We hear that Timothy Sherwood is being groomed for greatness, gawdelpus. We hear that Pleaty is returned to the fold. All of this would carry far less weight if our beloved Arry wasn’t a) being openly courted by the media for the England manager’s job and b) off to court shortly with a question mark over a custodial sentence hanging over his loaf.
This got me thinking about who ought be the next man for the job. I tend to develop narcolepsy when well meaning folk start shouting out ‘Mourinho!’ or ‘Ancelotti!’ like the have twisted strain of Tourettes Syndrome. Despite a significant groundswell of contempt aimed at Citizen Aitch, he has statistically his win % makes him the most successful manager in 35 years.
The debate for who ought to be the next England manager is dominated by the demand that the new man be English, yet the two big shouts for Arry’s successor aren’t even British. I bet they don’t even know how to play Pooh Sticks, by Jiggins.
I could have deliberately trimmed the sample managerial period to be examined for a number of reasons but opted for to run from the first man to manage in my period of support to today. So we start at Burkinshaw.
The statistics of Tottenham managers vary wildly from source to source. At the risk of losing the will to live constructing some class of mean average figure from all the numbers out there, again I took the easy route and simply used those in Uncle Norman’s The Managing Game.
Arry Redschapps 48.68
Glenda Hoddle 48.00
Matrin Jol 44.96
So why shouldn’t we appoint Hoddle? The negatives are obvious enough I guess. Eileen Drewery’s name will be in the mix. Glena’s passes routinely found their target, but the old boy seem to have increasingly lost his mind to the evangelical hokum of a Berkshire housewife. The mulleted one violently hit the button marked ‘Career Eject’ with his forehead when he announced that disabled people were paying the price for misdeeds in a previous life.
But he was head and shoulders above so many others. Admittedly some of those others were Ardilles and Santini, but the list includes Burkinshaw, Venables and Shreeve who all had win percentages over 40.
I feel that Glenda has grown up since his faith healing days. Not knowing the man personally I won’t try and kid you he is a born again human being: but my feeling is that he has certainly at the very least learned to keep his cuckoo religious views very separate to his public.
So that’s the case for Godlite Hod.
Hoddle for England. Best of both worlds sorted.
I do recall getting tonked time and time again at the end of his tenure. Remind me why he was sacked.
Serves you right for asking but – BBC Sunday, 21 September, 2003: Club chairman Daniel Levy said in a statement on the club’s website that he had told Hoddle of the decision to release him on Sunday evening.”Unfortunately, the start to this season has been our worst since the Premiership was formed.”
Nonsense
Moyes is the only contender.
We’re talking about the next Spurs manager here, not the next manager to be sacked!
Sunday Times writer Duncan Castles tweeting to expect some significant news about Redknapp later today. I wonder what he means.