He wants a DOF either to relieve him of the work load or because he realises his own limitations. We do not know how much of current decisions are JUST Levy and how much is committee. Levy is the front man that does not mean all decisions are his alone. Making judgements when you have all the facts is hard enough. We do not have all the facts.
Yes - but one of those unwanted players was Christian Eriksen - and he has been, by some considerable margin, the best signing (and the best value signing) that Baldini has made - even though it WAS, allegedly, against the wishes of AVB. He is so promising and still years from reaching his peak. As for Sherwood, I am not sure if he is even ALLOWED to manage a top-flight team beyond the end of this season. He lacks the UEFA "Pro" Licence - a mandatory qualification for holding a top job. Dispensation is only supposed to be given for someone to hold a job in a caretaker capacity, for weeks or a few months. I am sure Levy was aware of it when he appointed Sherwood and that it may be cited at the end of the season, when he gets rid of him. Yes, we need continuity - but only if the candidate is the right man for the job to begin with. Personally, I'd like to know why Vertonghen has gone from "Premier League Defender of the Year", last season, to such an ordinary-looking player, this time round. To win anything, including a place in the Champions League, we need a core of great players, around whom a team can be built and adapted. At Spurs, that core must include Lloris, Vertonghen, Sandro and Eriksen. They are clearly the best players we have in four key positions and as good as anyone we, in our present circumstances, could hope to attract to the Club. I now fear we will have Europa League Football again, unless we can drop to 7th spot, since Man City's Europa League place, for winning the League Cup, is likely to go to the sixth-best team in the league. There are some decent young players on the verge of making the step up, within the next season or two - and for that, Time Sherwood can take some credit. I'm sure the likes of Fredericks, McEvoy, Coulthirst and the returning Tom Carroll will all feature, at some time. Also, Souleymane Coulibaly will qualify as a home-grown player, from next season and I'm sure he will either be seen in a Spurs shirt, or else be loaned out, as the final part of his preparation before ultimately joining the squad. What is clear, though, is that Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal are all preparing to spend up big, this Summer. We can expect all of them to strengthen their squads because none of them is likely to spend kamikaze-style, as we did, last Summer. That means we will also have to spend again because standing still means death in this league. It could be worse...we COULD have signed Niklas Bendtner...
What actually went wrong: We made the related mistakes of bringing too many new players into the team at once and having them of such quality that two or three way fights for positions erupted all over the pitch. Consequently, everyone had their confidence dented by being dropped, and may have unconsciously adjusted by trying to do something eye catching to keep their place instead of trying to learn to perform their roles better to help the team win. Add to that a manager whose only coherent team was built around a mifield maestro, plus a clear out of all potential midfield maestros with the exits of Carroll and Hudd, and you had the recipe for disaster which has been this year's team. In retrospect, we should only have brought in 3-4 players who were clearly earmarked as starters, and probably tried to get the best selection of prospects. We should have gotten, above all, a top deep lying playmaker to run the show; Eiriksen or some other #10--I'm happy enough with Eiriksen, maybe plus Holtby--and a striker or two; a starting LM, and a backup DM and LB may have been good ideas as well. Going forward, we should try to build the team around: Lloris if we can keep him a back four of Walker, Kaboul, Chiriches and possibly Rose, possibly another LB a top deep lying playmaker TBD (Bentaleb and Carroll are good enough to be backups, but not for this key role ATM) Sandro and Capoue, since you need two DMs Lennon, Eiriksen and a LM TBD Ade ? Soldado? + a striker TBD. To get the players we want, we should think seriously, at least, about selling Vertonghen, Paulinho and/or Dembele (two of our best quality players, I think, are box to box midfielders, and prevent us from playing the deep lying playmaker and DM (Sandro) that would define everyone's role better--think of how coherent we were with Modric and Parker), probably Chadli, and possibly/probably Lamela, Ade and Soldado, depending on how they're shaping up/what the new manager thinks. Of those three, I might keep Soldado, oddly enough, for his work ethic and quality, and Ade but only on a year to year contract if he seems happy to have one. I don't know much about Van der Gaal, but what I do know about his reputation as a disciplinarian scares me. Someone like him can be successful at Ajax, but players who already have their Bentleys paid for need a friendlier presence. Someone like Ade, for example, probably knows as much about the game as many managers. The one manager who is player friendly and would play Spurs style football I can think of is Klinsman, who is probably overrated and certainly unavailable. But whoever we do get has got to somehow have a deal where everybody knows he gets a minimum of 2 1/2 years, and should oversee the selection of the team. Finally: thanks for this thread, Spurm, which has turned out to be good therapy, as I think you intended. "If you write long enough, you will heal yourself."
Thats another option but the whole point (aside from signing players the manager wants) of a Dof system is that if/when the manager loses his job it doesn't result in a complete team overhaul, so if the Dof selects the manager and the manager ends up losing his job or moving away, then the Dof would then hire the next manager and hire a manager with the squad in mind to ensure minimum disruption. If we have the manager select the Dof then its more likely both will be fired or in our case Levy selects the Dof and Manager without any real thought to their relationship and both end up getting sacked! Anyhow I don't really like the Dof system and prefer the type of system we had under Redknapp, or Fergie had at Utd, or Wenger has at Arsenal. Let the manager take more control, work with head scouts and the chairman will always have the final say on transfers anyway, its not as if the manager is said "do what you like", its just less interference and the manager is left to get on with managing the club his way.
People are complaining about Levy's input. The DoF is the answer to this, Baldini is there atm if he is given the say so he should be making the major decisions on manager, and with the manager, playing staff. All this under the financial control of Levy. That's what many want and I think that is what Levy wants, but of course he has picked Sherwood as Baldini did not know him from Adam. The question is will Levy stick with Baldini and will he trust him and allow him to do the job of DoF.
While I like the DOF in theory and Baldini had good notices, the problem IMO (as I briefly alluded to above) was that the entire buying plan, if we had one, was crap. We seem to have simply stockpiled players we thought were good at a good price, like a kid in a candy store. In the past this has at least resulted in good business. In this case we created such a glut of players who were such a mismatch for the manager that we've hurt almost all of their values. So I don't know what to say: try again, with a better plan? Sack Baldini? Levy has had huge negatives and positives, but the club has improved while he's been here, and adding yet another element of instability hardly seems what we need.
For me, I don't think that most of the players we have are as bad as some others here believe. I feel that they just are/have been poorly managed, disorganised, and generally unsure of what their role is. All this brings discontent and poor motivation - especially if you think things are unlikely to change. Where we have bought poorly is in that the squad is unbalanced. If was pretty obvious we needed another top class striker - we still do. We have instead overloaded in the midfield dept. too many players of similar style and ability. If we unload some of those, get a new striker, strengthen the defence, and get some proper management, I think we will see that a lot of the players we bought are far better than we have seen so far.
That is probably it in a nut shell NSIS. The players quite probably look at each other on match day after TS's team talk and go huh?
Agree, sell Siggurrdson, Chadli, Kane, Livermore, and Naughton, and bring in a forward, a CB and a couple of full backs, also keep Holtby.
There is no doubt that a better manager could improve the team but we must not kid ourselves to think it will ever be good enough to brake into the top 4 . Look at the others above , we have no game winners and if we get lucky and find one he will be off in a jiffy . We can all dream but the others are so a head of us on so many fronts that it is nearly imposable to catch up . Groundhog day for ever more under our beloved wise owners.
Liverpool have only one game winner - Suarez. Apart from that, the difference between us is that they have competent management, a balanced ( hugely important!) team, they are well organised and a have mountain of self belief. O.k. We lack a Suarez, but the rest is attainable.
Suarez is at today's value a 60 to 80 million player . The rest is attainable I agree but a game winner is not. That will always be the difference between us than the clubs with purpose and ambition. So we might as well go and count chickens . Is any one of us mad enough to believe that we will be in established top 4 in 5 years? If you do then your with the fairys.
Sorry! After all my previous waffling it suddenly occured to me what the problem with Spurs is. 1. We sold/retired our best players. 2. We sacked a relatively successful manager and replaced him with two rookies. Do I win a prize?
Top prize, but many are not as brainy as yourself, I think we all know a few who would get the booby prizes.
Isn't that exactly who and what we had with Martin Jol? Who knows what might have been, had Levy had the courage to stick with AND support him? What, exactly does Levy do, other than to make it difficult for us to complete the signings that each successive manager wants? Under his stewardship, we have taken 6 years to build a new stadium - and all we have to show for it is a supermarket and an ever-increasing list of excuses! I am stressed about the imbalances in the squad and the under-performing nature of those who DO win selection. That said, whether it is: (1) Levy + Sherwood + Baldini; (2) Levy + Sherwood - Baldini; (3) Levy + Van Gaal + Baldini; (4) Levy + Van Gaal - Baldini; ...or even NO Levy, NO Sherwood, NO Baldini, NO Van Gaal... all I want to see is a Tottenham side full of players willing to leave nothing in the tank when the full-time whistle goes. My "dream team" would include Hugo Lloris, (a fit) Younes Kaboul, Jan Vertonghen (any one of those three to be captain); The Beast and Christian Eriksen. Build a team around those five but give those five players long-term contracts, full of incentives. I don't much mind who stays or goes, outside those five - but will be sad if any of this group were to leave. My big disappointment is that we have seen nothing like the best of Eric Lamela...
There have been Lamela sitings. But people also claim to have seen UFOs and unicorns. I agree with most of what's been said lately, except the thing we really need IMO is a deep-lying playmaker. No doubt luck played a big role in the Harry team. Another factor is that the high line and the possession game work well if you're one of the top five clubs in the world. If you're at Spurs level, you'll do much better sitting back and countering. Harry's team countered beautifully because it had Modric to start the break. In a nutshell, the faster you can get the ball down the field, the better chance you'll give one of your scorers a good chance to score. The slower you get the ball down the field, the more you'll need exceptional skill (which we sadly lack) to unlock the parked bus door. If we'd had a player who could get the ball down the field quickly, I believe Soldado would have had an excellent year, and possibly even Lamela as well. We have too many potential starters as it stands, but no deep lying playmaker. (Bentaleb comes closest, but in the first place he's not good enough, yet, and in the second, he doesn't really push the ball up the field). We should sell a couple of our extra wingers and Vertonghen, buy a top playmaker, and we'd have an attractive team that could be successful.
We don't sign players for one season so a season with two ineffective managers isn't the end of the World. Levy still has the summer to set us back on the right track with a new manager. And, whilst it does look inevitable that we'll be losing a couple of players in the summer again, there's no better time to do it than when a new manager comes in with his own ideas and preferences. That's not to say that any of this is ideal, it's far from it but the sooner we move on from this season, and our out of depth manager, the better. There's really not much to say about Sherwood at the moment, he's just not up to the job. It doesn't mean he's a fool or talentless but it's very early in his managerial career and very few managers hit the ground running and never look back. The only 2 I can think of are Mourinho and Guardiola but the former has always managed a club with the biggest resources in the league and the latter has inherited the most talented squads in the league on both occassions which no doubt helps a lot.
