Christian Gross Retrospective

[SpurSince57]

A thoughtful article reappraising Ernst Stavro Blofeld's career at the Lane.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/11/20/on_second_thoughts_christian_g.html

 

[Northernspurs]

Fantastic read - I actually feel sorry for him now

 

[yanno]

It is interesting. At least this time the British government can't sabotage our new coach by refusing a work permit to Ramos' "fitness guru", Senor Alvarez.

Gross' attempts to get us fitter and playing a higher tempo do have an eerie resonance with current events. Hopefully, this time round, there won't be the same degree of machiavellian boardroom politics and senior player disgruntlement described in the Gross piece.

 

[teddyboy]

Love the bit about Ginola and Necastle fans, just goes to show how uninspiring Kevin Keegan was/is….lol

Gross mostly deployed Ginola in an advanced free role akin to the one in which he'd previously thrived at Paris St Germain. This pivotal position permitted Ginola's creativity to flourish and also pulled off the elusive trick of pandering to the Frenchman's ego while benefiting the collective. While contributing the magic and goals that would make him the team's most dangerous performer (and top scorer), Ginola also cranked up his work rate, backtracking and tackling to such an extent that he became unrecognisable to Newcastle fans.

Ginola is f*cking legend :bow:

 

[Defsta]

Good reading :up:

 

[easiman]

Excellent read - I had forgotten that episode.

 

[The Apprentice]

Fair's fair. He was a bit of a plank.

 

[michaelden]

Gross was hard done by, by all

 

[General Levy]

"he only lost 12 games out of 30"

 

[ChRiStOpHe]

I was pretty young at the time, and as such didn't see the full picture, but I did however think that Gross did a decent job, and now I'm a bit older, I'd say I wasn't far wrong.

 

[General Levy]

I was pretty young at the time, and as such didn't see the full picture, but I did however think that Gross did a decent job, and now I'm a bit older, I'd say I wasn't far wrong.

Good comment:

Wikipedia/Soccerbase say:
Ossie Ardiles
Played 65 20-17-28
Gerry Francis
Played 142 55-42-45
Christian Gross
Played 30 10-8-12
George Graham
Played 126 50-35-41
Glenn Hoddle
Pld 104 41-18-45
Just another average manager in a decade of averageness. Maybe the problems were at a higher level? Gross certainly doesn't stand out as poor.

 

[Geez]

TopSpurs rank him 19th out of 26

And we conceded more goals than we scored :roll:

 

[sloth]

TopSpurs rank him 19th out of 26

And we conceded more goals than we scored :roll:

He took over side in dire straits and lasted less than 12 months, so his ppg ratio is unsurprisingly low.

Over all, since the Premier League began, we've conceded more than we've scored.

 

[N10toN17]

Interesting read, I didn't think he got a fair crack at the job, but I've been saying that for most of our managers.

Geez your topspurs table makes interesting reading, especially noting in our glory era so few changes of management from Rowe through to Burkinshaw, lessons need to be learned, especially amongst our support, but in football you get what you deserve and we've deserved mediocrity for our collective crapness for so long.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Fantastic article. I can remember thinking how fucking ludicrous it was that his fitness trainer wasn't given a work permit.

I thought he was treated appaulingly. A shit tottenham side and a manager that spoke a little like the germans off "Allo Allo " was always going to be a media match made in heaven. He wasn't just recommended by Klinsman, if I remember rightly he was also recommended by Hitzfield (who spurs had originally offered the job to - or at least consulted I think). He has subsequently proved what a good coach he is.

Good luck to him.

 

[Spursking]

I think Gross was a good manager, but at that time we did not have a very good squad to choose from. At that time we did so many errors in the transfer market, and we did not build a team. Now that we have Comolli, everything is planned, and we have bought mostly players with a sell on value.

Not every player that we have in the squad now will stay with us until the end of their careers, but many of them will have a long future at THFC. The players that will not stay on, do have a sell on value, and we will not loose as much as we did in the previous years.

Players like Ferdinand, Sherwood, Leonhardsen, Rebrov, Richards, Ziege, Thatcher, Perry, etc....were all players with a non-sell on value, and caused us huge losses. All players was also signed for a clear overprice. We did not have a stucture at all, at that time. Now we have that when Arnesen/Comolli took charge of transfers.

 

[claw_diddy]

His tenure ended so quickly, it has been easy to forget.

 

[SpurSince57]

The media were into him from the off, straight from the 'bus ticket' at his press conference, which was a well-meaning but misguided gesture. I can't recall any club manager coming under that kind of attack. They took great delight in Schmid's failure to get a work permit, as if to say, 'We don't need any of that fancy foreign rubbish here'. Given the shambles he inherited, he did pretty well to save us from relegation, which was about as good a result as we could reasonably have expected, yet not good enough for some, apparently. Sugar failed to support him and panicked, and we got Graham.

Watching Basel play Boro a couple of seasons ago, I was pretty impressed. Given time, backing and money for some decent signings to replace some of the bums Francis brought in, he might have got Spurs playing that brand of football after a couple of seasons. Would we have been disappointed? Of all the managers we've had in the past twenty years, he's the great might-have-been.

Mind, he does look for all the world as if he should be stroking a big fluffy Persian cat and saying, 'Goodbye, Mr Bond.'

 

[Bobbins]

Was always gutted about Saib, the guy showed so much class in such a short space of time, and was then shown the door.

 

[mkkid]

Personally i think you lot are mad,i can remember winning at Blackburn and it was like wining the fa cup.The 3-3 with liverpool Owen scoring near the end was heart breaking as i thought we were going down!
He was good at home awful away.