"2 points from 8 games" - SO WHAT!!!!!

[Montasura]

Honestly, I've been growing so tired of hearing this over the last number of weeks/months - first in support of Harry and now in the vast array of articles about his sacking.

But rather than being a typical thread of rant, what I wanted to do was prompt some discussion on that particula time 4 years ago.

My personal opinion is that whoever was brought in to replace Ramos would most likely have had the same effect. I don't believe it was anything particularly to do with Harry himself, although I acknowledge that one of his stronger points is his famed man management skills, the arm around the shoulder technique. But its not like we had a crap squad, in fact we had the makings of a fairly decent squad, some of who are still there. What Ramos did wrong has been well documented and discussed and IMO the players had got caught in the ever increasing spotlight and were losing whatever fragile confidence they had left. So what we needed was a change of manager. I'm not for one second disputing what we achieved under Harry over the four years, but solely focussing on his initial few months I honestly believe that whoever could have taken over would probably have had the same outcome.

Thoughts??

 

[Col_M]

what is this "Points form 8 Games" thing? Never heard of it.

 

[Azazello]

Honestly, I've been growing so tired of hearing this over the last number of weeks/months - first in support of Harry and now in the vast array of articles about his sacking.

But rather than being a typical thread of rant, what I wanted to do was prompt some discussion on that particula time 4 years ago.

My personal opinion is that whoever was brought in to replace Ramos would most likely have had the same effect. I don't believe it was anything particularly to do with Harry himself, although I acknowledge that one of his stronger points is his famed man management skills, the arm around the shoulder technique. But its not like we had a crap squad, in fact we had the makings of a fairly decent squad, some of who are still there. What Ramos did wrong has been well documented and discussed and IMO the players had got caught in the ever increasing spotlight and were losing whatever fragile confidence they had left. So what we needed was a change of manager. I'm not for one second disputing what we achieved under Harry over the four years, but solely focussing on his initial few months I honestly believe that whoever could have taken over would probably have had the same outcome.

Thoughts??

Regradless of what might have beens, Harry took over when he did and did what he did. Get over it.

 

[Stoof]

I think at the time it wasn't obvious that we weren't going to go down.

I'm not sure I could speculate as to what another manager may have achieved/not achieved. We needed a boost from someone capable of being a hands-on man manager. New words don't necessarily mean good things.

In fact, there's a thing from the Fink Tank - if you read The Times - that shows that new manager's rarely have this massive immediate impact. It tends to average out over a season. An initial spike will always be balanced by a slump. The same for an initial slump being countered by an improvement.

Last year, look at Mark Hughes as a prime example. Even Di Matteo took a while.

 

[Montasura]

Regradless of what might have beens, Harry took over when he did and did what he did. Get over it.

In fairness, I'm not exactly angry or anything and could have worded the title better

I just feel that, regardless of whether Harry should or shouldn't have been axed, I think this will be one of the key foundations for every article about the whole affair, especially if Harry is involved with the article, and I think it is unfair to judge the club or Levy on the basis that Harry saved us from that situation.

 

[rez9000]

Sorry, Monty, but it does matter. Credit where credit is due.

The reason why credit is due mirrors the irrelevant argument raised when people were debating whether we should retire the No. 26 shirt should Ledley retire.

In the same way that we cannot judge people based on what they may have done but must judge them on what they did do, we cannot deny credit for someone achieving something.

You say that anyone would have succeeded in saving us from relegation. Technically that isn't true. It wasn't impossible for someone to fail, just unlikely. The only situation where credit isn't due is if there is no challenge, nothing to overcome. And if there is a possibility of failure, someone who doesn't fail should receive praise for the job he did.

Again, unlikely is not the same as impossible. It wasn't impossible for Ramos' replacement to fail to save us, it was just unlikely. Therefore, because Redknapp did not fail, he deserves some credit.

An apposite example is this: Neil Armstrong and Jim Lovell. Jim Lovell was in charge of Apollo 13. He was slated to land on the Moon. He didn't. Neil Armstrong did in Apollo 11. Do we deny credit to Neil Armstrong for landing on the Moon because Jim Lovell could have done the same under different circumstances?

 

[Montasura]

Sorry, Monty, but it does matter. Credit where credit is due.

The reason why credit is due mirrors the irrelevant argument raised when people were debating whether we should retire the No. 26 shirt should Ledley retire.

In the same way that we cannot judge people based on what they may have done but must judge them on what they did do, we cannot deny credit for someone achieving something.

You say that anyone would have succeeded in saving us from relegation. Technically that isn't true. It wasn't impossible for someone to fail, just unlikely. The only situation where credit isn't due is if there is no challenge, nothing to overcome. And if there is a possibility of failure, someone who doesn't fail should receive praise for the job he did.

Again, unlikely is not the same as impossible. It wasn't impossible for Ramos' replacement to fail to save us, it was just unlikely. Therefore, because Redknapp did not fail, he deserves some credit.

An apposite example is this: Neil Armstrong and Jim Lovell. Jim Lovell was in charge of Apollo 13. He was slated to land on the Moon. He didn't. Neil Armstrong did in Apollo 11. Do we deny credit to Neil Armstrong for landing on the Moon because Jim Lovell could have done the same under different circumstances?

Ugh, Its so frustrating when someone replies to a post of mine with a load of.......well written very valid points!

Like I said in my following post, I guess I'm frustrated at the knowledge that every article about Spurs, Harry, Levy, et al for the next good few weeks is going to have this precursor of "Spurs were bottom of the league with 2 points when Harry arrived". If his replacement fails miserably then it will be used as a rod against us even further.

Besides, even from Harry's point of view, I think he deserves to be judged on a whole lot more than where he took us from as nobody can deny how successful he was regardless of their personal opinion of him.

And credit for a fair and valid reply rez, time for a coffee methinks

 

[Azazello]

It's a memorable quote, good or bad! Harry's time at Spurs will be history in week or two, so unless he calls his biography '2 points from 8 games', you won't be hearing it too much from now on.

I think it would be mostly fair to characterise the club as approaching something of a crisis when H took over though. We were bottom of the league. Levy had humiliated a popular and decent manager, and got his successor badly wrong. Harry helped Levy out of the hole that Levy had dug for himself, though Levy deserves credit for acting promptly re Ramos.

 

[nidge]

An apposite example is this: Neil Armstrong and Jim Lovell. Jim Lovell was in charge of Apollo 13. He was slated to land on the Moon. He didn't. Neil Armstrong did in Apollo 11. Do we deny credit to Neil Armstrong for landing on the Moon because Jim Lovell could have done the same under different circumstances?

But they didn't 'land' on the moon it was a warehouse in Area 52.

 

[rez9000]

Ugh, Its so frustrating when someone replies to a post of mine with a load of.......well written very valid points!

Like I said in my following post, I guess I'm frustrated at the knowledge that every article about Spurs, Harry, Levy, et al for the next good few weeks is going to have this precursor of "Spurs were bottom of the league with 2 points when Harry arrived". If his replacement fails miserably then it will be used as a rod against us even further.

Besides, even from Harry's point of view, I think he deserves to be judged on a whole lot more than where he took us from as nobody can deny how successful he was regardless of their personal opinion of him.

And credit for a fair and valid reply rez, time for a coffee methinks

You see, I didn't see your follow-up because I was busy churning out an essay in response to your first.

But I agree on the media types constantly going on about the 'two points' stuff. It actually pisses me off because it's very lazy. There's a lack of analysis, a lack of insight into Redknapp's whole tenure and definitely little to no writing from the fan's perspective.

 

[EastLondonYid]

This is all pointless, Harry has gone and lets move on, but lets keep it real, Harry has left the club in a much healthier position than when he arrived, lets give him a little more credit for what he achieved and show abit of class as fans.

 

[rez9000]

This is all pointless, Harry has gone and lets move on, but lets keep it real, Harry has left the club in a much healthier position than when he arrived, lets give him a little more credit for what he achieved and show abit of class as fans.

I don't think it's pointless, ELY. The reporting of Redknapp's departure is still going on. There will always be a period of analysis following an event of this nature. That period will be longer for some than it is for others. If you're over it already, then that's your good fortune.

Personally speaking, my 'mourning' period will end when the new manager is appointed. Until then I will be considering Redknapp's time at Spurs and thinking about the ups and downs, highs and lows (pretty much the same thing as ups and downs).

A little empathy is due, I feel.

 

[Spurs_Bear]

Honestly, I've been growing so tired of hearing this over the last number of weeks/months - first in support of Harry and now in the vast array of articles about his sacking.

But rather than being a typical thread of rant, what I wanted to do was prompt some discussion on that particula time 4 years ago.

My personal opinion is that whoever was brought in to replace Ramos would most likely have had the same effect. I don't believe it was anything particularly to do with Harry himself, although I acknowledge that one of his stronger points is his famed man management skills, the arm around the shoulder technique. But its not like we had a crap squad, in fact we had the makings of a fairly decent squad, some of who are still there. What Ramos did wrong has been well documented and discussed and IMO the players had got caught in the ever increasing spotlight and were losing whatever fragile confidence they had left. So what we needed was a change of manager. I'm not for one second disputing what we achieved under Harry over the four years, but solely focussing on his initial few months I honestly believe that whoever could have taken over would probably have had the same outcome.

Thoughts??

Sorry but I think that's horseshit and as lazy a comment as when the Journo's bring out the "2 points from 8 games" lark. Honestly cant see any logic in it at all. We had Darren Bent and Roman Pavlyuchenko as our strikers with a dogturd in Fraizer Campbell. Our squad was totally unbalanced.

A new manager doesn't always mean a new manager bounce, look at Mark Hughes, thought he was going to go to QPR and sit with his finger in his arse while he signed players willy nilly in January. As it was, they nearly got relegated on the last day.

Harry had numerous faults and the whole "2 points from 8 games" cliche became one of the most detested sayings I think I've ever heard, but your theory that whoever came in could have got us out of it is pure nonsense.

 

[EastLondonYid]

I don't think it's pointless, ELY. The reporting of Redknapp's departure is still going on. There will always be a period of analysis following an event of this nature. That period will be longer for some than it is for others. If you're over it already, then that's your good fortune.

Personally speaking, my 'mourning' period will end when the new manager is appointed. Until then I will be considering Redknapp's time at Spurs and thinking about the ups and downs, highs and lows (pretty much the same thing as ups and downs).

A little empathy is due, I feel.

Maybe you misunderstood what i meant , i haven't got over anything, i mean lets move on from the subject the poster raised, Going on about the merits of Harrys job when we had 2pts from bla bla is a little boring, those who can't appreciate what he did by now never will, lets move on from that load of stuff is what i mean't, not Harrys sacking.

 

[kaz Hirai]

press and media will hate us next season and love it if we should fail, and Jamie Redknapp will be unbearable, good thing i dont pay for that sky sports tripe.

 

[rez9000]

Maybe you misunderstood what i meant , i haven't got over anything, i mean lets move on from the subject the poster raised, Going on about the merits of Harrys job when we had 2pts from bla bla is a little boring, those who can't appreciate what he did by now never will, lets move on from that load of stuff is what i mean't, not Harrys sacking.

I apologise if I misconstrued. That wasn't my intention. But my point (slightly modified) does still apply.

I think it's more about the manner in which the analysis is being done. I don't wish to speak for Montasura, but I think the point is not what Redknapp achieved or didn't (which was my point of debate at the start), but rather that only one aspect of it is constantly being covered over and over again with very little in the way of deeper insight.

Personally, I think the media is most guilty. As I said, there's no deep analysis and very little that looks beneath the surface of the fan's reactions. For me, that deserves some mention.

 

[rez9000]

press and media will hate us next season and love it if we should fail, and Jamie Redknapp will be unbearable, good thing i dont pay for that sky sports tripe.

Oh dear Ch****, I can only imagine!

 

[talkshowhost86]

It's all about balance. Harry deserves the credit for stopping the slump that ended with us having...wait a minute I've forgotten what it was...was it....ummmmm 2 points from 8 games? Once we'd beaten Hull that season we actually went on a hell of a run and he deserves the credit for that.

However he also deserves the criticism that is due following the not very many points in too many games that happened from about February onwards this year. Sadly balance isn't a word that is understood by the media so we'll just have to put up with their jaundiced view of things.

I think it's very lazy to say he turned a bottom of the table team into a champions league team because it ignores why we were where we were and also ignores some of the fortune that Harry had such as Bale's sudden emergence.

But at the same time it's equally lazy to say 'well he was just doing what was expected...we always had a top four team and that's what he should have been achieving'.

At the end of the day we are a better team now than when Harry joined the club and he has to take at least some of the credit for that.

 

[Mullers]

The 4th place he achieved this season might as well have been 5th because we aren't getting any CL football out of it.

 

[Kendall]

Nobody can sit here and say they saw Redknapp's appointment as a long term thing for Spurs. He's an old manager, with a great knack of getting players working hard.

He was brought in to add some direction to a sinking ship and all in all exceeded his original expectation. That said, expectations change and I cannot forgive us not capitalising on our position two years running.

2010/11 - 3 points from 18 against Wigan, West Ham and Blackpool - Unforgivable.
2011/12 - 10 points clear of 4th, 2-0 up against the Goons to go 13 points clear, finish 4th.

Now, last season if you'd said we'd finish 4th, I'd have bitten your whole arm off. But as I say, expectations change and the last few months were unforgivable. I liken it to going to United and being happy with a draw, then as the game unfolds we go 5-0 up at half time and end up drawing 5-5. You wouldn't be happy then, would you?

All in all, Redknapp was a short term appointment, who bought himself more time by having great success. But ultimately we didn't kick on. Spurs like any business need to plan for the future and Redknapp was not buying into that.

If Redknapp was younger, hadn't flirted with England and hadn't admitted he would've left, he'd probably still be in a job, because aside from some massive failings, I don't think, results wise, he really deserved to be sacked.

But people need to stop looking solely at results and need to look at the business plan on and off the pitch.