At Spurs, the future is round

[Bobbins]

No agenda there at all.....

Oh, and just for the sake of some accuracy:

Glenn Hoddle was manager for 2.5 seasons combined (2 full seasons, 1 near half season, and 6 games at the start of his last).

Martin Jol was manager for 3 seasons combined (2 full seasons, 1 season minus the first handful of games, 1 season of just the first handful of games)

Harry Redknapp was manager for 8 games short of 4 seasons (3 full seasons, 1 season minus the first 8 games).

Santini lased just a handful of games. He wanted to leave, nothing to do with the plan in place.

AVB lasted just under 1.5 seasons, his departure appears fairly mutual (if not political) and is the only one where the reasons aren't 100% obvious (though they are still relatively apparent).

Ramos lasted 1 full season combined, he had to go, we were bottom of the league and several points adrift after a quarter of the season.

To state that the club have no plan in place when making these appointments is tosh. Well written, eloquent tosh, but tosh never the less. Had Arnesen not been lured by Chelsea, he'd have no doubt overseen the Jol tenure at least (especially as Jol was his man). Comolli was in place for the entirety of Jols two successful seasons (and one terrible start to a season) and up until Ramos left, as Ramos (and the money spent for Ramos) were very much his responsibility. Redknapp wouldn't have ever worked with a DoF, got most of the players he wanted (Defoe, Parker, Crouch, Kranjcar, Friedel) and, while he'd been our best and most successful manager, left because the end of the road had fairly clearly been reached (his conduct from the second he was acquitted onwards being more than a bit questionable). In comes AVB, who a year on gets the DoF that AVB WANTED in Baldini, and he left because, and this is the only part of the article I particularly agree with, he and the club no longer had faith in eachother. The politics behind it can be speculated on, but from the moment he took the step to criticise our fans (he's a smart man, he knows that there's only one way that ends) it seemed fairly plain that he was not a man who wanted to be here.

And guess what... he's been replaced with a man who knows the club from top to bottom due to his exposure to all aspects in the past half decade, is (not quite as) young too, and has been given a contract which ends at the exact point that AVB's contract would have ended. No plan? I'd say that it's same plan, different man.

The article was an interesting read, but it was ultimately a load of agenda driven drivel cleverly disguised and intelligent objectivity. One should not be fooled.

For years I would've agreed with you, until recently.

I've defended Levy/the club over each of these individual incidents repeatedly over the years, and also in the case of selling Carrick, Berbatov, Modric and Bale etc. But I can't do it anymore.

There comes a point where you realise that you can't keep defending and excusing someone/something who repeatedly demonstrates the behaviour you're defending them against.

It's like trying to defend a drug addict - you keep trying to see the best in them, keep coming up with excuses for their behaviour, to defend each incident where they've let you down. Then at some point you realise they're an addict and you can't do it any longer.

Levy is an addict. He's addicted to change, to upheaval, to new and exciting 'long term' plans, to player trading. I'll never dislike Daniel as he's brought us a period of comparactive success, and he's faced some massive obstacles in his time in charge as well. But I can no longer defend his behaviour, I can no longer defend his changing of managers, of DoF's, of his constant and unending player trading.

I can no longer defend his addictions. Which is a real shame. But I've lost almost all feeling of connection with the club and it's because every single time I look at the team/staff, I see endless new faces, and the faces I recognised are gone.

 

[teok]

I thought this was a very good piece. It definitely now seems like we still have good players and we still might get some good results. Any long term plan or any thing has gone out the window though.

Some one mentioned in the thread about the atmosphere at the lane that the fans don't seem to know what direction the club is heading in, it's all just got a bit weird? It's hard to describe?

 

[CheeseGromit]

A club usually gets a high from appointing a new manager. This is the start of something better

This time it does not look like that at all. Manager just departed seemed to get lost in the fog. What was more important, him being right about the way we were to play with the personnel he had gathered, or developing a football club to the next level. I dont think there is only one way to achieve success

His successor seems an appointment by default. Nothing to really look forward to. A short term appointment Can somebody sit in the background for so long and take on a job they have never done before and really lift the club. Does this happen in the business world ?

It replaces one question mark with another. Something we have become very good at

The flatness comes in part from knowing that you can't take several thrashing a in a season and be a credible contentender for the great prize. We know that we have not progressed possibly regressed.

We no longer know what our identity is. Are we going to be real contenders sidelining players who have made significant contributions elsewhere with younger players from the Development squads; No. It's a nice thought but flawed

Unrest appears to be lurking in the background. Whispers and counter whispers are for the Spammers of the world not Spurs. This looks a backward step in the managing of the club


It is all the little things that seem to have disintegrated but I am afraid the problem really started with AVB. Was he really the best choice. I would not have picked him at the time. History was too fresh. No track record but still as he was the manager he should be supported and was by many but probably slightly reluctantly

I really thing we need another voice in addition to TS coming out of WHL to give the faithful something to cling to

 

[Main Man]

This sums up exactly how I felt in the days I was arguing the cause for AVB to stay. Not because I thought at the that exact time he was doing a wonderful job, but because we all had to be pulling in the same direction in regards to a perceived plan, and at least with AVB I felt that the football club had a long term plan even if it wasn't bearing lots of fruit as of the day of his departure.

That is the problem for me, every dismissal has just resulted in us presenting the opposite as a solution.

When in fact, the opposite just leaves us in exactly the same situation each time(bar Ramos) - the 5th best team in England, or thereabouts.

We keep analyzing approaches, tactics and appointments with the expected vigour of a football fan; but I can't help feel we just over-complicate things.

In terms of net spend on transfers, attendance and having to deal with two financial heavyweights - are we not exactly where we should be?

Why are so adamant they we need to make the Champions League? Why is that used as the measuring tool for success?

After the obvious disappointment, last season's record points total represented probably the greatest achievement I think we have managed in my 27 years.

People will argue Harry getting us to the Champions League was the greater achievement, but to achieve so many points with a team which wasn't as good as Harry's was just incredible in my opinion.

 

[Greenspur]

That is the problem for me, every dismissal has just resulted in us presenting the opposite as a solution.

When in fact, the opposite just leaves us in exactly the same situation each time(bar Ramos) - the 5th best team in England, or thereabouts.

We keep analyzing approaches, tactics and appointments with the expected vigour of a football fan; but I can't help feel we just over-complicate things.

In terms of net spend on transfers, attendance and having to deal with two financial heavyweights - are we not exactly where we should be?

Why are so adamant they we need to make the Champions League? Why is that used as the measuring tool for success?

After the obvious disappointment, last season's record points total represented probably the greatest achievement I think we have managed in my 27 years.

People will argue Harry getting us to the Champions League was the greater achievement, but to achieve so many points with a team which wasn't as good as Harry's was just incredible in my opinion.

I find myself in agreement with almost all of this.
In particular, I am struck (and saddened) by your sentiment that we are the 5th best team in England (or thereabouts). How true!
During the Spurs great era we were (along with Everton) the richest team in England. So, you see, even then success was allied to wealth.

Outside of football, I am struck by the constant need for economies to grow. Otherwise doom will follow. I've never understood this. If we are quite happy with our current standard of living, why should we constantly want to increase it? Several economists are now beginning to think in the same way.

Inside football, if Spurs are the 5th or 6th (or whatever) richest club - shouldn't we be the 5th or 6th most successful club?
Perhaps, then, Europa League, and the occasional cup is our rightful destiny.

 

[Actonspur_FromCOYS]

Thought this was a good read which sums up some of my gripes with the club:

http://blog.martincloake.com/2014/01/14/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?

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.

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.

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.
- See more at: http://blog.martincloake.com/2014/01/14/at-spurs-the-future-is-round/#sthash.jYe8pWKw.dpuf

You and I have a different definition of summing up

 

[danielneeds]

I think there are some good points in that piece. The overall outlook is far too negative. The fact is we are looking for an alchemist as a manager, someone who can operate with a budget the 6th biggest in the league and get results that can see us fighting for titles. That sort of person is extremely rare.

Levy has got us far, and if he can get the stadium built he will overtake Bill Nic as the most important person in the club's history.

 

[WexfordTownSpur]

I know a lot of people will attribute a lot of factors over the past few years to "bad luck" - missing out on the top four by fractions, if only this, if only that, but frankly the amount of times we've not taken advantage whilst we were on top means we probably deserve all those near misses. I have questions from years back that still haven't been answered.

Why, when it was obvious we needed a striker in January 2011 to cement our place as top four again did we fuck about trying to sign David Beckham & Steven Pienaar for three weeks and then spend the final 48 hours running around Spain?

Why, when we were points off a title challenge, didn't we go for someone in January to widen the gap instead of Ryan Nelsen & Louis Saha?

Why, when we appointed a new manager who had the media on him from day one dhid we sell 2/3 of our best players and replace them with players who weren't nearly as good?

Why didn't we sign Moutinho when it was clear we were a few hundred thousand away? (I know the ridiculousness in saying "a few hundred thousand" but seeing the millions we lost out on via 5th instead of 4th I think it's relevant)

Granted, putting all the Bale money back into the club was unexpected, but why were the fans (and manager seemingly) left in limbo about whether Paulinho & Soldado would be accomplices to Bale rather than replacements until a few days before the window closed? And how bad was the communication between the committee and AVB that our record signing started two Premier League games in four months?

It strikes me as a well intenioned body in charge of the club wanting to deal in hope and ideas rather than practicality and procedure to get us to where both we (and they) want us to be.

And why in the Jan window is there no hit ( and probably won't sign) a replacement striker, a left back or a center back? Even one of them for Christ sake. We say it every window, the needs are so obvious to everyone but the board/dof?

 

[Ribble]

Has anyone listened to Football Weekly from yesterday? Paul Doyle (I think) absolutely hammered us for pretty much the same things outlined in the article.

 

[TottenhamMattSpur]

No agenda there at all.....

Oh, and just for the sake of some accuracy:

Glenn Hoddle was manager for 2.5 seasons combined (2 full seasons, 1 near half season, and 6 games at the start of his last).

Martin Jol was manager for 3 seasons combined (2 full seasons, 1 season minus the first handful of games, 1 season of just the first handful of games)

Harry Redknapp was manager for 8 games short of 4 seasons (3 full seasons, 1 season minus the first 8 games).

Santini lased just a handful of games. He wanted to leave, nothing to do with the plan in place.

AVB lasted just under 1.5 seasons, his departure appears fairly mutual (if not political) and is the only one where the reasons aren't 100% obvious (though they are still relatively apparent).

Ramos lasted 1 full season combined, he had to go, we were bottom of the league and several points adrift after a quarter of the season.

To state that the club have no plan in place when making these appointments is tosh. Well written, eloquent tosh, but tosh never the less. Had Arnesen not been lured by Chelsea, he'd have no doubt overseen the Jol tenure at least (especially as Jol was his man). Comolli was in place for the entirety of Jols two successful seasons (and one terrible start to a season) and up until Ramos left, as Ramos (and the money spent for Ramos) were very much his responsibility. Redknapp wouldn't have ever worked with a DoF, got most of the players he wanted (Defoe, Parker, Crouch, Kranjcar, Friedel) and, while he'd been our best and most successful manager, left because the end of the road had fairly clearly been reached (his conduct from the second he was acquitted onwards being more than a bit questionable). In comes AVB, who a year on gets the DoF that AVB WANTED in Baldini, and he left because, and this is the only part of the article I particularly agree with, he and the club no longer had faith in eachother. The politics behind it can be speculated on, but from the moment he took the step to criticise our fans (he's a smart man, he knows that there's only one way that ends) it seemed fairly plain that he was not a man who wanted to be here.

And guess what... he's been replaced with a man who knows the club from top to bottom due to his exposure to all aspects in the past half decade, is (not quite as) young too, and has been given a contract which ends at the exact point that AVB's contract would have ended. No plan? I'd say that it's same plan, different man.

The article was an interesting read, but it was ultimately a load of agenda driven drivel cleverly disguised and intelligent objectivity. One should not be fooled.

Well said. Especially about AVB criticising the fans. I knew that day he wouldn't last until Christmas.

 

[guiltyparty]

Cloake is a very negative Spurs journalist by and large, and that comes across evidently, but he gets a lot right here

 

[teok]

Has anyone listened to Football Weekly from yesterday? Paul Doyle (I think) absolutely hammered us for pretty much the same things outlined in the article.

Yeah I did, it's hard to argue as well. The whole point of having a head coach and a director of football is continuity.

We don't seem to have any of that what so ever. Just chopping and changing between styles of play and formations. The squad don't know if they are coming or going. Is baldini off in the summer is LVG coming after the world cup?

Any sort of "plan" has just evaporated.

 

[mill]

Yeah I did, it's hard to argue as well. The whole point of having a head coach and a director of football is continuity.

We don't seem to have any of that what so ever. Just chopping and changing between styles of play and formations. The squad don't know if they are coming or going. Is baldini off in the summer is LVG coming after the world cup?

Any sort of "plan" has just evaporated.

And the blame for that should all be on levy imho