Good afternoon.
Graham Roberts played for Spurs when I first diagnosed with Tottingham Intravenous. He was part of the whole yin and yang that was going on a Spurs in the 80’s. Glenda Hoddle would hit a sublime thirty five yard pass with inch perfect perfection. By contrast you’d probably be better off being hit by a family saloon car than Rambo. Graham won two FA Cups and a UEFA cup in his his time at The Lane.
So Roberts is an ex-player I have tremendous respect for. But (you just knew it was coming) his career as a coach has been less distinguished. Three years at Yeovil Town, a year at Clyde, then nothing for four years, then a year at Pakistan, then a year at Nepal.
So quite how Rambo having achieved naff all fannying about for nearly two decades as a manager feels he’s placed to pass judgement on Villas Boas after three games is beyond me.
“As a manager you have to pick up the boys. He needs to get a personality change. You might say that is the way he is – but you’ve also got to be happy sometimes and that breeds confidence in the lads so that they play better.
To me it doesn’t look as if he has learned from his time at Chelsea when he spoke badly to some players.
His speech is very slow and you are waiting for something to come out positive. As a player you can be lifted by the way the manager speaks. Harry was brilliant at that. He was bubbly all the time and, even if he was down inside, he always made it seem positive.” [link]
What a complete and utter load of garbage.
Under Roberts’ checklist criteria, most of the greatest managers football has ever known wouldn’t have made the grade Paisley, Ferguson, Clough, Hitzfield, Herrera, Mourinho, Revie, Beckenbauer, Munoz, Stein…
Roberts is either a Redknapp lacky or not very bright. ‘Bubbly?’ The men listed above were legendary football men. Not teenage hairdressers mincing around asking people, ‘you going anywhere nice on holidays this year?’ If footballers want to be spoken to nicely, I suggest they might prefer afternoon tea at their grans over playing for a manager that’s any good.
Elsewhere the venerable Top Spurs is running a piece that starts off with the line, ‘The first thing I would like to make to clear before this rant begins is that I think there are plenty of worse owners of football clubs than Joe Lewis and Daniel Levy’s ENIC’ [link] and then proceeds to give us over 1300 words arguing the opposite. Arguing that all THFC’s owners worry about is balancing the books and …it’s costing us as a football team.
1300 words from some clown trying to pass off the fantasies that we forced Van der Vaart out the door to save or make a few quid and that the whole Moutinho thing was a smokescreen.
Three games in and we’ve got a burn out and and bloke who’s writing at length about information he’s not been privy to. I could weep.
Seems to be a fair amount of tension involved on this blog lately.
What a difference a win would make on Sunday.
A current theme is no one can predict whats gonna happen wih this AVB run team this season.
But I can predict this. If we draw or lose against Reading. Mondays blog will finish with the line.
Just four games.Four.
I have been very impressed lately with the quality of the spurs website and that they continuously keep it updated and current.
I was interested as well because my 19yr old son has just completed 1 for me,so just to be nosey I checked out the L’arse,cheatski ,mancs and the poo and I have to say that SPURS and my site despite their wonga leave them behind. they have no class/Well done Tottenham and well done my son. chuffed
What pisses me off the most is how impatient any number of fans are for instant results.
For now, in terms of our personnel, we know who is in, we know who is out. We have a new manager, who has his own methods.
Yes, I didn’t care for Redknapp (yawn). But harking back to, and making comparisons to him and AVB is silly. He’s gone. Deal with it.
Modric is gone. We didn’t buy a Modric clone (if there ever is such a thing). We sold VDV. Wow. The most substituted player in the Prem last year. Perhaps we should be congratulated on making a profit on a talented but brittle player. A player whose Hamburg move absolutely suited him for family reasons. But people make out we dragged him kicking and screaming from the club, and ripped out this magical creative force. Who couldn’t stay on the field long enough. He was a luxury. And he almost certainly wouldn’t be suited to AVB’s plans.
We’re still Tottenham. We have a number of new players. Rebuilding may take time. There’s this nonsensical argument that Levy’s just out for profit and we’ve banked a lot of money recently.
http://www.transferleague.co.uk/premiership-transfers/tottenham-hotspur-transfers.html
Yes, and we spent a lot of money in the 10 years preceding this, too.
So we might finish 7th this year. I can accept if my team doesn’t get instant results. But the X-Factor generation that consider Redknapp some kind of “geezer celebrity”, and our most successful manager? They cite league finishing positions achieved with players we don’t have anymore (i.e. a different team) and think we should be simply picking up where we left off last year, as “The 4th best team in the league”.
This conveniently forgets we weren’t very good in the latter third of the season, again (certainly not 4th best in that period, far from it in fact).
It’s not as if under Harry we were totally amazing all the time. For the plaudits we got for our CL campaign in 2010, we were getting our asses handed to us at times. And in the league last season. People’s memories are very selective.
And yet they haven’t got the patience to get behind our team and our new manager! Some are even seemingly desperate to be proved right that he’ll be shit – and will validate a few results to prove it. Even though building a team under a different system will perhaps not achieve instant wins. Even though last week, for example, Dempsey wasn’t available, and Adebayor wasn’t 100% fit – but they wish to criticise AVB for playing Defoe as the lone striker.
The football hasn’t been great, I’m not in denial. But given the way we conducted our transfer business (signing/not signing players late in the window, for whatever reason) I think it’s a little poor to be banging the drum and slating the manager. After three games. Give the players time to gel and get on the same page. Our upcoming game will be the first time AVB’s had the squad he’s been left to work with. And we’ve already been tagged a couple of injuries with Kaboul and Parker, and Gomes – maybe we should forgive the “four goalkeepers” thing?
Don’t misunderstand me. I want us to have success too. But I’ve been waiting all my life for us to win the league. I applaud the new training centre, and we can hopefully derive significant benefits in time. And I can wait a little bit longer if I have to.
Thing is, Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Some are even seemingly desperate to be proved right that he’ll be shit – and will validate a few results to prove it.
Horrid, that.
“Some are even seemingly desperate to be proved right that he’ll be shit – and will seize on a few results and use them to validate this argument.”
A bit better.
Interesting read, sums up the situation nicely :daumen:
Coupla gripes here, surprising huh?
First, you complain about the futility of comparing AVB and Redknapp and I concur. I’m sick of hearing about Redknapp, either how great he was or how terrible he was and how we weren’t very good in the second half of the season, etc etc etc. But then you go on to compare and critique Redknapp too. Can we all just stop with this?!?
Secondly, it’s interesting that you are willing to give AVB more slack than we are led to believe our chairman is. You say 7th place is acceptable whereas AVB has openly said he has agreed a minimum target of 4th with Levy. I personally find this quite a tall ask too. Although I think that with our relative resources which place us comfortably as the 6th richest club in the league, coupled with the fact that the 5th richest in Liverpool seem to be in greater ‘transition’ than we are, 5th should really be achievable for any half-decent football coach, even if 4th may be a bigger challenge. I can’t really see how any of us should accept a finish lower than 5th. People talk of a ‘major rebuilding program’ but I don’t really see that one should be necessary. We are on the back of a 4th/5th/4th run. Why should we be tumbling down the league now? If AVB is any good at all he should be able to keep us on this path at least.
I also agree that there have been mitigating factors such as our uncertain / late transfer business affecting AVB’s selections and the balance of the team. For that, I personally feel critical of Levy, as I think that more than most seasons, it was important that AVB got off to a good start for precisely the reasons that are coming to pass now – the unconvinced supporters / the negative media spin etc. Although, many people here won’t countenance any criticism of Levy at all which I find just plain stupid. No man is infallible and we should know by now that Mr. Levy, whilst certainly not without his strengths, certainly has a couple of flaws to go with them.
Lastly, yes, he needs more time and everyone has to be a little more patient. Everyone says this and everyone knows it. It is a little disconcerting for those, like me, who questioned AVBs appointment in the first place. Let’s say the nextdoor neighbour had an incontinent dog, would shit all over their floor all the time, til they actually decide to get rid of it. Then your wife brings home the same pet from the dog’s home. You aren’t happy – I don’t want that dog, it will shit all over the carpet. But your wife is adamant, no, no, that was a blip, the neighbour was feeding it with the wrong stuff, it’s got nothing to do with the dog, who is actually a fantastic animal who can do all manner of tricks and whose bowels are actually in perfect working order. You reluctantly accept the dog into the house, and say, ‘well, Ok, if you say so, but it better not shit on the carpet’. Next thing you know, it starts shitting all over the carpet. You are a little furious. Your wife then says, give him time, he’s just settling in, we aren’t like the neighbours, we have better food here and once he starts to get used to eating proper food and used to our carpet, he won’t shit on it anymore, definitely. This dog really is a rare specimen, and shitting on the carpet is just not something it ultimately does at all, given the right conditions. ‘Well, Ok then, I guess for a few more weeks, but I really don’t want to see any more dogshit…’, but you’d be forgiven for feeling just a tad sceptical…
I’m not sure 5th place with Chelsea can quite be compared to a dog that can’t stop shitting on the carpet… somewhat extreme as an analogy wouldn’t you say?
;)
Ok, but it was 6th place – does that make it more like the shitting dog?
LLL,
Since we’re griping ;-)
To clarify, I am not saying Levy is not faultless. I think sacking Harry was right and just. I also stated on here a preference for Levy to back the manager by making deals early in the window, to allow more time for players to gel, to give us a better chance rather than start the season with a self imposed handicap. Given our CL campaign was worth over £30 million to us, there is a decent argument to be made that maybe paying £24 million for say, Moutinho in early August could have rewarded us in more ways than one. More early season points. A better squad. No last minute fannying about having haggled and save a couple of million in an agreed fee. And compound this by not getting the player before the deadline, almost certainly due to complications with agreeing the player’s contract and/or his third party ownership.
The declaration of a target (4th place) was made prior to the finalisation of the window. I would think it would be fair if, having not secured the players required by the new man to assist in this, these goalposts were to be moved subsequently.
If any team sold key players and ultimately failed to strengthen the squad as desired, it would probably not be fair to expect them to still achieve the same end result.
Lastly, when AVB was sacked Chelsea were in 5th. Since you mentioned 6th. And I can’t say I’m a fan of your shitting dog analogy. :ermm:
I thought they were 5th when he left?
Ladies Ladies! Stop throwing your tea cups around.
The windups are getting boring. Get back to what it’s all about. Spurs against the rest of the world.
Is it me or is this Hugo Lloris business being blown way out of proportion by the same media imbeciles that like seeing Spurs suffer?
It’s not you. It is.
If he comments on it in the way that he has done now, do you seriously expect the media to ignore it / not run it? Seriously? That would seem a rather naive reading of how the media works.
Jeez. ReLLLax. I’m just saying!
I know how the media works thanks.