaknesses and get a system that works for the players to flourish in. I'm a fan of Levy but even I can see that he has played a huge part in our poor season, he needs to take a massive step back from the footballing side of things and focus solely on the financial aspects of which he's a master at.
Cheers mate . Just royally pissed off with the attitude and performances of players combined with the inept decisions Sherwood's making. Such a frustrating time because many can see how good we can be yet the choices and attitudes of some are massively hindering us.
The levy Redknapp relationship did work and while Redknapp probably caused Levy to have sleepless nights at times, or drive him up the wall, they clearly worked well together, as for four years the biggest issues they had where over transfers and the limitation of our transfer policy until the England job came up, but I don;t believe Levy ever expected Redknapp to come in and be as successful as he was, as I can't imagine Lewis and Levys ideal manager was a picture of Redknapp, he is probably the opposite of their ideal manager and that for me is the main problem. Levy was looking for a way to revert back to the DOF/Coach system, even if at the expense of the footballing aspect, He has decided that this is the way to move forward as on both occasions we have had a popular and successful league managers, with old school methods in Jol and Redknapp, once they are fired Levy reverts back to the Dof/Coach setup or in Jols case he was forced to work with a Dof, Now we're in the situation again of having a Dof who is being questioned over his signings, manager fired and an interim manager who looks to be out of his depth, which means going by the past, we should be excited as its setup for someone to come in and take us on another roller-coaster ride, it could be Van Gaal, or it could be someone to surprise us, Other then that there is no fix unfortunately,, Enic and Levy have been here since 2001, they aren't changing their ways, Levy isn't going to step aside so if anyone has any hope for Enic or Levy to change, forget it, isn't happening.
Yes. Also, while it's a hopeless cause, I know, all of us fans have to learn a little patience. Let's grant that AVB was the wrong manager (at least for this team this year). We know Sherwood was a stopgap. We have got to try to get the next one right, and stick with him for years if we ever want to get anywhere. The idea that the new signings are crap is a red herring. In the first place we don't really know, in the second from what little we do know, they're about what you might expect. Eiriksen's good enough Real may come calling in a couple of years. They were rumored to be interested in Paulinho. Soldado can't hit a... but leads us in assists and passes before the assist. Lamela does look like a total loss, but you'll have that. Capoue looks good, Chiriches looks better. Nobody likes Chadli, but I honestly think if he were playing for Chelsea he'd be like Willian except more of a goal threat. The problem we ran into was that we had so many new players at such a similar level that we were never able to settle on a starting eleven. Every time something went wrong, we changed someone else, no team ever got the chance to work together and build themselves into a coherent team that had confidence in themselves and each other. With ten games left, we're still just a collection of players. We need one staring eleven (with suitable variations and subs), two or three basic game plans and a manager who isn't looking over his shoulder every time we lose.
Agree with most of that, Roo: but can someone tell me why having one guy responsible for building the best longterm squad while another guy's job is to get the best out of the current squad is so crazy? Particularly since they work for the same organisation and can talk to each other whenever they want. Harry and Baldini would work really well wouldn't they?
Why? Don't be afraid of change. Have faith in the club, not the people who are here today. They are ephemeral; the club is immortal.
The problem is that somebody has to have the final say. IMO, that should be the manager. If it is the DOF, as seems to have been the case with Baldini, then conflict arises when players are bought who the manager doesn't want. Reportedly the situation with AVB.
The Dof /coach system is crazy, due to the way we implement the system as we effectively force a manager and Dof to work together when it's clear they don't have a working relationship. The sole time it worked, should have been a lesson to Levy when Santini resigned and Frank selected Jol as coach. If the Dof picks the coach and has a sound relationship from the outset then it will work. But Levy never learnt that lesson, he forced Jol to work with Commoli when Jol wasn't keen. Commoli admitted recently he had doubts about Ramos when at his interview. Avb said yes to Baldini without having any sort of understanding about if they could work together. In future, hire a Dof and allow the Dof to hire the coach, otherwise if Levy doesn't trust such an idea then revert back to the method which worked for Redknapp as Redknapps way proved to be more successful then Levys way, even if Levy was made to work hard because he never employed a Dof.
Here's my two cents: Basically three clubs blow everyone else out the water financially (Yeah I know Man Utd are having a blip but that's all it is - a blip). So now you're looking at fourth. Well two further clubs have far more money than us. And about two or three are similar in size/financial muscle (Newcastle, Villa, er...). Plus every year there's a surprise package or two. Basically we always need to finish above all the equally-resourced teams as well as this year's Blackpool/Swansea/Soton. And we need at least two out of five clubs who have loads more money than us to fail in any given year. But even if those teams fail we still need to be able to take advantage of that by (flukily) having a very good set of players at that moment. I love to hark back to the Redknapp days and that team. But I know it was not Redknapp's genius. He had properly, properly good players. Why? I honestly think that it's not cos Redknapp had his own way in the transfer market, it's not cos Comolli was amazing/terrible, it's not cos Arnesen did anything. It's fluke. Toss the dice enough times and you'll get three sixes at some point. This is how we ended up with three absolutely top-class players at the club at the same time. Plus a good sprinkling of Ledley King (a top, top quality youth prospect might turn up once a decade too). Of course we literally threw away this amazing position and of course I have axes to grind - I'm fed up of Levy's managerial appointments and master-plans which he then has no patience with, I was bored to tears and made to actually question some fundamentals of football by AVB, I think Sherwood's teams so far look like they have both no structure AND no firepower. We've lost top quality players and replaced them in a way that (and I say this with a bit of hindsight for sure but I saw there were issues even last summer) has not worked. I have seen very little to write home about from ANY of our new signings beyond some good free kicks and some confidently-struck penalties. I DO think the new boys are not as good as the Bales and VDVs and Modrics of this world. BUT they have all been made to adapt not just to new players but to new players who are ALSO new players themselves. The turnover of players last summer was crazy. I think we're seeing decent players look decidedly average. But they've shown very little sign of being truly top class - and it's March now. We replaced Livermore and Caulker when we should have been replacing Bale and Modric. In conclusion: What's wrong with Spurs? What's wrong is that the footballing world is full of incredibly huge inequalities and systems to maintain the status quo to keep the top clubs top. To break into that requires a huge chunk of luck. Right now we don't have it. There is some blame with the chairman, a bit more for the manager(s), a bit more for the players (who are nowhere near the level of our rivals' players). But basically a club like Spurs needs a hell of a lot more than a manager who's managed to win trophies for Bayern Munich or Real Madrid. Or a chairman who doesn't do what most of them do - act as if any manager is five games away from the sack. We need the wheel of fortune to turn again so that we get that very unlikely moment when we have better players than Arsenal AND Liverpool AND maybe Chelsea or Man Utd, never mind any particular season's dark horses. For me there is no magic bullet for how a team vastly poorer than at least five of the teams in the EPL can get fourth. I'm not saying it can't be done and I'm not saying that one manager is not better than another (though I'm sure that managers are given way more credit and blame than is appropriate). I just think that by far the biggest single factor is fluke. Fluke that leads to you actually having players in your team who Real Madrid desperately want off your hands. Cos even for Chelsea the vast majority of signings are flops. It's just that for Chelsea they can keep chucking 30m at the problem til they get an Hazard. So since luck is so central what do I say is the way forward? Christ knows! But put it this way - I have absolutely no good reason to think that Van Gaal, who has had success with teams like Bayern Munich and Ajax, will be any more successful than Santini, Ramos, Graham (proven winner) or even Sherwood. Stability and decent players being introduced to the squad sensibly please! A long-term appointment this summer (practically don't care who - could be Sherwood), a trim of the squad and clear plan of exactly how it is most likely that Paulinho and Eriksen might, outside of absolute dream-land, be wanted desperately by Real Madrid in a couple of years' time.
Or hire a manager and let him choose the DoF? The problem is Levy demands too much power, he's more like a DoF than a chairman.
Good post Lenny although I don't think our squad is too far away from Arsenal or Liverpool. Sandro due to injuries has not been at anywhere his best, Kaboul likewise. Paulinho, Eriksen, Lamela, Soldado, Lloris, Vertoghen, Adebayor, are hardly lacking in class, it's just that for a number of reasons we have not seen it. There is no reason with the right mangement in place that this current squad could not come out brightly next season and put a whole different complexion on things, however I do agree Lenny luck is going to have to play a part because the financial odds are stacked against us. Right now we have gone backwards without Bale, Modric, and VDV and all this makes it important that we develop a TEAM that is more than the sum of it's parts.
In view of Levy's attempt at making the DOF work it would suggest he is NOT looking for the power but more how to get someone else to use it.
Why doesn't he just give more power to the manager? Let them live by the sword and die by the sword instead of forcing them to have players they don't want in the first place. I like Levy and truly believe he wants the best for Spurs, but I don't get why he is so insistent on making the club work with a DoF when it clearly doesn't work.
That's the exact opposite to how the DoF system works, which is ultimately the reason we've rarely had success with the DoF system. The one time it did work is when Arnesen was DoF and he singled out Martin Jol as the manager...although Levy made a hash of that at first, as he thought the fans wanted a "big name" so brought in Santini as manager and Jol in some hard to define role. It worked out well enough when Santini quit, but then the Chavs tapped-up Arnesen and we were back to square one again.
