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Sherwood says Bale's departure made a top-four finish for Spurs unlikely

mawspurs

Staff
Jun 29, 2003
35,069
17,740
Re: making the champions league his point (i think) was based on his win percentage during his tenure, no matter how speculative that comment was. There's no contradiction if that was the case.

The thing is all of the top four had higher win percentages, and bearing in mind his record against the top four was actually worse than AVB's it is far from certain he would have got CL football for us if he had the whole season.
 

whitesocks

The past means nothing. This is a message for life
Jan 16, 2014
4,652
5,738
"The criticism I gave after the Chelsea game was needed because the capitulation wasn't for the first time. They'd been doing it prior to our management and I felt they needed to be outed and shown they weren't pulling in the correct direction for the football club.

"The only ones who took exception to it are the ones you don't want because they know I'm pointing it at them, even though I never named names.

"It galvanised the ones I wanted and the ones who weren't pulling their weight for the badge, which I can't tolerate, especially at a club like Tottenham, never played. Whether that was due to injuries or I left them out, I went with the players I felt were fighting for the cause all the time, not just when they fancied it.

It is interesting he is still mentioning this. It looked like he'd been in a fight when he appeared in the post match press conference, but it is still not clear who he had it in for. He was really shook up. And he invites us to guess which players he is talking about.

I'd like to think he targeted Vertonghen, as he has not looked up for it all season, and while he might have a point about being played out of position, we know he will play at LB with a big smile on his face for Belgium (edit oops).
But I don't think it possible to have much of a row with him.

Fryers came on for Daws, but I think Daws was injured and for his faults, not trying is certainly not one of them. If Sherwood accused him of that, then that would have led to an intense debate for sure. I would not put it past Sherwood.

Walker played against Benfica, but has otherwise been absent since then, and he certainly was absolutely shocking in the chelsea game. He is always up for a row and played totally out of position would have had some words of wisdom for Sherwood. He is a definite maybe and is stupid enough to risk his ticket to Brazil over a minor matter.

Sandro played in the following games immediately after and is
not that bad as a CB when asked, but his committed style of play can lead to mistakes especially if he is not match fit. He is over committed if anything. Sherwood surely does not mean him.

Of course this might just be a distraction from Sherwood's poor tactics that day - they were not bad ideas (2 rbs and lennon in the AM role), but they did not work and Sherwood should have responded and returned to a more orthodox formation. He was too stubborn to change things and that characteristic will do him no favours in the future.

But I feel something else significant happened that day that ended any chance Sherwood had of continuing past the summer, and it is still gnawing away at him.
 

dannythomas

Well-Known Member
May 17, 2004
3,757
2,813
I must say that this was probably Tim's most sensible interview since he took over . Shame he wasn't a little more logical while he was in the job. I do think he genuinely cares about the club and his willingness to play young talent could have been used best by keeping him as youth team coach or even assistant coach rather than giving him a job for which he wasn't ready.
If an experienced manager had come in and given Tim the responsibility as say assistant coach for 2 or 3 years then maybe he could have stepped up after that. I feel a little sorry for him that he did the job with passion then had to leave the club altogether.
 

guiltyparty

Well-Known Member
Sep 21, 2005
9,023
13,524
Why drag Harry Redknapp into this?....come to that why does just about everyone refuse to give him credit for managing Spurs to one of their more
successful periods of football in their recent history

Oh I do. Total credit. His record speaks for itself. He was not offed for performance on the pitch, but off it.

It doesn't mean that we can't comment on these parts or that it's not a fair comparison. Harry was a master of manipulating the media and Tim has clearly been paying attention. As someone hired by him and who has spent a lot of time working with him, it makes sense
 

davidmatzdorf

Front Page Gadfly
Jun 7, 2004
18,106
45,030
The criticism I gave after the Chelsea game was needed because the capitulation wasn't for the first time. They'd been doing it prior to our management and I felt they needed to be outed and shown they weren't pulling in the correct direction for the football club.

The only ones who took exception to it are the ones you don't want because they know I'm pointing it at them, even though I never named names.

It galvanised the ones I wanted and the ones who weren't pulling their weight for the badge, which I can't tolerate, especially at a club like Tottenham, never played. Whether that was due to injuries or I left them out, I went with the players I felt were fighting for the cause all the time, not just when they fancied it.

An interesting note to this is that Sherwood, based on his subsequent selections, plainly considered that Paulinho was 'fighting for the cause all the time, not just when [he] fancied it' and Dembélé wasn't. Many supporters would have characterised Paulinho as a player who was involved in matches on and off, very effectively when he was so motivated, but drifting away from the action for 20+ minutes at a time.

Perhaps Tim was right: from the moment, he selected Paulinho and Chadli as an eccentric midfield couple, whatever else one might have to say about that tactic, Paulinho was constantly involved in play in every match. And we won most of them.

Perhaps he saw something in training that we were missing on match-days.

Interesting...
 

Smokinhotspur

Well-Known Member
Jun 11, 2012
510
953
Just read Dr Steve Peter's (sports psychiatrist behind success of GB Olympic team, involved with Liverpool this year and big part in helping to keep Ronnie O Sullivan in the right frame of mind to keep playing snooker as only he can) book- the Chimp Paradox where he clearly explains how the mind works. I would recommend it as it would help a lot on here better understand people like TS who run very high on emotion and allow themselves to be driven by the impulsive side of their brain making them highly prone to inconsistent outbursts that make them appear like media manipulators, self serving etc. TS clearly wasn't the right manager for us but his heart is in the right place, he genuinely cared for our football club, gave it everything and wanted to do well which counts for a lot in my book. With maturity and if he can allow the rational 'human' part of his mind to come to the fore more often, there is definitely a good manager in there.

Enough about that, consider the below:
  • We have a player that has had a face like a smacked bottom all season and appears like he thinks he is too big for the club - Verts
  • We have a player that feels it is appropriate to tie his shoe laces whilst the ball is alive in his own half causing him to get wrong side of Etoo and giving the referee the chance to make the decision (wrong one though it was) to give a pen and send him off - Kaboul
  • We have players that are not prepared to put their bodies on the line and commit the cardinal sin of breaking a free kick defensive wall (Paulinho and Ade)
  • We have a player that despite his ability feels it is appropriate to take a casual penalty when we are chasing a game where we have conceded 3 early goals away from home - Ade
  • We have a player that continuously makes rash unnecessary challenges and gives away free kicks in dangerous areas of the pitch when he knows how vulnerable we are at defending set pieces - Rose
  • We have a player that is capable of making brain dead pass backs to his keeper when he should clear his lines and regroup that have lead to us conceding goals in crucial games - Walker
  • We have a player with frightening pace and after over 10 years in the game is still incapable of selecting the right pass on a football pitch - Lennon
I could go on and name others but hopefully you get the gist. TS and LF are spot on about the mentality of the players. All the players above have undoubted ability (ok maybe a bit generous to Rose) and have had their good moments but the points above all are all a factor of their mentality or mindset. Until we start doing our proper homework in getting players with the character and mentality to go with their ability (or at least some of this type who can impose themslves and dominate the group), we will continue to have the same cluster fuck of a season regardless of who the manager is.
 
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fedupyid

Well-Known Member
Dec 2, 2004
789
906
Can we stop posting articles about Tim. He will be remembered as the most controversial managers since the man who signed him for us as a player.
 

striebs

Well-Known Member
Mar 18, 2004
4,504
667
I'd suggest that the people who were working themselves up into a frenzy of Sherwood-hate a couple of weeks ago should read that interview as if the comments had been written by outsiders about Tottenham, as opposed to spoken by Sherwood and Ferdinand. Much of what they are saying is exactly what people here were saying about (1) the problems caused by the large intake of players with zero premiership experience and (2) the mentality created by the impression of a caretaker management.

David ,

That is what a reasonable person might do .

Spurs fans are not reasonable .

Tim Sherwood has been set up , used and abused . He's the (well paid) victim here but fans still want to give Sherwood a shoeing once Levy has softened him up for them .

It's like the pack turning on the weakest member and killing it .
 

striebs

Well-Known Member
Mar 18, 2004
4,504
667
If you believe, as I do, that AVB wanted out as much as Levy, I do wonder how many options he actually had once they'd gone down that road. It wasn't working.

Sounds like Levy tried for Van Gaal and FDB then and both said not till the end of the season. Seemed to be Sherwood or Hoddle, realistically, and there are downsides to both of those.

Hoddle would have been a safer appointment in terms of fan-appeasing, I guess, and would have carried some kind of caché. Would also have been clearly for six months. However, Levy sacked him before so maybe there were reasons he didn't do this.

Despite everything, and I really do not like Sherwood at all, he kept us on course to do no worse than we would have done under AVB, despite falling out with large portions of the squad.

It isn't the disaster that some people are painting it as if we make the right next appointment.

Reckon you are right that AVB wanted out . Also think Ramos could see the writing on the wall and tried to accelerate his own departure .

Levy has some pretty strong support on here - it's always the managers fault and SC'ers support his D.O.F. structure even when things worked out better when we temporarily dumped it .

However , even Levy's popularity would have fallen when inevitably he had sacked The Hod for the second time .

Being image obsessed , him and Donna Cullen could not have risked that .

Levy seems to fail to understand that Spurs aren't meant to be managed by a characterless foreign coach . Maybe he's so used to using spreadsheets that he is attracted to football managers who pore over them themselves .

Tim Sherwood gave us our Tottenham back for a while because of his obvious imperfections and attempt to play the right way .
 

MyNameIsNicolaBerti

Well-Known Member
Jan 28, 2013
2,035
3,834
Tim Sherwood gave us our Tottenham back for a while because of his obvious imperfections and attempt to play the right way .
The Tottenham I remember could give a half decent fight against our direct rivals. Sherwood never gave that back to me. What's more he publicly lambasted the chairman, board and players. Unacceptable behavior, even if he meant well. He was no major upgrade on his predecessor.

As for the potentially xenophobic comments about foreign managers - people should be appointed based on the merits of their candidacy. Nationality is irrelevant. But if you really are bothered about managers being English, consider that we are the only PL club of our level to give a top job to a completely untried Englishman. Those 5 months have given him an invaluable way in to management - so much so that it's looking like he will get another job very soon, possible at Brighton. This doesn't even take into account the fact that the club nurtured him up the ranks for five whole years before appointing him. It's time that the press and people who constantly moan about lack of English managers realise that, but for Levy, there would be one less potentially promising young English manager starting out his management carrier in professional football.
 

guiltyparty

Well-Known Member
Sep 21, 2005
9,023
13,524
Reckon you are right that AVB wanted out . Also think Ramos could see the writing on the wall and tried to accelerate his own departure .

Levy has some pretty strong support on here - it's always the managers fault and SC'ers support his D.O.F. structure even when things worked out better when we temporarily dumped it .

However , even Levy's popularity would have fallen when inevitably he had sacked The Hod for the second time .

Being image obsessed , him and Donna Cullen could not have risked that .

Levy seems to fail to understand that Spurs aren't meant to be managed by a characterless foreign coach . Maybe he's so used to using spreadsheets that he is attracted to football managers who pore over them themselves .

Tim Sherwood gave us our Tottenham back for a while because of his obvious imperfections and attempt to play the right way .

I suspect you're right about Hoddle. In a way I'm glad he didn't do that to him. While Hoddle always said he'd do it for six months, it was laced with him really, really wanting the job, and maybe Levy foresaw the difficult conversation at the end of the season. Maybe getting rid of Sherwood was the lesser of two PR evils.

Levy gets rightful support because of the very basic rule that he's improved the club exponentially since he's been here. That line chart that's doing the rounds showing our consistent improvement is testament to that. That doesn't mean everything he does is right, but the years of utter mediocrity that came before him seems to have developed a case of Stockholm Syndrome within some fans. That somehow no one would be able to do better. And who's to say they would, but that is pretty irrational.

You're right, though, he seems to want a manager that suits his vision of the international standing that he believes Spurs should have - cool and understated foreign manager, classy image for the sponsors. Arguably putting the cart before the horse

Certainly takes the 'dress for the job you want, not the job you have' to a new level. But equally, I can totally empathise with him watching Sherwood or even Redknapp (sorry JoeT) going off script on telly and wincing, seeing the virtual investment flying out the window.
 
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striebs

Well-Known Member
Mar 18, 2004
4,504
667
Just read Dr Steve Peter's (sports psychiatrist behind success of GB Olympic team, involved with Liverpool this year and big part in helping to keep Ronnie O Sullivan in the right frame of mind to keep playing snooker as only he can) book- the Chimp Paradox where he clearly explains how the mind works. I would recommend it as it would help a lot on here better understand people like TS who run very high on emotion and allow themselves to be driven by the impulsive side of their brain making them highly prone to inconsistent outbursts that make them appear like media manipulators, self serving etc. TS clearly wasn't the right manager for us but his heart is in the right place, he genuinely cared for our football club, gave it everything and wanted to do well which counts for a lot in my book. With maturity and if he can allow the rational 'human' part of his mind to come to the fore more often, there is definitely a good manager in there.

Enough about that, consider the below:
  • We have a player that has had a face like a smacked bottom all season and appears like he thinks he is too big for the club - Verts
  • We have a player that feels it is appropriate to tie his shoe laces whilst the ball is alive in his own half causing him to get wrong side of a defender and giving the referee the chance to make the decision (wrong one though it was) to give a pen and send him off - Kaboul
  • We have players that are not prepared to put their bodies on the line and commit the cardinal sin of breaking a free kick defensive wall (Paulinho and Ade)
  • We have a player that despite his ability feels it is appropriate to take a casual penalty when we are chasing a game where we have conceded 3 early goals away from home - Ade
  • We have a player that continuously makes rash unnecessary challenges and gives away free kicks in dangerous areas of the pitch when he know how vulnerable we are at defending set pieces - Rose
  • We have a player that is capable of making brain dead pass backs to his keeper when he should clear his lines and regroup that have lead to us conceding goals in crucial games - Walker
  • We have a player with frightening pace and after over 10 years in the game is still incapable of selecting the right pass on a football pitch - Lennon
I could go on and name others but hopefully you get the gist. TS and LF are spot on about the mentality of the players. All the players above have undoubted ability (ok maybe a bit generous to Rose) and have had their good moments but the points above all are all a factor of their mentality or mindset. Until we start doing our proper homework in getting players with character and mentality to go with their ability (or at least some of his type who can impose themslves and dominate the group), we will continue to have the same cluster fuck of a season regardless of who the manager is.

Smokinhotspur ,

What is your assessment of Sandro please ?
 

striebs

Well-Known Member
Mar 18, 2004
4,504
667
The Tottenham I remember could give a half decent fight against our direct rivals. Sherwood never gave that back to me. What's more he publicly lambasted the chairman, board and players. Unacceptable behavior, even if he meant well. He was no major upgrade on his predecessor.

As for the potentially xenophobic comments about foreign managers - people should be appointed based on the merits of their candidacy. Nationality is irrelevant. But if you really are bothered about managers being English, consider that we are the only PL club of our level to give a top job to a completely untried Englishman. Those 5 months have given him an invaluable way in to management - so much so that it's looking like he will get another job very soon, possible at Brighton. This doesn't even take into account the fact that the club nurtured him up the ranks for five whole years before appointing him. It's time that the press and people who constantly moan about lack of English managers realise that, but for Levy, there would be one less potentially promising young English manager starting out his management carrier in professional football.

"potentially xenophobic"

Lefty alert !
 

Smokinhotspur

Well-Known Member
Jun 11, 2012
510
953
Smokinhotspur ,

What is your assessment of Sandro please ?

Interesting one. I could excuse the tweet he put out clarifying he wasn't injured when dropped but all the stuff that followed with him announcing in an interview that Sherwood would not be staying was totally disrespectful not just to Sherwood but the club. He is the sort of player that needs to be fit for a decent period to find a rhythm and be at his best and he hasn't been that for a while now. There always seem to be rumours surrounding him about moves to Roma, Brazil so looks like despite his #thfc tweets and all the rest he seems to have one eye on a move. It was a real shame Capoue got injured when he did as I liked what I saw of him when he came on for a cameo in the Palace game at the start of the season and he seems more comfortable in possession than Sandro. Guess what I'm saying is I wouldn't be unhappy if I heard we were selling Sandro for anything around the £20m mark...
 

HappySpur

You Can't Unfry Things Jerri
Jan 7, 2012
7,666
19,601
You people are so reactionary sometimes. Tim is trying to land a new job. So it behooves him to say things like this. It's a sound byte answer to a complex problem as we all know. And if you sat down and had a pint with him, he'd probably never say that.

So just like I told my current employer that I was a hard worker and wouldn't steal office supplies......he's playing with the truth to help in his job search.
 

striebs

Well-Known Member
Mar 18, 2004
4,504
667
Interesting one. I could excuse the tweet he put out clarifying he wasn't injured when dropped but all the stuff that followed with him announcing in an interview that Sherwood would not be staying was totally disrespectful not just to Sherwood but the club. He is the sort of player that needs to be fit for a decent period to find a rhythm and be at his best and he hasn't been that for a while now. There always seem to be rumours surrounding him about moves to Roma, Brazil so looks like despite his #thfc tweets and all the rest he seems to have one eye on a move. It was a real shame Capoue got injured when he did as I liked what I saw of him when he came on for a cameo in the Palace game at the start of the season and he seems more comfortable in possession than Sandro. Guess what I'm saying is I wouldn't be unhappy if I heard we were selling Sandro for anything around the £20m mark...

Yep , I liked Capoue too .

Sandro just seems a bit big for his boots .

Might be OK once a true quality player has taken him down a couple of pegs and burst his bubble .

The way he was charging around it was only a matter of time before he hurt himself (or someone else) .
 
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