Ive always regarded that moutinho transfer not going through as the number one reason why we didnt kick on and establish ourselves at least he top again. Well, that and harry bronging scott parker on for dvd when we had minutes left to score against aston villa to secure champions league status. But, levy was trying to do the moutinho transfer as the deadline passed, but had left it too late. Not doubting spurcat, but tbf i am having trouble working out how that can be sherwood's fault.
"Well, that and harry bronging scott parker on for dvd when we had minutes left to score against aston villa to secure champions league status." The damage was done way before then. Once Arry realised that Chelsky being in the CL final could trump 4th place in the PL, he actually got a decent haul in the last 4 games (10 pts out of 12) . But the Goons only had to match that, and the rest is history My contempt for Arry at the end of the 2011-12 season is known, but blame him for the right reason(s) . "Not doubting spurcat, but tbf i am having trouble working out how that can be sherwood's fault." The ITK story is that Moutinho had a similarly stupid 3rd party ownership to Dameow. The only Timmy problem I can see is if his gob was let anywhere near said owners (anyway, Levy is good enough at putting up the backs of potential sellers solo without needing sidekicks or teaboys ) .
That is the right reason though. We had ten minutes (including injury time) to score a goal, and he took vdv off and brought scott parker on. It is the most staggering substitution i have ever seen.
Im more with you on the moutinho point, but everyone and his dog knew there were 3rd party ownership issues, but levy still left it to the last minute playing his stupid fackin wheeler dealer image game.
I do remember the reasons for the Moutinho transfer falling through, being mentioned before. but not for me to fully comment on as I'm pretty sure if SC is saying Sherwood was part of the failed transfer then I'm sure there is good reason. We fans don't fully know the in's and outs of a transfer as complicated as the Moutinho one appeared to be. and who was given the responsibility of certain paper work but that transfer striked me as one which should have been wrapped up early in the window rather then left to the final minutes if we wanted to make sure the deal happened.
"That is the right reason though. We had ten minutes (including injury time) to score a goal, and he took vdv off and brought scott parker on." The counter-argument is that gone all out for the win 10 vs 11 could have resulted in a loss rather than a point. As I said, the damage was long done before then, so I judge Arry on that time and not one substitution.
I'd rather Timmy not be suggested as a major cause of the Moutinho eff-up (he has enough reasons already to feel the venom of Spurs 606s everywhere) .
I prefer to judge Harry on his overall contribution to all our club. I can't see Poch taking me to watch CL quarter final games.
"I prefer to judge Harry on his overall contribution to all our club." I'm not quite there yet (still rabid about the final third collapse in 2011-12) .
Vdv was on the pitch for 89 minutes and he couldn't score in a game where we battered villa in terms of dominating play. It doesn't matter who we bought on,it was a game that wasn't going our way plus when we went down to 10 men we where the better team , think we had about 19 corners but all crap deliveries. Anyway, as mentioned, I look at the overall contribution and I look forward to the next time we have a manager good enough to stay 4 years in the job and take us to the champions league,although in 10 years time it's more likely we will still be saying redknapp was the only manager to get top four.
Harry's contribution in the short-term was immense even with the collapse at the end of 2011-12 in the balance. But all the forward planning went completely to pot. The only signings under Harry who are still here are Kaboul, Friedel and Walker I think. Contrast that to him inheriting a squad with King, Bale and Modric in it. I'm also not sure he gets the best out of youth: It would be interesting to see how Rose, Kane, Townsend and Mason would be doing now if they had all been regulars at 18 years old.
They weren't good enough at that age but if they where, Redknapp would have played them. When at West Ham he gave youngsters a chance such as Lampard, Ferdinand. Cole & Defoe but the difference is with us he was hired for a specific purpose, fix the issues with the squad, play attractive football and take us to the champions league.
I'd say that getting a team playing well enough to finish in the top 4 twice in three years thereby (but for some awful luck) getting CL football semi-regularly and so increasing the profile and income of the club is among the best planning for the future that I could want for the us. Planning for the future has to involve building a very strong present. We currently have a far weaker present than under Harry. Always people will be able to talk about tomorrow but there's no law (except in computer games) to say that players all necessarily improve with age. Why would anyone think that this very average squad will suddenly become more than it is with just the simple passage of time? Want a strong team in two year's time? Have a strong team now - that's got to be a very solid starting point.
So everyone keeps saying but we've got almost the same or more points every season since Harry left. The difference is that we've got a team that might get better instead of one that will definitely get worse.
Yes and no. Having a strong team can build for the future, but only if there's enough continuity to last beyond the season. For example, look at the England rugby team: after winning the 2003 Rugby World Cup the likes of Martin Johnson, Kyran Bracken, Neil Back and Jason Leonard retired almost as soon as the final whistle was blown, and the immediate aftermath was the team went into a slump because they had no replacement for these players and were hoping Jonny Wilkinson could bail them out in the interim, hence they finished third in the 2004 Six Nations and fourth in both 2005 and 2006. The same thing happens in international football too, with Germany having a major slump following Euro 96, while the Italians have been having similar issues since the 2006 World Cup. Looking at our squad in 2011-12, in some areas it does look like the team was put together to finish top four come May 2012 but there was no longer-term strategy in place: injuries had caught up with Ledders, age was catching up with Gallas, while Friedel, Saha and Nelsen were all short-term signings that would have had no effect on anything in 2012-13 other than our wage bill. All of those players would have needed to be replaced in the summer of 2012, Champions League or no Champions League. Harry's gamble on being able to qualify for the Champions League, and that's exactly what it was, was always going to cause problems further down the line for a simple reason: when age catches up with the Man Utd squad, as has happened a couple of times in the last dozen or so season, they can address the problem by getting the chequebook out and making the problem go away - but Spurs couldn't do that in 2012, so what we needed was players capable of stepping up in 2012-13 and that's what we were lacking.
There was no long term strategy in place (that certain fans want) that could have benefited the squad during the four years that Redknapp was here, as it wasn't his place to be planning for the long term, as if he did, we would never have reached the champions league although he did bring Sherwood and Ferdinand to the club who have been behind the emergence of certain players so you can argue without bringing Sherwood to the club, Kane (and others) wouldn't be here. The reason for the short term signings (2011/12) was because Levy never backed the manager heading into the final season, Crouch was sold (a player Redknapp wanted to keep) and a player still performing, was sold to finance the Adebayor loan, players in (8 million), players out (35 million), the signings had to be short term due to the restrictions imposed on Redknapp and when Saha helped us hammer Newcastle, fans where saying "smart signing". Plus for all this talk of Redknapp not giving youth a chance, AVB could have picked Kane, Mason, Carroll, Townsend, Rose and Bentaleb and as soon as AVB was sacked, Sherwood picked Bentaleb while AVB only gave Carroll a few chances and wasn't brave enough to select him after his impressive sub performances. Then in the summer we sign a bunch of duds, is that good long term planning? Some fans have a complete skewed view of Arry, didn't someone say "i'm not sure if Redknapp is good with youth", he has already proved that with the stars names he brought through with the spammers. But regardless, the managers job is to meet the expectations of the chairman/fans and overall Redknapp done that and the only time we have finished top four, is by running things "The Redknapp Way" and once we all see this long term plan is flawed, the excuses will start to appear and an experienced manager will walk in and fix the problems.
..... Also remember, Bale was only in the form he was (for AVB) due to Redknapp sticking by the young player..... when fans wanted Bale dropped with some saying "he isn't good enough", similar to what that fan said about Lampard, so without Redknapp sticking by the player, we wouldn't have been in with a chance of top four (after Redknapp left) and we wouldn't have had the Bale money to spend on all this great long term planning.
You are missing the point entirely. In summary I am saying that the 'Redknapp way' leads to short-term success at the expense of long-term failure and that we are still fixing the problems he created. Part of the reason is that if you are going to have a manager in charge of all footballing matters and no DoF then the manager has to have the confidence of the Chairman and the Board that he will spend money wisely. We did a bit worse than I might expect with the post-Bale signings but I shudder to think what players Redknapp would have bought with £100m. The real irony is that Harry with a DoF would work very well but he is too set in his ways to see that.
