Having had six managers since the sacking of Hoddle, Martin Cloake ponders whether Daniel Levy ever had a plan at all.
At Spurs, the future is round
Spurs may sit six points off the top of the Premier League and still be in European competition, but there is undeniably a very flat feeling about the place. A trite dismissal of this would reference those supposedly fickle Spurs fans who have followed the team in such number while it achieved such little success, while the more nuanced dismissal urges anyone voicing a criticism to “get some perspective”. So is everything coming up roses, or is there cause for concern?
Loose change The humiliating 5-0 home defeat to Liverpool and the subsequent sacking of Andre Villas-Boas is the place where we can sensibly start. Discontent with the team’s style of play had been rumbling for some time, but this represented a new low. There were no positives to be drawn, and it seems that in the aftermath neither AVB or the Spurs board wanted to continue. While it’s now pointless getting into the merits of AVB’s approach, what was worrying was the apparent lack of faith on both sides. AVB seems to have concluded that he would not be able to do the job in the way he wanted to do it with the players he wanted, and the board seems to have concluded that he wasn’t worth putting any faith in. When the implications of this sink in, there’s cause for concern.
When AVB was appointed it was, as appointments at Spurs tend to be under Daniel Levy, part of a grand plan, a new approach. A tactically astute manager with modern ideas, working with a director of football and a technical staff to forge a team capable of competing with the very best. Having decided on that approach, what was needed was to back it, and stick with it through adversity. Last season went well, with Spurs collecting their highest Premier League points totals ever and reaching the quarter finals of the Europa League before going out to a decent Basel side. In the domestic cups, two limp exits fell short of what was expected. But nonetheless, this season’s whacking at Man City (albeit a whacking that plenty of others have experienced) and subsequent collapse against Liverpool were the first really serious problems the new regime faced. And it buckled. Which prompts the question, how much faith was there in the first place?
[authquoteleft text=”And, for supporters of my generation, the question is ‘are we supporting something that ceased to exist some time ago?’ And so on.[/linequote]
What happened next? It’s at this stage that the concern really sets in. AVB certainly does not seem to have been without fault. His handling of players obviously didn’t work in some cases and he seemed unable to imbue a sense of adventure and confidence in his side. Then there were those inverted wingers. And the way he seemed to simply give up right at the end, conjuring up images of Jacques Santini walking away, did not impress. But it’s to the Spurs board that the harder questions have to be directed. If the board was so confident it had made the right choice, did it fight hard enough to back that choice? Some will point to the spending as evidence of backing, but were the players Spurs bought the ones the manager wanted?
Evidently the board had reached the conclusion that AVB wasn’t the man they thought he was. But presumably the decision wasn’t made on the basis of two bad results. All those issues of how the players were being handled and how the team was being coached must have been in evidence for some time. If they were, and the board had decided it had made a mistake appointing AVB – something that in itself raises questions about the quality of the backing he was given – then there was time to line up a replacement. Which leads us to another area of concern.
Nobody home If the Spurs board knew for a while that they would be sacking the manager, a sensible course of action would have been to line up a replacement. Not by, to take a random example, going to dinner in a public place with a high-profile candidate while the incumbent struggled on – a tactic known in the trade as ‘the Kemsley dinner date’ – but by making the kind of subtle and effective enquiries that do not seem to be beyond most other clubs when they decide the time is up for their current manager.
But the Spurs board had no replacement lined up. Instead, they flung themselves at a couple of the “names” that always get bandied about in these circumstances, and then went with the only option available and appointed Tim Sherwood. In itself, that may be no bad thing. Let’s remember, after all, what the distinguishing feature of the two most successful managers in ENIC’s tenure is – they were both decisions forced on the board after one of their enormously clever plans fell to pieces. Martin Jol took over when Santini recognised early on what has dawned on every other manager Levy has employed; and Harry Redknapp, although ostensibly Levy’s “choice” was the only realistic option after the sophisticated and groundbreaking Ramos plan had imploded.
Meet the new boss So what of Sherwood? Much of the comment that greeted the appointment, centring as it did on lack of badges and supposed tactical dunderheadedness, seemed to me to be the reverse side of the equally daft prejudices against AVB for being ‘foreign’ and ‘cerebral’ – oh, and of course, never having played the game at the top level, unlike so many of the journalists who trotted that one out. More genuine concerns, for me, were a lack of experience – although how does one gain experience unless given it? – and the strong impression that Sherwood was the source of at least some of the stories about AVB’s failings. The factionalism at Tottenham has long sapped the club’s collective strength.
But Sherwood does seem to have restored some confidence, uncomplicated the approach, and been refreshingly direct in his interviews. As he says, all that matters is points, and in the league it’s 13 out of 15. Let’s just not mention those two cup exits, eh? For many, the worry about Sherwood is the 18-month contract. I don’t think that is an indication of lack or faith, more a recognition of reality. The pattern set by the current board shows that, within 18 months, Sherwood will either have been sacked for not being successful, or sacked because – like Jol – his success wasn’t a direct result of one of Levy’s enormously clever plans. So the 18 month contract is pretty honest.
[linequote]It’s hard to identify any continuity of approach from manager to manager under Levy’s tenure – Hoddle to Santini, to Jol, to Ramos, to Redknapp, to AVB, to Sherwood.[/linequote]
Philosophy football Sherwood’s comments, though, raise a more serious question. He was the club’s technical director. But, clearly, he had an entirely different idea from the head coach about how the game should be played – and so we must assume the type of player who could play that game. Now, I don’t think you need to have played football at the top level to see what the problem might be there. A technical director and a head coach whose approaches are at odds makes no sense. It does go a long way towards explaining why AVB apparently didn’t rate the youngsters, if they were being taught to play in a way that didn’t fit his system. Football is, famously, all about opinions – but it would seem sensible to ensure that everyone at the club responsible for playing style has the same ones.
When considering the approaches of AVB and Sherwood, it’s also wise to factor in Baldini. He occupies the director of football role so loved by Levy because it ensures continuity. One of the answers many Spurs fans want is exactly what Baldini’s idea of a good player and a good footballing approach is. Another would be whether any of the people he works with agree with it. And that continuity argument only works if there is a philosophy of how to play embedded at the club. At Spurs, it seems to be all change every 18 months or so. It’s hard to identify any continuity of approach from manager to manager under Levy’s tenure – Hoddle to Santini, to Jol, to Ramos, to Redknapp, to AVB, to Sherwood. Where’s the continuity there? And, if rumour is to be believed, the continuity gap is about to get bigger.
Transferred assets It is not possible to get every transfer right, to make every judgement correctly. Apparently good players can be affected by all sorts of peripheral issues, or simply not fit with a particular style of play or set of players. But what you expect from a club with an enormously clever chairman, a director of football, a head coach, a technical director and a host of associated coaching staff, is that when players are signed someone knows how they tick, and is prepared to give them a chance to do so. All too often, we sign players whose eventual lack of ability to work they way we want to seems to come as a surprise to us. And lately, we seem to be giving them very little chance to deliver.
It should be stressed the rumours about Capoue and Holtby going during this window are, for the moment, just rumours. But experience suggests there is no smoke without fire, however popular it may be to denounce the media and all its works. When Holtby arrived he was supposedly a key player, so key that we brought forward the agreed transfer date. Yet, just one year later, he’s made just 23 appearances and we’re apparently ready to let him go. Even more extraordinary is the case of Capoue. Signed in August, he’s made just 7 appearances – with injury restricting his chances – and Sherwood has dropped hints that his attitude is not right. How could that attitude not have been picked up by the scouts or the director of football? To any sensible observer, Tottenham’s transfer strategy seems to be non-existent.
[authquoteright text=”The subsequent collapse against Liverpool were the first really serious problems the new regime faced. And it buckled. Which prompts the question, how much faith was there in the first place?[/linequote]
Burkinshaw Over the years, the quote “there used to be a football club over there” has been used liberally during the many – and mostly self-inflicted – crises at the club. Keith Burkinshaw never said it – the ‘quote’ was a device used by a journalist to pithily sum up Burkinshaw’s disquiet at what was being done to the club as Irving Scholar embarked upon the journey that led to where we are today. But its power endures as a summation of the disquiet we feel. Disquiet fuelled by the many, many questions. Are we a club or merely a player trading exchange? Is there any plan at all, or are we just waiting until ENIC can finally sell? Is it really enough to have balanced books, is that what we pay to see, or would it be nice to win something once in a while, like we used to, when we built the reputation upon which the current owners trade? And, for supporters of my generation, the question is ‘are we supporting something that ceased to exist some time ago?’ And so on.
Watching Spurs lately, it’s hard to identify any more than a collection of players. The evidence of a team seems hard to come by. We are not, of course, rubbish, doomed, in crisis or any of the other hyperbole that’s been tossed around. Our moaning must come across to fans of clubs in real trouble as the whining of the rich kid who only got three foreign holidays this year. But there’s a flatness, a loss of passion, a realisation that maybe this is all there is. Look at any of the truly successful teams, Bayern, Barcelona, Dortmund, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Arsenal god help us, and what do you see? A philosophy of how to conduct yourself as a football club, a pride in that idea and a fierce desire to implement it – and the courage and confidence to stick with convictions. And don’t tell me it’s just the money that makes them so successful. At Spurs, who can expect the players to show any passion when they are shuffled in and out with such regularity, when the transfer policy seems designed to do little else than turn a profit, when business comes second to instead of alongside football, when – as ABC, and perhaps AVB too, memorably observed – everything is temporary, written on that sand.
AVB’s departure was a blow not because of the specifics, but because of what it represented. It signalled to all but the most blinkered that there is no plan, no philosophy, no solid idea running through a club that is shell of what it once was and could be. Until ownership able to combine vision with ability and hard cash can step in, the direction of travel will continue to be circular.
This article was first published on Martin Cloake’s excellent blog
[author name=”Martin Cloake” avatar=”http://blog.martincloake.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/IMG_2455-288×300.jpg” twitter=”MartinCloake” website=”blog.martincloake.com” tag=”martincloake[/linequote]
All views and opinions expressed in this article are the views and opinions of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of The Fighting Cock. We offer a platform for fans to commit their views to text and voice their thoughts. Football is a passionate game and as long as the views stay within the parameters of what is acceptable, we encourage people to write, get involved and share their thoughts on the mighty Tottenham Hotspur.
24 Comments
Would you like to write for The Fighting Cock?
15/01/2014 @ 7:24 pm
Poignant article. And not wrong. Well written Martin.
15/01/2014 @ 7:37 pm
Agree completely with your reading of the systemic issues at Spurs. There is no underlying footballing philosophy/strategy that ties talent development with recruitment with coaching philosophy/continuity and ultimately with a supposed entertaining and attacking brand of football that we are theoretically known for. It all seems to be a car of management by crisis and by the seat of Levy’s pants. It’s Shambolic really and ultimately a sign of mismanagement by Levy/Lewis/ENIC. It can be fixed but to do so one must hire a manager with a winning tradition and with experience of defining and setting up and most importantly institutionalizing a footballing philosophy at Spurs and who will hire/train Spurs coaching, talent recruitment and other support staff in that footballing philosophy. It takes years and someone who has done it before and it takes as you say the backing of Levy and the Board to see the project through. Unfortunately Levy’s track record in recognizing this and addressing it does not give me any reason to hope as sad as I am to say it.
15/01/2014 @ 7:51 pm
Martin. Thank you for a very thoughtful article. It is with sadness that I agree with most of what you say. The decline since Harry Redknapp left is alarming. In my view had it not been for the world class performances of Gareth Bale last season we would have finished mid table. There were very few convincing and exhilarating performances. The only one that truly stands out is the first half of the Inter Milan first leg game.
We looked like a mid table side for most of last season and again we have this season. Memorable and stirring efforts have been few and far between. We had a great opportunity to move ahead by signing two or maybe three top players in the summer with the Bale money. Instead of doing so we have completely disrupted the solid group of players that we had come to identify with by signing so many average players of dubious pedigree and with zero premier League experience. Baldini and Levy are accountable for this. AVB unfortunately was out of his depth with this influx.
This is just a another example of the muddled thinking amongst Levy and his advisers that, I fear, is leading our beloved club to another period of mediocrity. I so that hope I am proved utterly wrong.
COYS
15/01/2014 @ 8:04 pm
AVB wasn’t appointed as part of a ‘grand new approach’ – it was part of the same approach identified by Lwvy when he took a moratorium after the dismissal of Gelnn Hoddle.
The key elements are:
A revamping of the youth set-up, to make it productive rather than a drain. It copies much from the Continental system – with far more focus on technique than on competitiveness at an early age. This has not been jettisoned, and, surely, anyone who looks objectively will see that this is bearing fruit – and bearing fruit at precisely the time we should really expect it to.
Development of the club infrastructure: the new state-of-the-art training facilities are considered to be the best in Europe, if not the World. A new stadium is planned, and some headway has been made.
Purchasing of young talent and selling on at a profit, while a competitive team is built. We can all see that this has been followed, and anyone who can’t see that Spurs are now far more competitive than a decade ago may need the selling salts.
Implementation of Continental style management structure: this is the only area where the ‘project’ has really struggled. Harry Redknapp was only prepared to accept the Spurs job on the basis that the DoF role was jettisoned while he was manager. Levy specifically stated that he was putting the system into abeyance in order to employ Redknapp – and switched back to it, with the (then) Head Coach’s encouragement, last year. It may be that Sherwood (or other) will adopt a role somewhere between the two styles (Continental and European). But, as said, as of so far, this is the only part of the issue in the last 7/8 years, changes in management personnel do not change that.
There is a clear vision – and understanding that helps to understand exactly why Tim Sherwood was appointed. because too many Spurs fans, who could have known it they bothered to find out, have complained about not even knowing what his job was. Well, what his job was was to establish a style across the squads, a club style, that would facilitate the movement of young players up through the squads and, ultimately, into the 1st team squad – the facilitation of this movement was another area of responsibility for Tim Sherwood. There was a wide expectation that AVB would initiate a 4-3-3 but he never did. This is exactly the formation that Sherwood implemented throughout the youth set-up. There is zero reason to believe Sherwood is intending on sticking to a slavish 4-4-2. There is scope for understanding why he adopted a 4-4-2 in the first place: the system AVB had drilled into the players had been unsuccessful and needed to be changed, Sherwood didn’t have any time with the squad to implement anything taxing/sophisticated, the fixture list was something like a game every three days, so no time on the training field, and, I would imagine, almost every player on the planet knows how to play in a 4-4-2. He has already alluded to playing Chadli and Lamela and expecting goals, and that didn’t sound to me like conventional 4-4-2. Who better to implement the club style to the first team squad that the man who did the same with the younger squads, and, therefore, is eminently aware of the talent in that youth set-up, and willing to play them.
Sorry if being aware of this makes me blinkered :)
15/01/2014 @ 8:40 pm
Spot on Chris !The avb brown nose brigade could never see beyond the hype.He was out of his depth virtualy from day one,hence the over cautious zombie tactics.Dont lose even if you dont win etc,what a plonker !The board are not free from guilt either ,how they hired the portoplonker in the first place I dont know.So now we are in a bit of a mess,so lets hope the bloke who only slightly less experienced than avb was when he took over can do the job,at least give him as much time as the twonk.
15/01/2014 @ 9:53 pm
What utter Garbage….not worth the effort of a reply …!! And as for spurgatso, God Help us!
Such a great article Martin, Well done!!
15/01/2014 @ 10:31 pm
Try.
It’s all facts, sorry if it disagrees with someone offering a simple, let’s get angry blog…but it is all facts, and goes further to explain how, bar the Ramos debacle and Redknapp’s season recovering from it, we have finished 4th or 5th every single season since the change was initiated with the hiring of Arnesen.
And it has nothing to do with AVB and nothing to do with brown-nosing Levy. it has everything to do with the facts.
The fact is, the youth players who the new outlook was going to have an effect on, was the 14 – 15 YO group, and those immediately below them. Working on the basis that they wouldn’t be matured players until their early twenties, we are talking about Tommy Carroll, Andros Townsend, Stephen Caulker who, let me remind you, we sold for £8 million in the Summer, Jake Livermore, who has excelled on loan at Hull, who want to buy him and will, hopefully, generate £4 or £5 million, we have Harry Kane coming through. And then we should be expecting the younger ones, once the system is up-and-running, to be even more promising, and our under 21’s dominated last season, and the under 18’s were not far behind. We have players like Alex Pritchard out on loan, players like Shaquile Coulthirst having covetous glances cast at him from Barcelona after our youth took their youth apart, 4 – 1, at their own stadium, we have Nabil Bentelab…etc., etc.
If you didn’t know any of this, perhaps you should read it and go away and do some research, rather than calling it ‘rubbish’. Did you even know what Sherwood’s job was, or his involvement in introducing a club style across the squads and the 4-3-3 formation?
So, yeah, rather than just labelling it rubbish and not worthy of an answer, maybe, like, you could try providing an answer!
And, of course, COYS :)
:)
15/01/2014 @ 11:06 pm
The last thing I intended to do was provide a “simple, let’s get angry blog”, and less still to add to the simmering state of civil war among Spurs fan factions, SP. I didn’t particularly like writing it, as it depresses the hell out of me. I found your contribution interesting and it made me think. But, in my view, your analysis doesn’t stack up.
For a start, I just don’t see this clear vision or continuity. Your point seems to be that a look at the youth set up is evidence of this. But when you give examples, you cite as among the successes a player on loan, a player we sold, and two players other clubs are interested in buying. This seems to back up the view that the club’s main business is as a player exchange, not building a team and developing a common approach. Spurs used to be known for developing talent as well as buying in the best. But in recent history, few home-grown talents have come through. I’d love Townsend, Kane and Bentelab to succeed, but recent history suggests either they won’t be given a chance, or they’ll be sold. And, to be honest, you can’t blame the players for seeing a stint at Spurs as purely temporary before they try to achieve what the game is ultimately about – winning something.
The stadium is no closer to happening than it was when an announcement was allegedly imminent two years ago. There is a valid argument to say Spurs have been overambitious and unrealistic with the grand plans, and that opting for relatively limited expansion of WHL would have kept us more financially in the running than falling further behind every year no development at all happens has.
I know it’s easy to criticise, and that it’s difficult to get all the facts. But after 13 years it’s possible to make some judgements about how the club is being run based on what we’ve seen. Not a disaster by any means, but so many missed opportunities. I’ve been really surprised at the lack of much argument with I said in the original article – to be honest I expected more to disagree. What’s been really depressing is the number of fans, many long term fans, who have simply lost faith in where the club is going. Of course we all want Spurs to succeed, but I’ve never known such lack of faith that we will break out of the ever-decreasing circles.
16/01/2014 @ 12:21 am
Thanks for the reasoned response…and sorry if I sounded overly critical, the recent past has been draining for us all.
Unfortunately, your response carries a few misapprehensions:
Firstly, a look at the youth is ‘part’ of the evidence of a clear vision, not the totality of it.
Secondly, for the youth system (and we are talking about the system as a whole, here, and not just the academy, and that includes players bought in at under 20), we are talking about youth ‘product’, in totality, and not just players we produce for the first team who are absolutely incredibly great World beaters thank you very much. We are looking to make the youth system productive, rather than a drain on our resources. I mean in a decade we produced Ledley King and who? Who to even sell for a couple of million. Yes the point is that I mentioned a player who we sold for £8 million – he has generated £8 million to be ploughed back into a club that is dedicated to running within its means. The point is that I mentioned players who have gone out on loan – sending players out on loan is part of our system, and was used to good effect with, among others, Kyle Walker and Andros Townsend. Yes, the point is that even at such a young age, the players we are producing are whipping the asses of the players Barca are producing in their own back yard and attracting their attention. That doesn’t mean we have to sell, or to sell immediately, perhaps more pertinently. It shows that we are producing a significant number of players at a significantly higher level than we have done hitherto – and that is in accordance with principles Levy clearly identified when he could a year out after dismissing Glenda, and then appointed Frank Arnesen (and there was significance to that appointment). In order for a youth system to be productive, as opposed to being a drain, it needs to do three things: produce players that we can sell at a good price; produce squad players; and produce first team players. At such an early stage (given the time-lag, explained above), we are clearly already doing all three on a level that we haven’t for decades (if ever), and the evidence for the years below those mentioned is that this is going to increase and not decrease.
I’m sorry if you, or anyone else, finds this disillusioning, but buying young talent, developing them, and then selling at a substantial profit is where we are as a club right now. There is no reason to see this a wholly negative thing. There was no way on Gawd’s earth that we could outspend the former Big Four. And even if and when we could (or can) outbid them and their successors, we just cannot match the wages. Our wage bill is sixth in the EPL, and we are competing with two Oil Money Sugar Daddy Club’s, CL regulars, United and Arse*al, with 75,000 and 60,000 stadiums respectively, and Liverpool who are a household name who generate far greater marketing revenues than us thanks to their massive global fan-base. And yet, we have finished 4th or 5th (with the exception of the two years mentioned) since BMJ took charge.
Our previous model, which rested largely on buyinig pretty good players on the downward slope of their careers, a few good players and a lot of mediocrity was taking us into an ever decreasing circle of finishing outside the top 10, flirting with relegation and having our season ended by Christmas (yeah, I remember them days, they really were dark days!). You need to contrast the two.
And we are doing it precisely by selling our very top talent – that is precisely what Southampton did (shame it looks like it is all falling apart now). Look at it this way (and this is a gross simplification): You start with one great player and ten mediocrities. You sell the great player and buy five exciting talents. One of those exciting talents becomes a great player, two become very good players and two fall by the wayside. You now have a team with one great player, two very good players and eight mediocrities. You sell the great player, buy five exciting talents. One becomes a great player two become very good players and two fall by the wayside. You now have a team with one great player, four very good players and six mediocrities. You sell the great player, buy five exciting talents. One becomes a great player two become very good players and two fall by the wayside. You now have a team with one great player, six very good players and four mediocrities.
repeat, you now have one great player, eight very good players and two mediocrities. Carrying on repeating and maybe you have two great players and nine very good players – and you only need to sell one of the great players. There is to much looking at Real Madrid as the model we should aspire to, it isn’t, it is Borrusia Dortmund.
And that, in my opinion, is where we find ourselves, and I am amazed at how many Spurs fans are dropping into such utter despondency – we have an excellent squad of players now, none at the Modric/Bale level, but a few who could potentially develop to that level, and a squad of very, very good players, and we have a hugely exciting youth system. I read an article recently where Ars*nal and Chelsea scouts were complaining that right across London they were getting wind of an exciting prospect and when they got to wherever to scout the kid finding ‘the Spurs man’ there ahead of them and already signed the kid up. When we have a new stadium, then we will be able to increase the amount given over to wages, and maybe keep our very best players a bit longer. But even so, no-one should kid themselves, even the Goons had to sell Fabregas (and whoever), even United were bullied into selling Ronaldo – despite Fergie’s lame gibe that he wouldn’t even give Real a virus.
So, I did mention that we do sell our best players…I just don’t see it as the disaster of disasters that some are making it out to be. Not in the long run.
As I understand it with the stadium, preliminary work has been done, as has some extraneous development. The word is there is a hold up, ATM, with someone wanting a huge wad for a plot of land that it is impossible to build around, that the club have offered a pretty big wad for, and that wad offered is way bigger than it should really be. C’est la vie, eh! I don’t believe we have been overambitious at all – the training facilities were planned to go on line first, and they are pretty damned impressive, by all accounts. The club, again by all accounts, expected CL football before now, and but for some horrible misfortune and Man Citeh being gifted a huge pile of filthy oil money, in my opinion, we would have had it. I believe that explains part of the hold-up. The club may have been waiting for a steady stream to be promised from the youth set-up before pushing plans forward, which makes sense as we won’t be able to be as active in the transfer mark (as with the Goons). In any case, I, for one, am pretty cool with the state-of-play with the stadium.
As said, the big problem, the real problem, for me, is that Levy doesn’t seem able to pick a successful Head Coach (to give it its proper terminology) for his preferred system – or, maybe, those he gets advice from couldn’t pick their noses. As said, maybe we need something of a composite somewhere between the old style British manager and the Continental style Head Coach – my hope is that Tim Sherwood is that man. For those of you who didn’t realise, Sherwood has been being groomed for this position for a while, it has just a little earlier than expected (and no-one should underestimate the influence he has had on the development of our youth set-up). If we have improved this much changing managers so frequently, imagine how good we could be if he gets one of the buggers right :)
I agree with you, it is possible to make judgements after 13 years (I really count it from the Arnesen appointment, which was a whole new departure, TBH). It isn’t perfect, there have been some missed chances, Levy needs to either make decent managerial appointments, or appoint someone who can. And he needs to step back from player trading. As for the long term fans losing faith – I’m afraid most are just seeing ‘another manager gone’, and not looking beneath it to see that we recover and should do again, and even in this era of flip-flopping managers have done pretty alright, the disappointment of the summer’s excitement evaporating so rapidly, and disappointment at Sherwood’s appointment when a big name was hoped for, combined with lack of knowledge of Sherwood, and, in some quarters, active dislike of the man, not least for his Goon connections, and allowing it to form a huge ball of woe in their heads that needn’t really be there. If you look at it another way, Liverpool have performed about as well as they could possibly do, and have been damned lucky on occasion, while we have had a clusterfeck of a season and we still sit only two points behind them, we are still only two points off fourth, and we do still have a very strong squad, with an exciting youth system behind it. As for Sherwood, I just plum don’t care who he supported as a kid, I care whether he can win games. I know he is inexperienced, anyone who has been paying attention to what he has been doing at the club for the last six years, or so, there is actually quite a lot to be optimistic about. The last manager we appointed from within, without experience was…?
So, respectfully, I continue to disagree. I think everyone should just accept that Tim Sherwood is Head coach and will him and the team on. We are supporters, after all :)
15/01/2014 @ 11:43 pm
So that was the plan all along… Thanks SP.
It makes sense now. All along it was TS that was shaping the ‘Plan’.
So we get MJ for a cpl of years, no good, then HR, a cpl more years, no good, then AVB for a cpl more years, no good.
Now we have TS …we’ve reached the goal!! how clever this Danny boy is.
Throughout the youth set up we have this brilliant 433 system ….how easy is this going to be from now on….we’ll be the next Man City in no time at all.
16/01/2014 @ 12:26 am
See my response to Martin.
Sorry, no, we won’t be the new Man Citeh. One club has built itself up, organically, spending within the limits of its own revenues, and should be lauded for such approach. The other has inherited an obscene amount of Middle Easter oil money. I’ll leave you to work out who is who :)
Sadly, you attempt at sarcasm merely highlights either how little you have attempted to understand the argument I have made, or how little you have understood the argument I have made despite trying very hard. Again, i will leave you to figure out which of these two it is :)
And, yes, Tim Sherwood has been being groomed for at WHL for quite a while, and yes he was highly influential in the development of our exciting youth set-up. resorting to sarcasm doesn’t cover over how little you did/do know about any of this.
COYS :)
15/01/2014 @ 8:09 pm
Superb article. Very sadly the club we love needs a complete shake-up starting at the very top. Amazingly the Chairman does not seem to come under much stick from supporters at home matches but it is to him that a lot of the blame lies. In my 50 years of supporting the club I never recall a season with a Spurs team so devoid of passion and excitement. Where we go from here I just do not know but I have come to the conclusion that Levy is totally out of his depth.
Good luck to Tim Sherwood who is at least trying to engender some spirit but we all know how this will end when Levy decides it is time to bring in his new managerial choice.
15/01/2014 @ 8:23 pm
You criticize the number of managers Levy has appointed when Abramivic has hired around the same amount. You say money doesn’t make a difference. You fail to mention Levy wanted Sherwood to replace Redknapp but he didn’t feel ready to do it. You fail to mention we received a bid of £10m for AVB from PSG. It was up to him whether he accepted, but he decided to stay at a club for a 2nd year for the 1st time instead. The plan of Sherwood has been moving along at Tottenham for nearly 6 years. Regarding Baldini, I think Levy, not being a ‘footballing expert’, wants and needs someone, an on-board third-party, or second/alternative opinion. I fully appreciate and support that. Also Baldini can concentrate fully on the clubs budget and transfer strategy (which Sherwood hasn’t time for – he’s to squeeze a course in as it is), and Baldini will bring with him his own circle of contacts and wealth of knowledge. It’s great to have so many good knowledgeable and successful professionals at the club imho. Redknapp brought lots of former players back as coaches and we’re strong in staffing as a result. Rough planning? Lucky planning? Maybe not EVEN planning? We’re in good hands.
15/01/2014 @ 10:32 pm
Well said.
16/01/2014 @ 11:15 pm
I don’t seem to be able to reply to your reply above, so hopefully it’s OK to do it here. I see the reasoning in what you are saying, but try as I can it just looks like 2+2 = 5. If, as you say, we have made a success of player trading, why does Levy need to step away from player trading, for example? I get what you’re saying about youth, but the youth development seems to exist in a separate orbit to first team development. Youth development is there, as you seem to argue, to help the club be financially stable, so by definition it can’t be there to bring players into the first team, because we don’t generate the cash if we don’t sell them. After all this, anyway, you would have expected to see more of the youth coming through. They don’t seem to. It’s no good comparing with what went before, this youth development plan has been around a while.
Now, I think one of the positives about Tim Sherwood is that he does look as if he will give the kids game time. And I agree, too many people seem to think we should buy “big”, employ a “big name” manager, etc etc. We need the right people, not the big people. I don’t have an issue with Tim at all. What I do have an issue with is the constant chopping and changing. In my opinion, Jol should never have been sacked – and certainly not in the snide way he was. Ramos was a disaster, Harry got us out of the mess and really moved us on but, perhaps foolishly, I agreed that his attention looked to have wandered and I doubted he could take us much further. So I backed Levy and the board when they appointed AVB. If they simply wanted to keep things ticking over, they should have stick with Harry. But they clearly wanted to move up a notch – again that’s at odds with the picture you paint.
Having decided to go with AVB, and now pretty much admitted that was a mistake, I simply don’t see how the board has an iota of credibility. Either they back their man, or they don’t. They didn’t, they never have, and they never will because, in my opinion, their main objective is to avoid and blame or any possibility of having to explain. There’s always a fall guy, there’s always another club that had more money, better prospects, etc etc. If nothing is ever our fault, how can we learn how not to make the same mistakes again?
I would love Spurs to model itself on Borussia Dortmund. There is a great story around that club. One of the intrinsic parts of it is the close relationship between the fans and the club. There’s mutual respect and proper conversation. At Spurs, the board get tetchy if fans don’t act as their unofficial PR arm, feed us vague prop sects of jam tomorrow, steal our loyalty points and rip us off with StubHub. As for the stadium, having attempted to do some work on developing a community share with the current board a few years ago, I remain highly sceptical of their commitment to partnership or the prospects of a brick being laid of this supposed new stadium.
One final point on the money. Spurs are not as rich as Man City or Chelsea. Few clubs are. But they are not exactly poor either. They are owned by a very rich man, who incidentally choses not to pay his taxes in the UK but likes to drive a hard bargain with the local council in one of London’s poorest areas, through the vehicle of ENIC. No one is suggesting that any business person with any sense would simply throw money at a business, but remember what the I in ENIC stands for. Net spend as a proportion of ENIC and Joe Lewis’s total wealth is an interesting figure to look at. Even so, we have spent pretty highly in comparison to other clubs. Look at the return on that spend compared to other clubs and a sensible business question to ask would be, are the current executives providing value for money? As far as the club seems to be concerned, anything that hasn’t worked has been a force of nature, utterly beyond their control. When the chairman is on £2.2m a year – a figure voted for by the board led by him, and after ENIc had bought the club on the cheap through the preferential share scheme – I expect a bit of responsibility to be taken, a bit of accountability to be provided, and frankly, better results. If you want to pay yourself a top wage, deliver top results. That’s business. The Financial Times bit here :-) is relevant because what often seems to be forgotten when people talk about how well the club has been run is that the people who own have done very well indeed out of it – while at the same time massively increasing ticket prices.
Final bit from me, and sorry I’ve droned on, is that the disillusion around Spurs is a real problem for any halfway sensible board. It’s not the usual suspects, it’s fans who have gone regularly since the 60s saying they just don’t see the point any more. It’s kids to are fed up at seeing their heroes sold and Spurs stumble from one self-inflicted crisis to another. Right across the scale, that bond that links fans to the club, that makes the business so potentially profitable, is starting to break. In the end, people don’t want to see a well-run business that has a good record of trading players. They want to see a football team that, even if only occasionally, competes properly and wins things. And they want to see some passion being put into achieving this. Tim Sherwood might well be the person who achieves this, I hope he does. But I don’t believe for a minute that him being where he is now is the result of an elaborate long game by Levy, and I have zero confidence that he will bet the board’s backing if either we hit another rocky patch, or a marquee name becomes available. To paraphrase Kevin Keegan, I would love it, LOVE IT, if they proved me wrong.
15/01/2014 @ 8:30 pm
There are so many angles to this. But a key one is probably the bigger stadium, and how it is financed. It needs to support the team, and not drain resources from it. Beware, though, because QPR and West Ham are also moving to bigger stadia, each wanting about 15,000 more supporters. Where will they all come from ? Are there enough supporters all spending their money to go round ? Should Spurs just expand WHL up to say 45,000, or really go for the 56,000, or even more with an NFL team ? Big questions, so not surprising taking some time.
15/01/2014 @ 8:46 pm
Couldn’t agree more – just look at Swansea and how they’ve played under the last few managers both in the Championship and the Premier League. None were sacked, they just moved on to bigger/better things but the successor simply built on the foundations that had been laid by the previous guy. There is a philosophy there of how the game should be played and the new manager after Laudrup inevitably moves on will have to have the same sort of approach. He can change the emphasis a bit, change the structure a bit, add/change a couple of players but, in the end, the game will be played the Swansea way.
15/01/2014 @ 8:52 pm
Anyone buying Spurs would need say £400m plus say a further £200m for the new stadium(after allowing for naming rights, etc). After Manchester United and Arsenal, possibly the third most expensive team to buy/develop. In a city with arguably too many teams – the Qatar investors bought Paris SG, in a one team city. In England you could buy teams like Leeds United, Sheffield Wednesday, Birmingham City for around £25-50m – much cheaper, and with good potential to grow.
So have Spurs priced themselves out ?
15/01/2014 @ 9:18 pm
Spurs, rudderless, hopeless, hapless. A Hamster on an exercise wheel makes more progress.
I quit!!!!
15/01/2014 @ 9:24 pm
My to do list
Buy Spurs.
Scrap the NDP and expand WHL instead, as more cost effective.
Hire an experienced manager, and let him decide player comings and goings, within an overall budget.
Give him time.
Communicate reguarly with supporters, my plans, hopes, aspirations for Spurs.
Sit back and enjoy the games.
15/01/2014 @ 9:55 pm
danny boy objectives are
grow the sale price for Spurs
enhance this by getting all systems go for a new stadium
also by getting league position higher than budget position
keep changing managers until the right one comes along, a bit like glenn miller looking for that unique sound
never apologise, never explain
15/01/2014 @ 10:25 pm
Excellent article and so much to agree with and ponder further. It may be the cynic in me but to my way of thinking there probably is a loose plan in there somewhere. For example, I think we will see the Bale money trickle away slowly but surely. The extravagant spending spree during the summer was seen by many as a long term investment in good quality players but some eyebrows must have been raised when so many players were brought in for similar positions. The glaring omission being left back. If the rumours we now hear are to be believed then we will witness a mini exodus and that in itself is awful but surely anticipated by someone. Good players will be replaced by less talented, certainly less expensive ones or there will be more promotions from within the club which is of course the cheapest option. I have been a supporter for over 50 years and I would agree with the author above that the business side of THFC is kind of all that really matters now to the non transparent powers that be. That culture has to change for the players to change. Prepare for a sale of the club some time soon because it’s getting hot in the kitchen with issues around managers, players and the stadium bubbling away nicely right now. This could be good. COYS.
16/01/2014 @ 3:59 pm
God I hope your right SP – I really do… I’d love us to the be the new Dortmund. However I have a nasty feeling we’ll end up finishing 6th, Tim will get the tin-tac and we’ll end up with Capello !! COYS !!
04/04/2014 @ 5:40 am
The things they say go to your knowledge of this work you are writing. The entire world desires for more excited freelancers just like you who aren’t afraid to mention how they imagine. Continuously go after your cardiovascular.