I had no issue whatsoever with Harry's enthusiasm for the England job. Clearly he saw it as the pinnacle of his career, and I understood that. It is my understanding that Levy recognised and was sympathetic to the situation. It is also my understanding, that at the end of that season, Levy and Harry parted for the summer break on good terms. Levy, like all football club chairmen, had not only backed Harry with transfer money, but had supported him emotionally. He appointed him when there was already the money allegations hanging over him and he supported him throughout the lead up to his trial and then during it. From a football point of view, of course Harry should have been given at least another year. As the years go by, it looks a dafter decision than ever to have fired him. However, as Levy had consistently backed his manager off the field, he quite reasonably had a right to expect Harry to bck him in return when his mother passed away. Sadly, for the first time in his life when it was wise to keep his gob shut, Harry chose to go public when Levy was grieving, to moan about not being offered a new contract. Then there could only be one outcome. Unfortunately, since then, neither THFC or Harry Redknapp have moved onwards and upwards.
I hate to admit it but that was never the case. I think our atmosphere peaked in Jol's first couple of seasons, or perhaps 10/11 with Redknapp. Ever since it's always been "sing when you're winning", even under Redknapp the atmosphere was tense and unforgiving in a lot of games. I remember watching us under Redknapp losing 1-0 or drawing 0-0 at home against sides like Hull and Wolves and the atmosphere was terrible. We could hardly get a song going at the FA Cup semi against Portsmouth ffs, the loudest we managed was when we were piggy-backing on Portsmouth fans singing "Oh when the...". Everytime we lose people always start romanticising the Redknapp era as if it was all plain sailing. Some of us actually remember Redknapp criticising Spurs fans and the more I remember his comments I find myself in total agreement with him, we're never happy if we're not 3 goals up at half time. The beginning of Jol's era was the best time to be a Spurs fan, our expectations were low, we were overjoyed with every good performance, we were grateful for any European football and we had a great relationship with all the players. We're so desperate to blame everything else all the time and act like things were perfect before, it's got to the point where we really need to lead by example rather than feeling sorry for ourselves. We can keep changing managers and players for the next 10 years, we won't see the best from our team if we don't get behind them. Sorry for the rant on such a small part of your post, obviously it's aimed at a wider audience than just you but I really do mourn for the loss of supporters that actually supported the team.
You're right YV, the atmosphere was best when Jol was our manager. I think the main difference is that Jol was a fans man because it was blatantly clear how much he loved the club. Whereas some of Harry's comments made it clear he was merely passing through. The atmosphere at the Lane these days is not good.
My brother knows Martin Jol personally. I met him once, nice guy. At my bother's request he had left some tickets for us at WHL. When I came to collect them, he came down personally to introduce himself. He didn't have to do that.
Levy did back Redknapp initially but remember during that time Levy was more hands on, there was no DOF and in his final season he was only allowed to sign players for a total of 8 million, player sales 35 million, that isn't backing a manager who you want to stay long term, That for me is holding back because your not sure of his future and plus Redknapp admitted himself he had to practically beg Levy to sign Parker. I'm not disputing Levy backed Redknapp initially but the type of transfer business Redknapp liked wasn't sustainable under ENIC so while Redknapp opening his gob at the wrong time for a personal time for Levy was daft.In terms of his sacking I don't see it playing any part, as I'm sure the decision would have been made before that occurred. Although I fully agree regarding Redknapp should have been given another year and the direction we have taken isn't enjoyable (for us anyway) yet I stick by my opinion that Redknapp was never the type of manager Levy envisaged and while they worked great together (at times) and parted on good terms, the two clashed regarding the best way to build a team. I was reading an article which popped up about our previous transfers and it has comments which we remember often, such as Redknapp making sly digs about "we can't sign him, because he has no re-sale value" "we tried to sign rossi for 18 million but we where messing about and all of a sudden his price went up to 32 million". They have always clashed on transfers, and that for me is the why he was sacked, because Levy has always wanted to move to the Dof/Coach setup. Although if Levy brings in Tony Pulis then he may have admitted the old fashioned way, is the best way!
Signings made during the DoF era under Comolli made about a 50m profit on resale. Those under Redknapp broke even. The extra 50m of value was available to Redknapp who had a far better squad as a consequence than any manager before or since. He did very well with it but his failure to make any long term signings must be at least partly responsible for our current decline. If we are going to improve we need a better system in every way than other clubs and the DoF plus coach must be the way to go.
I've said this before, but there are certain parties on this board who look back on the Redknapp years with nothing other than rose-tinted specs. Yes, on paper, he is our most successful manager in Prem history, but there were some ****ty times, too, particularly near the end of his reign. How can any of you have forgotten the sterility of our attack, when Defoe, Crouch, and Pav didn't break double-figures between then all season for goals? The other major problem I had with Redknapp is the fact that he was continually employing his old cronies, regardless of apparent consideration as to whether or not they were right for the club. I think Redknapp was able to get away with what he did, because we were in such an awful state when he took over, but as things improved, Redknapp's old-school approach became more and more fatal to his position at the club.
One thing that gets me is that we were using an attacking midfield trio of Eriksen, Lamela and Lennon in pre-season that looked good going forwards but also they'd put in a shift and do the donkey work when the opposition had the ball. When the season started we swapped out Lennon for Chadli, and this does seem to have caused problems - notably Rose having a complete lack of cover from Chadli that Lennon would have given him, as well as the hypothetical that Lennon would run down the line rather than cut inside all the time like Lamela, Chadli and Townsend all like to do.
I can't remember the last time I saw Lennon go past anyone. Used to do it regularly, but now rarely tries. He appears to lack confidence still.
It was probably against Limassol, which I'm going to presume doesn't count for much. That said, I still have confidence that he'll be protecting Rose on Saturday evening - unlike Chadli, who was usually twenty yards up the pitch whenever Rose was getting pegged back against Liverpool.
"Does anyone think we should have kept Redknapp as manager despite his making it clear he'd take the England job if it was available?" Not after the final third collapse of the PL season. 16 pts out of 39 was totally unacceptable for me. I will never begrudge Arry wanting the England job. Around Feb 2012 I expected Spurs to get a CL slot, and Arry to depart for the England job with his head held high having shown he could stay up there with the Mancs for much of the season despite having lesser on-pitch resources.
No worries, YV. Think you're right - I was getting a bit carried away and I'm sure you're right that the real peak in atmosphere at WHL in recent times was during the Jol era. Like you say - we were all so happy to see any decent football that resulted in wins much of the time too. Qualifying for Europe via the league was a big deal back then. I only chucked that in about the atmosphere because it really has seemed terrible at times over the last couple of years in particular (though I'm only watching on TV). At the weekend it was incredibly bad - literal silence for many extended periods. Shame cos it used to be something we definitely had over Arsenal. Wish I could still go and do my bit - for me having a beer and a sing and a shout is a massive part of going to games.
Well the next time we have a late season collapse and finish fourth I hope I can convince you that "changing direction" might not be a great idea. Of course I don't expect that to happen again in the foreseeable future.
Fair enough To be honest you can feel pretty helpless to create an atmosphere too sometimes. I don't think we're at the Goons level of fans just yet but it's been heading that way. Ledley King's testimonial showed we can still make noise when we want to but all too often we expect our team to give us a reason to cheer rather than cheering our team onto success.
Part of the problem has to be the amount of home games we play at any time other than 3pm on a Saturday. We play away games at that time, but home games are either the evening kick-off, or moved to Sunday. Sure, the extra TV revenue helps in one way, but it can't be a coincidence that the atmosphere at WHL started to drop once we became regulars in Europe.
"Well the next time we have a late season collapse and finish fourth I hope I can convince you that "changing direction" might not be a great idea." That would depend on the number of plausible reasons for the collapse, and the ability of the manager to keep his speaking hole zipped days after the event.
My tweak would be to bring Bentaleb back in. Our issue is a slow buildup. Bentaleb isn't the fastest in getting the ball forward, but he's faster than Dembele. I still believe in this team. I think the players and manager are good. Every team has bad runs and disappointing results. If this team really is any good, they'll find it in themselves to turn it around. We'll see. I'm reminded of the old "Peanuts" comic strip--I imagine it's somewhat familiar in the UK, though I don't really know. In any case, it's best days were in the fifties--anyway, a regular feature was Lucy holding that oblong thing Americans call a football, and swiping it away just as Charlie Brown was about to kick it. Year after year, Charlie Brown kept believing Lucy wouldn't yank it away at the last second, and year after year she did. Hope does seem to have a way of winning out over experience.
