"Are you saying we are better than City? Chelsea? Arsenal? Liverpool (if they manage to keep Goofy), or even United?" Are you saying that in 2012 and 2013 when we missed a CL slot, the reason was we were at the very limits of on-pitch performance and had no right to expect it could be sustained ?? If so, call me "deluded" and my expectations "unrealistic" for believing that better squad management and per game tactics over the final third of the season should have got one extra point. Actually, just call me "Bill Nicholson" .
My understanding of Sherwood's comments having watched pretty much the entire interview is the that we are expecting too much at Spurs for one simple reason - we continually sell our best players. He stated to Levy during their discussions before he was installed as manager that getting fourth is not realistic after selling a player that got 21 goals last season (Bale), who was hugely influential on team performances and was replaced by unproven overseas signings. Tim went on to state that he managed to convince Levy and get him to acknowledge that this was in actual fact the case and a justifiable expectation. 4th was simply not realistic. Now... think about that for a moment. It took Tim Sherwood (of all people) to convince our Chairman who's had a history of selling our best players (Bale, Modric, Berbatov, Carrick, Van der Vaart, Keane etc) that you can't expect progress after selling your best assets. What does that tell me? He's either surrounded by yes men and is getting poor advice, or prefers to sell to balance the books over the team performance, whilst being completely deluded and unrealistic. To think that breaking up the squad year after year and removing it's most valued members and to still expect success is bordering on insane. So as much as I wasn't a fan of Tim's management of our team, I have to agree on his perspective of where our club is and where it should expect to be. He's bang on and frankly, it was about time someone told Levy this!
True but he has a point whichever way you look at it. What has he to gain by fabricating the story? He's gone now and is looking for work elsewhere. He's just explaining the situation as he saw it when he had the job. Does this ring true for previous managers? Yes. Redknapp was sacked after getting 4th. Jol was sacked mid-season after a poor run. AVB was sacked after a big defeat at home. Levy is pretty shortsighted based on the clear evidence we can see in front of us so this sentiment doesn't surprise me in the least. We're looking for our 10th manager in 13 years under this chairman. On that basis, any manager that comes to our club only gets an average of 1.3 years in the job under this regime! Does that sound right to anyone? Not me.
What does he have to gain? He furthers his straightforward, honest, tell-it-like-it-is media persona, for a start. Being able to stand up to a chairman that a horde of other people openly admit to being intimidated by makes him seem brave, too. It doesn't make much sense though, as Sherwood claimed that we'd have made the top four if he'd have been in charge for the whole season. Not very consistent, as he's made both claims within days of each other. 10 managers in 13 years? Only if you include caretakers. I'd call it 7 and we'll be onto number 8, though Santini's reign seemed to have been sabotaged by Arnesen, who then jumped ship to Chelsea almost immediately. Modern managers simply don't last very long, unless they've already been in the job for ages and have a lot of success. I believe that Wenger's the only person in the entire English football pyramid who made it from his last trophy to the weekend's FA Cup.
Levy, being an astute businessman, is probably looking for a manager who actually makes consistent decisions on a logical basis. Since the manager is involved in decisions on multi-million pound expenditures on staff it doesn't seem too much too ask. I imagine Sherwood did this reasonably well in his previous role but started contradicting himself as soon as things went pear-shaped so lost Levy's confidence. I'd be totally bemused by now if I was Levy. You keep hiring managers who tell you that they agree we have a strong squad and that they have the skills to take it into the Champions League and a few months later the same guy says the expectations are unrealistic. While we've only got the 6th highest resources in the PL I think we've got the 4th most expensive squad (measured by transfer fees and also by resale value according to some web-sites) - that is because we've made a lot of money out of our transfer policy (most of it from players signed by our derided Directors of Football) all of which has been re-invested in new players. Why is it unrealistic to think that the 4th most expensive squad might come 4th?
we have a large, more average squad than say Liverpool and Arsenal who have smaller, higher quality squads
Because this 4th most expensive squad gets dismantled by consistent selling of it's best assets. Something Levy doesn't seem to comprehend or learn. As a footnote, it's also fair to state that spending the (4th) most of any club doesn't necessarily mean we bought the (4th) best of any team. Take Gomes as a prime example... not played a game since 2011 and is about to leave for free after 6 terrible years with us. Total waste of money.
Gomes was a success next to this p**** http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2634265/Jimmy-Bullard-got-better-coaching-non-League-Fabio-Postman-Pat-Capello-England.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490 'Leave it out, send one of them back,’ he told Capello. ‘This is my game. I’m one of the best crossers in the country!’ What a nob head
How is Levy supposed to have kept Carrick, Berbatov, Modric or Bale from wanting to go? Gomes was our goalkeeper in the only year we qualified for the CL! That alone is sufficient to make him a good signing. But of course some of our transfer dealings will be poor - no-one gets them all right.
Haha, just read the article. Bullard was clearly dense. Seriously didn't get why Capello never played him. He clearly put more time in at the golf course than the training pitch. And what's funnier... the Fail actually published it!
How did we ever decide to pay 16 million for Bentley! Although to be fair to Bentley, his form at Blackburn was impressive, he had an outstanding season there, showed fantastic ability on the ball, great technique. Some players just have the ability to play great football for short periods only. Look at Zamora, he was ridiculed for most of his career and then he had one season at Fulham where he played outstanding football. O'Hara was another one on loan at Portsmouth where he looked to be a top talent.
Yep, we love one season wonders at Spurs, even in managerial terms. Never fails to amaze me how much we base our decisions on short term, moderate success. Santini, Ramos, AVB and no doubt soon to be Poch. And we wonder why they never turn out to be as good as we hoped!
Footballer's careers only last 12 years or so. How long do you plan to wait before we sign someone? Our strategy of signing younger players based on relatively short performance periods is actually working fine on average. We've signed loads of players: more of them are successes than failures - that's the best we can hope for. For every Bentley there is a Bale.
