A View from the Outside

[matthew.absurdum]

 

[THFCSPURS19]

106 winner ratings- is that a record?

 

[dudu]

You didn't really answer the question. You made an attempt at a footballing reason for his sacking but I find it unpersuasive. It's not really a good idea to slice 13 games out of a whole season and make that the basis of an argument for the sack, when we finished our joint top placing in Premier League history again anyway (a record HR had already owned). It's disappointing, to be sure, but sackable? Not at all.

The original post argues well against your point about a managerial talent taking us further. Someone like AVB, perhaps? You're basically saying Harry didn't have the required talent, even though his achievement for us and the style of play that brought it about puts that argument to bed, in my opinion.

It was something of an implosion, and I'd be a little more persuaded by an argument that said HR had trouble closing out a season (becasue it wasn't a once off). But it was only an implosion based on the fantastic achievement of the majority of the season that went before it. Again, you can't just separate your 13 games and discount the other 25 and be considered reasonable.

I haven't been too harsh on Sherwood and would give him next season to prove himself because it's hard to judge a guy on 15 or so games so far after taking on another man's team and impoverished style of play. Sherwood hasn't been any worse than AVB in terms of results or style, and in fact I'd say his style is better because it has led to more goals and more exciting footy.

I was entirely comfortable with HR's link to the England job. It seemed an obvious link to me and he was one of the few men around who you felt would have been greatly honoured by the role and deserving of a crack at it ebcasue he managed a high profile club very well for 3+ seasons. I'd have regretted him leaving for that, but would have understood it. I don't understand our chairman not using his rejection as an opportunity for Spurs.

And the bold text above really sums up why I think this attitude is to the detriment of Spurs. My thoughts on any manager's personality are irrelevant to my enjoyment of Spurs and the club's achievement. He wasn't my manager, he was the manager of the club I follow. That's true for HR, AVB, Sherwood or anyone. You seem to feel a personal slight at the fact that HR would've liked the England job. I find that really odd, and think it's part of the problem if a lot of people, directors more than fans (but still), choose to ignore the great footy and top 4 finishes because they feel as though their man made eyes at someone else!

He wasn't your girlfriend. He was just a good manager for us.

Firstly matey, please don't accuse again of having a detrimental attitude towards spurs. he isn't our manager anymore and frankly i can say what i like about him now without it being a detrimental opinion. If any manager at our club would rather be somewhere else doing something else then i don't really see what difference it makes if i say that i would rather they go and pine for another job somewhere else.

I backed Harry when he was with us, I back AVB until the Liverpool game and i have stood up for Sherwood unless he makes it impossible for me to. Go read my Blogs on e-spurs (articles by david levy) - they are always erring on the positives and asking people to taper their expectations to the realities in front of us. And always behind the man in charge as much as i can be.

Just because my opinion differs to yours it doesn't make it not objective. It just means we look at things from a different perspective. He isn't our manager anymore and is not connected to the club so i can look it certain aspects more objectively now.

I thought our team, at the time as a collective including management was a little bit special. Harry had the creme de la creme of spurs teams to manage that season and yes, we were a joy to watch, the darlings of british football, the most exciting team to behold. But lets go even further back than the 13 last games in charge shall we, half that season. 19 whole games.

29 points from a possible 57. We only beat 3 teams i think from the top half of the table and only won 7 of those 19 games. Did that inspire you for the next season? It didn't for me. Our team did not play well for the second half of that season bar two or three games.

Of course something can only implode if it exists already. The reality of that situation is that he should have done better. My expectations at the time were based on what i knew to be possible. No europa, FA cup semi final and 10 points clear of 10th place. He had everything in place to push us further but he failed.40 points from the first half of the season, 29 from the second.

I was hugely thankful for him stabilising our club the way he did and i am so so very grateful for some of what we got to witness during his time in charge. A lot of things fell into place for us and he did a good job overall.

But to say he didn't fuck up the second half of that season is not true. His media machine was in full swing for a good while promoting him as the future England coach and i respect he wanted the job but he thought he had it, by his own admission. It was something he was getting texts from players about and everyone in the biz thought he was a shoe in. That is a distraction and I'm sure Harry was lapping it up.

He even said this

"So when Tottenham played Swansea on April 1, 2012 I pulled Brendan after the game and said that if all the speculation about me and England was true would he consider coming to the European Championships in the summer as my part-time coach?

"I told him I wanted England to play with as much technical ambition as Swansea. He was up for it.

"Some Tottenham fans might think I was distracted from my club job, but I can assure you the conversation took five minutes. And we beat Swansea 3-1 that day, by the way.

"It didn't work out. On April 1, I was contemplating the way forward for England with Brendan Rodgers - and on April 29 the FA offered the job to Roy Hodgson.

"I'll admit, I thought it was mine. Everyone seemed so certain, everyone I had met from all parts of the game seemed utterly convinced it was my job."

So he tells us he is not distracted but he has spent time that he should be concentrating on us thinking about who his number 2 should be for England (not the talking to Brenden but clearly already making plans for it - who knows what else he was planning for) before he had even got it.

Before he had even got it.

He was making plans, distracted, before he even got it. Taking to others in the game about it, filling his time up when we had a chance to finish higher than we ever had before and he should have been talking to everyone about that and letting the FA make up its mind without talking about it every 5 seconds. And he wasn't winning games so i think it would be quite logical to suggest that perhaps, there was something going on there - even mild distraction.

Clearly he had the team to go out and get another 35-40 points front he games in the second half of that season but due to a culmination of things we didn't do it and i personally think he did not have the ability nor the drive and determination to get us where we wanted to be.

I didn't cheer when he left, i look at it objectively and could understand that he had taken us a notch further than Jol could - we were set for some new players, had a new state of the art training ground in place and were looking for a different kind of manager to take us to the level where we wanted to go. AVB was a risk i hoped and i am positive the higher ups hoped it would work out but it didn't and Sherwood is clearly just a stop gap till the summer. Hopefully we will be looking at managers who have shown loyalty and that they can close out seasons and know what its like to win things.

Perhaps HR could have been that guy, perhaps not. Based on what i had seen it could really have gone either way but all i was seeing was evidence that he wasn't able to do it when he had the chance to.

 

[Shanks]

Good posts by the United fan.

The thing that stands out, from all of that, is our impeccable timing tied in with zero amount of luck

How unlucky can we actually be :-D

 

[Shanks]

And, it's like Neil Ashton from the Daily Mirror has picked up this thread and turned it into a news paper article....

I mean come on, so obviously trawling through forum posts to re-hash an article is a bit cheap for a supposed journalist.

Decent gig if you can get it eh!

 

[StartingPrice]

He's pretty much spot on, isn't he.
Apart from a couple of minor quibbles:

1) In Redknapp's final season I do believe he could have taken us further. As DuDu explains, above, he got seriously distracted and our form suffered badly. There was ITK (maybe JJ, maybe not) that his distraction caused dressing room unrest (he lost the dressing room, I think, was the claim). Once Hodgson was appointed our results miraculously began to pick up again. A fully focused Redknapp, or a fully focused other of equal or higher (they do exist, y'know) ability could have made a much better fist of the second half of that season. And that definitively would have taken us further.

2) I don't know whether it is lack of knowledge, oversight or just beyond the scope of his posts, but I think he has underestimated the extent to which Levy has poured his ambition into our youth set-up. The restructuring of the youth set-up, the training facilities and the identification and acquisition of some top young talent have taken up a fair amount of time, effort and money - and from a Daniel Levy perspective the latter is certainly the big thang. He ain't the type o' fella to just waste money like that without some expectation of getting major pay-back from it. Indeed, the most logical way for us to show ambition, and for that ambition to be fulfilled at all when competing with oil-mafioso clubs, is by creating a production line of young talent, much like Dortmund, ironically much like Barcelona. It is far from easy to be a serious player without matching the spending of Citeh and the Chavs, but it is possible. Especially with a new stadium [sic.] and regular CL money, and with any proper application of FFP.

 

[easley91]

And, it's like Neil Ashton from the Daily Mirror has picked up this thread and turned it into a news paper article....

I mean come on, so obviously trawling through forum posts to re-hash an article is a bit cheap for a supposed journalist.

Decent gig if you can get it eh!

And here I studied my ass off for a qualification and these guys are taking the piss of the job.

 

[Locotoro]

Firstly matey, please don't accuse again of having a detrimental attitude towards spurs. he isn't our manager anymore and frankly i can say what i like about him now without it being a detrimental opinion. If any manager at our club would rather be somewhere else doing something else then i don't really see what difference it makes if i say that i would rather they go and pine for another job somewhere else.

I backed Harry when he was with us, I back AVB until the Liverpool game and i have stood up for Sherwood unless he makes it impossible for me to. Go read my Blogs on e-spurs (articles by david levy) - they are always erring on the positives and asking people to taper their expectations to the realities in front of us. And always behind the man in charge as much as i can be.

Just because my opinion differs to yours it doesn't make it not objective. It just means we look at things from a different perspective. He isn't our manager anymore and is not connected to the club so i can look it certain aspects more objectively now.

I thought our team, at the time as a collective including management was a little bit special. Harry had the creme de la creme of spurs teams to manage that season and yes, we were a joy to watch, the darlings of british football, the most exciting team to behold. But lets go even further back than the 13 last games in charge shall we, half that season. 19 whole games.

29 points from a possible 57. We only beat 3 teams i think from the top half of the table and only won 7 of those 19 games. Did that inspire you for the next season? It didn't for me. Our team did not play well for the second half of that season bar two or three games.

Of course something can only implode if it exists already. The reality of that situation is that he should have done better. My expectations at the time were based on what i knew to be possible. No europa, FA cup semi final and 10 points clear of 10th place. He had everything in place to push us further but he failed.40 points from the first half of the season, 29 from the second.

I was hugely thankful for him stabilising our club the way he did and i am so so very grateful for some of what we got to witness during his time in charge. A lot of things fell into place for us and he did a good job overall.

But to say he didn't fuck up the second half of that season is not true. His media machine was in full swing for a good while promoting him as the future England coach and i respect he wanted the job but he thought he had it, by his own admission. It was something he was getting texts from players about and everyone in the biz thought he was a shoe in. That is a distraction and I'm sure Harry was lapping it up.

He even said this

"So when Tottenham played Swansea on April 1, 2012 I pulled Brendan after the game and said that if all the speculation about me and England was true would he consider coming to the European Championships in the summer as my part-time coach?

"I told him I wanted England to play with as much technical ambition as Swansea. He was up for it.

"Some Tottenham fans might think I was distracted from my club job, but I can assure you the conversation took five minutes. And we beat Swansea 3-1 that day, by the way.

"It didn't work out. On April 1, I was contemplating the way forward for England with Brendan Rodgers - and on April 29 the FA offered the job to Roy Hodgson.

"I'll admit, I thought it was mine. Everyone seemed so certain, everyone I had met from all parts of the game seemed utterly convinced it was my job."

So he tells us he is not distracted but he has spent time that he should be concentrating on us thinking about who his number 2 should be for England (not the talking to Brenden but clearly already making plans for it - who knows what else he was planning for) before he had even got it.

Before he had even got it.

He was making plans, distracted, before he even got it. Taking to others in the game about it, filling his time up when we had a chance to finish higher than we ever had before and he should have been talking to everyone about that and letting the FA make up its mind without talking about it every 5 seconds. And he wasn't winning games so i think it would be quite logical to suggest that perhaps, there was something going on there - even mild distraction.

Clearly he had the team to go out and get another 35-40 points front he games in the second half of that season but due to a culmination of things we didn't do it and i personally think he did not have the ability nor the drive and determination to get us where we wanted to be.

I didn't cheer when he left, i look at it objectively and could understand that he had taken us a notch further than Jol could - we were set for some new players, had a new state of the art training ground in place and were looking for a different kind of manager to take us to the level where we wanted to go. AVB was a risk i hoped and i am positive the higher ups hoped it would work out but it didn't and Sherwood is clearly just a stop gap till the summer. Hopefully we will be looking at managers who have shown loyalty and that they can close out seasons and know what its like to win things.

Perhaps HR could have been that guy, perhaps not. Based on what i had seen it could really have gone either way but all i was seeing was evidence that he wasn't able to do it when he had the chance to.

Shameless plug

 

[Locotoro]

I posted this in another thread but I think it is more relevant here:

(In response to a poster suggesting he would be happy for Sherwood to go back into an advisory when/if a new manager comes in)

I'm not sure I would be happy with this situation.

I have nothing against Sherwood and I am sure eventually he will make a very competent manager, however he has shown himself to be far too vocal and emotional to occupy any advisory role where he has the ear of the chairman.

He has had the role of Technical Coordinator for the last few years and has, according to ITK, had the ear of the chairman much to the detriment of one DOF and 2 Managers.

If we bring in LVG the last thing Spurs needs is someone equally as vocal in the background trying to impose their views on the team, transfers and the general direction of the club.

The problem we have had over the last decade is not that we have a crap DOF or bad managers or terrible transfers. The single most important factor for our failure to progress further is that lack of a single dominant voice/direction at the club.

The most successful DOFs are the ones we hardly hear about, they stay in the background and get the job done quietly and effectively. Let me ask - who is the Ajax DOF off the top of your head? You can't name him even though he is responsible for the scouting of almost every youth product that comes through their very successful system. The DOF should not be concerned about taking the credit for purchases in the way Comolli has tried.

The Chairman, as bright and intelligent as he is needs to keep a back seat, a very back seat. He is experienced in business and money - not footballing matters. He is the footballing equivalent of a Project Manager - surround yourself with people who know how to get the job done and then let them get on with it. Check in from time to time but its not his job to micro manage!

The single voice in my opinion should be that of the manager. He should be given full reign to impose his philosophy on the team and he should be supported in every matter possible as it is he who will determine the future success of the club. Even an average manager will be relatively successful when he is backed to the hilt by the club because the players will know that they have to listen or they will be out. Instead we have a situation whereby AVB rightly/wrongly pushed Ade out for their indiscretion and apparently Levy is trying to get him to go back on his decision. Now, I'm not arguing the merits of the avb v ade scenario but how does it look to a squad when a manager is forced to step down from his stance on a player - it completely undermines him. AVB was obviously fired for other reasons but this issue for me should not have involved Levy.

So if we now bring in such a vocal and opinionated (but also highly decorated and experienced) manager as LVG, Sherwood's voice would only be another added to the melting pot and in my opinion would detract from the "Single Captain of the ship" approach we should be adopting under LVG. Essentially Levy and Baldini need to employ LVG and then give him everything he needs to work with and back him when things don't go so great and not waste time getting rid of the players that step out of line - because there will be some that don't accept LVG "total team" mentality.

When that happens we will have a team worthy of our support