We are about where we could have figured we'd be at the start of the season. Zero net spend and an effective turnover of half the team, plus a manager who didn't suit the players, followed by one who's a novice, at least outweighed the considerable talent our players have. What says it all for me is Paulinho, who's good enough to be a top player for Brazil, never quite figured out how to slot in to this team. Leaving aside whose fault it was, we never quite had a team for anyone to slot into. The way forward seems clear at the top level. Get someone who will bring in an appropriate playing style, and settle on which players will start when. I worried about van der Gaal's reputation as a disciplinarian, but on second thought this is a team in desperate need of firm direction, even if it alienates a handful of players. Any firm direction would be better than none, at this point.
I think there's a general misunderstanding of my point of view regarding our situation. Negative? No. Realistic? I think so. Personally I feel we are exactly where we expected to be at this stage of the season. Sitting around 5th, 6th or 7th expecting UEFA Cup football next season. Most of us also expected AVB to fall at some stage as we knew he was a gamble. Tim is another gamble and so far, it's had its ups and most recently, its downs. All this talk of sacking him is just nuts. What would it achieve exactly? We're a handful of games away from the end of the season and frankly, I see the Europa League as being the main cause of our problems. Post UEFA away game performances have been abysmal. Imagine our points haul if we actually won a few of those? Our season would look a lot different. But back to the issue of the whole "sack Tim" sentiment; I stand by my view that ultimately the manager is chosen by the club's hierarchy and whilst he and his staff train the team, set out tactics and work on the shape of the team's play, it is ultimately the cheque writers who determine who manages the team and they had to make an "informed" assessment before coming to that decision so they deserve just as much flack, so get of Tim's back. He wanted the job like any one of us would jump at the chance to manage Spurs. I don't believe he is our long term solution by any stretch and frankly, neither does the board on clear evidence but another managerial sacking at Tottenham would make us look as ridiculous as Fulham. We simply have to ride this storm out, wait until after the World Cup and see what occurs at our club. But I for one would really like to see a period of stability at Tottenham for the next five years; stability meaning an end to our consistent managerial merry-go-round. That would be lovely but under the present hierarchy, I can never see that materialising.
flaspur it's very easy to talk about stability and blame Levy/Enic for the lack of it. Stabilty is far from the norm in football management we only have three clubs in the PL who can claim to have had that in recent years, Everton, Man U. and Arsenal. With fans baying for blood, as they do after 2 or 3 losses, how long can a director hold out without sacking the incumbent man! Then the problem of the successor, who is good at picking them? Nobody, that's who, because the game of football refuese to behave in a scientific manner. Ferguson and Wenger were happy accidents Moyes who was stable at Everton is now subject to a growing belief that he is 'rubbish'. Moyes remember was the favourite of many of our fans to replace Harry, where would he be now if that had come to pass! All we can ask from Directors is that they finance the club properly and attempt to select the correct people to manage the club, if this was easy most clubs would have a successful manager of long standing; they don't. On that basis there really is nothing that you can reasonably level at Levy to his detriment. He is keeping our finances in good order, making provisions for a new stadium, and attempting to get the right people in and backing them with funding. Jumping up and down and shouting Levy out, if followed, could very easily put Spurs in a far worse position.
I don't pity Timmy. He is on a win/win, IF he can bear the immense public pressure and doesn't go wibble well before season end (though that is looking less likely given his antics this week) .
The systemic problem is that in a bad period, teams tend to sack their managers. It's not irrational. They do it because it does help in the short term. The fans are mostly satisfied and have some hope restored, and the team tends to play better for a few games. It's also wise, obviously, if the manager is not a good choice. But I wonder if this team or any other wouldn't do better by tying its own hands, by saying: we absolutely positively will not sack you for a minimum of 2 1/2 years ? It would be an interesting experiment. Though its success would depend on the quality of the manager, if you did it you might at least be able to attract a better manager eventually. It also might benefit the team to not have a manager looking over his shoulder every time he loses a couple of games in a row.
It could be done if your chairman has nerves of steel and: you make sure that the man you are picking plays his football in the way you want. For example Brendan Rogers would have fitted our bill because we know how his Swansea team played, but he also has to be a man who the board can get on with, someone they can trust with the media. A good track record suggests the chosen person can do the job however it does not follow that he will then produce good results straight away at his new club. Like Moyes in fact who knows how to manage a team and motivate them over a number of years now United have to trust their judgement and give him time. I doubt for example that Ferguson could go to another club and achieve instant success he would need time to change things his way. Pick the man carefully in the first place and then stick with it. Who had considered AVB's style? it would have suggested that Spurs was not a good fit.
Your theory assumes greatly that all of our recent sackings have been due to fan pressure. Who wanted Jol sacked? I didn't and neither did thousands of other. Same can be said for Harry so to suggest Spurs managers are purely sacked based on mounting fan pressure is a very narrow minded view in my opinion. If the board "wants to take us in another direction" and fails, they have to take the heat for that. They decided to make the change for better or worse so why is it in your view they are immune from any form of criticism?
Fair comment Flaspur although I did not mean that would be the only reason for sacking a manager. Harry I can understand but Jol must have been political and quite possibly Levy believing somebody (who?) about Ramos. Some would argue that Ramos would have turned it around but with Spurs at the bottom of the table nobody would get time. Levy has made mistakes, no doubt of that, but I also believe he has tried to learn from it. His wanting to have a DoF suggests to me that he realises his limitations and wants a professional making some of the decisions he has made in the past. Even Jol was under mounting pressure, because we were all grateful to him for at last bringing Spurs back to something like the position they should be in but many thought he was too cautious. Once we get 5th we want 4th just like now we have seen CL with Harry now we expect it.
Comolli went out of his way to sabotage Jol - banging on Levy's door telling him to hire Ramos one minute, completely ignoring the player requests Jol made and instead signing whoever happened to be a good prospect on that year's edition of Football Manager the next.
Yep thanks HBIC. I found this article on Comolli. http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/foo...ottenham-for-the-rest-of-my-life-8963985.html
For me Levy's limitation are about choosing the right people to advise him and i don't see much evidence of him learning from his mistakes either. The DOF issue is irrelevant. The one season we ditched it we got Champions League. We return to that system and sell our best player, replacing him with mediocrity and struggle to get 5th so i don't align with your view about having a DOF or not making a difference. It's not the issue for me. The issue is, Levy seems to me to be driven to make changes when they aren't necessary. Why? I have no idea but recent history suggests I'm right. He seems to think he needs to make changes to reinforce our position rather than take stock and trust the people who got him the success he has. Either that or he's totally gullible i.e Comolli.
Maybe because you view Harry's sacking as a mistake whereas I agreed with it. Jol we have already discussed, but the others Ramos, AVB, I was all for their sacking because of the football they were playing. His mistake IMO was not looking at the type of football these managers played but I suspect he is going on advice rather than just deciding himself. So I agree with you about who he listens to.
Here's a couple of articles that pretty much confirm everything we suspected about Comolli: http://www.wsc.co.uk/the-archive/32-Managers/109-system-failure http://www.wsc.co.uk/the-archive/30-Clubs/4698-directors-of-football
Reading that lot it's easy to see why people don't trust Levy but it is of course historic now and hopefully things were learnt from the Ramos saga. The board and Levy will have to be stupid not to learn lessons from the recent events even just looking at it from their own money point of view.
It seems that Levy just never learns. He was naive enough to put his faith in Comolii, and now it appears he has placed the same faith in Baldini, who has also reportedly bought players that the manager did not want. Roma did not exactly put up a huge fight to stop Baldini leaving. Perhaps that should have told Levy something!..
Avb was never given the one player he needed for his system and as much as I disliked his management and his style, if you look back to his time in England, He tried to sign Modric at Chelsea and Moutinho with us, same type of player, deep laying playmaker which is crucial to playing his system, both occasions he never got his target. We spent 100 million in the summer but no playmaker, Eriksen has abiity but he plays further forward,plus hes talented but no Modric and the reason we heard "the manager wasn't backed" is because the DOF system means players are usually signed based on the Dof's view of what the manager needs. Same happened with Jol, he was given players he never wanted like Bent when we already had Berba, Keane and Defoe. Same with Ramos, yes he is a mouthy little ----- but he was given players he never wanted even if he was being unrealistic and while it resulted in him managing us to 2 points from 8 games and leading to Redknapp arriving, we shouldn't have been in such a mess. So Levy may well be spending money (even though we have a low net spend) but hes not backing the manager fully as to do that he would need to sign players the manager wants. rather then players the DOF recommends. Although AVB must learn to speak up for himself as he gave the impression he was happy for these players to arrive, thats why I call him a yes man, as he likely found himself in a situation where he didn't have the courage to speak up for himself and for that he can't be defended. But as for Sherwood, one of the quotes was "I've told Levy or Baldini not to sign players as they won't play" which suggests if he was offered the chance to strengthen they wouldn't be players he wanted, more of Sherwood would say "I need a striker". Baldini would find a striker. and that is where the problem stems from, Dof handing players to the manager that the Dof thinks are the solution, rather then the manager getting his exact man.
I have the feeling that certainly Spurs and probably everyone else would ignore the promises made the moment a certain level of heat was reached. It still might not be a bad idea. It might help get a better manager in firmer control who could field a team that respected him more, all things which might make for a better performing team. It's interesting to learn that Comolli sabotaged Jol. While I'm not in favor of getting rid of Levy, and can't even begin to see why he would sabotage his own man, I can't resist noting the fact that Levy was responsible for losing AVB his key man two years in a row. He botched the Moutinho deal, then sold Bale after saying for months he wouldn't. Saying we played crap football under AVB seems true enough, but surely Levy's deals and lack of them seem at the least to bear some of the responsibility. Getting rid of anyone vaguely resembling a deep-lying playmaker before this year (after having botched getting the deep-lying playmaker AVB wanted the year before) looks a bit odd as well, though for all I know AVB was on board with that.
Damien Comolli probably feels aggrieved as he was involved in the signing of players such as Berbatov, Modric, Bale, Suarez, Tarrabt, Kevin Prince , one of your favourites Ekotto and at Liverpool also signed Henderson. Just then you look at some of his duds and they are are criminally bad buys such as Andy Carroll and Downing, David Bentley and Darren Bent not to mention Rocha and Gilberto! So you need to balance up his eye for talent as his best signings such as Berbatov, Modric, Bale, Suarez are all players that would have been widely known as potential great talents. But he has been proved right with Kevin Prince and Taarbat does have talent, just overall he for me is what sums up a disruptive and negative Dof, as hes more intrested in being creditied with finding talent then giving the manager the right players at the right time.
I'd make a fantastic DoF. I could easily make as many mistakes as the likes of Comolli, but I'll never get the chance to prove it. You tell me if that's fair!
I think almost anybody who understands the first thing about the game could choose and buy some good players. The law of averages alone would ensure that. Therefore, I don't think that Comolli accidentally tripping over some good players is any indication of talent spotting ability. He also was stupid enough to get conned into paying ridiculously inflated prices for the likes of Carroll. Yes, KPB and Taraabt had talent, but both were fatally flawed personality wise.
