I quite like the site - they're anti-everyone which is kind of amusing. Agreed with a lot of the article below. Especially the last line.
http://www.football365.com/story/0,17033,8750_3573220,00.html
Spurs
What went wrong
The board embraced a sporting director/manager structure without finding a) the right sporting director, or b) the man they thought was the right manager. Not once but again and again.
Transfer policy was led by investment, rather than footballing, requirements: £16.5m was spent on Darren Bent, not to field him regularly but because as a young English player he fit a profile. In pre-season I did not believe they could have poured out that much cash for a player they weren't prepared to back wholeheartedly. I was wrong. No club has a better/worse record of slashing the value of their big-money signings.
They decided on the identity of the right manager, but not at a point when there was a vacancy, leading to a position where Martin Jol was systematically undermined by the pursuit of Juande Ramos.
Jol's team won just one of their first 10 league games - and that was at home to Derby.
Ramos's team fared 100 per cent better in the last 10 league games - they won two matches.
Five was a key number. In goals scored, Spurs came fifth, the position they had in the conventional Premier League table in 2006 and 2007. But they also came fifth in goals conceded, for a goal difference of plus five. Somehow, that managed to be an improvement on the plus three of last season, but this brought 14 fewer points.
Seventeen points were lost when Spurs were winning at half-time, the worst record in the division.
What went right
Ramos did, at last, leave Sevilla.
December featured four wins in six league games and a victory at Manchester City in the Carling Cup quarter-finals, the first home defeat for the Eastlands club.
The latter stages of the Carling Cup were a Tottenham dream, even if the subsequent patchy league form - such as the 4-1 defeat to Birmingham that immediately followed - were a reminder that victory in the least of the major trophies is not a cure-all.
Although the campaign ended in a defeat on penalties to PSV, Spurs racked up some more European points via the UEFA Cup, giving them a decent start should they ever work out how to crack the top four.
Reasons to be cheerful
Ramos's record at Sevilla was outstanding. Now he has the chance to shape the team across the summer, rather than dealing with someone else's players.
The manager is the sporting director's choice: the pair should work much better together.
And, as always, there are some promising talents on Spurs' books.
Doom and gloom
White Hart Lane has seen too many false dawns.
Dimitar Berbatov's agent seems determined to make the headlines.
And the moral is
You get what you pay for in football - unless you're Spurs, in which case you get rather less.
http://www.football365.com/story/0,17033,8750_3573220,00.html
Spurs
What went wrong
The board embraced a sporting director/manager structure without finding a) the right sporting director, or b) the man they thought was the right manager. Not once but again and again.
Transfer policy was led by investment, rather than footballing, requirements: £16.5m was spent on Darren Bent, not to field him regularly but because as a young English player he fit a profile. In pre-season I did not believe they could have poured out that much cash for a player they weren't prepared to back wholeheartedly. I was wrong. No club has a better/worse record of slashing the value of their big-money signings.
They decided on the identity of the right manager, but not at a point when there was a vacancy, leading to a position where Martin Jol was systematically undermined by the pursuit of Juande Ramos.
Jol's team won just one of their first 10 league games - and that was at home to Derby.
Ramos's team fared 100 per cent better in the last 10 league games - they won two matches.
Five was a key number. In goals scored, Spurs came fifth, the position they had in the conventional Premier League table in 2006 and 2007. But they also came fifth in goals conceded, for a goal difference of plus five. Somehow, that managed to be an improvement on the plus three of last season, but this brought 14 fewer points.
Seventeen points were lost when Spurs were winning at half-time, the worst record in the division.
What went right
Ramos did, at last, leave Sevilla.
December featured four wins in six league games and a victory at Manchester City in the Carling Cup quarter-finals, the first home defeat for the Eastlands club.
The latter stages of the Carling Cup were a Tottenham dream, even if the subsequent patchy league form - such as the 4-1 defeat to Birmingham that immediately followed - were a reminder that victory in the least of the major trophies is not a cure-all.
Although the campaign ended in a defeat on penalties to PSV, Spurs racked up some more European points via the UEFA Cup, giving them a decent start should they ever work out how to crack the top four.
Reasons to be cheerful
Ramos's record at Sevilla was outstanding. Now he has the chance to shape the team across the summer, rather than dealing with someone else's players.
The manager is the sporting director's choice: the pair should work much better together.
And, as always, there are some promising talents on Spurs' books.
Doom and gloom
White Hart Lane has seen too many false dawns.
Dimitar Berbatov's agent seems determined to make the headlines.
And the moral is
You get what you pay for in football - unless you're Spurs, in which case you get rather less.
