themanwhofellasleep
z-list internet celebrity
- Dec 14, 2006
- 690
- 0
I deliberately didn't post last night because I've learnt from experience not to post in anger.
So, what do we do now?
First of all I don't want to talk about Martin Jol. Yes, I loved the man and it's unpleasant to see Hamburg at the top of the Bundesliga, but I'm more interested in what we're going to do now than wistfully looking at what might have happened had MJ stayed at the club. He's moved on. So should we.
At the moment, my main concern for the club is avoiding relegation this season. That might seem hysterical after 4 games, but I think it's fair. In previous seasons there have been enough whipping boys in the league to give us a healthy cushion, but I don't think that's the case this year. The promoted teams have all won games, which will boost their confidence and perennial strugglers like Boro, Bolton and Fulham have all improved significantly over the summer. The teams who were challenging for the UEFA Cup last year (Man City, Pompey, Villa) have all invested well and look like they'll improve on last season. One or two teams look to have gotten worse (Blackburn, Everton) but even they have wins under their belt. On current form, there are very few teams that I think we're guaranteed wins against, even at home. Last season we looked very dodgy at the back, but we knew that we would score enough goals to win quite a few games. That no longer looks the case. I hope that at some point the attacking players will click and we'll start scoring goals, but whether we will score enough soon enough is a big question.
Most importantly of all, we don't look like a team. When you're down at the bottom of the league tactics are less important than team spirit and a willingness to fight for every ball. We don't have that, mainly because we've got a team of relative strangers who hardly know each other and in many cases still need time to adapt to premiership football. I'm not saying that tactics don't matter, but at this stage we don't need genius tactical football to win a match, we need to put out our best, most settled team and then play as a collective unit.
It's hard to know who to blame for all this. It's clear that the departure of Keane and Berbatov has unsettled the team, and in particular the fact that we shifted Berbatov so late in the window, without signing replacements for before the start of the season, has had a negative effect. If you're a new striker coming into the club, it's hard to start the season scoring loads of goals, but it's ten times harder if your first game is three weeks after the season started with your team already rock bottom and confidence faltering. More worrying is the fact that during the transfer window we failed to address the need for a defensive midfielder, and instead sold a lot of solid, dependable squad members. The likes of Malbranque, Tainio and Chimbonda are all experienced Premiership players who were settled at the club. They may not have been "world-class" (a horrific term) but they were good enough for us. They have been replaced by players who may or may not be "world-class" but who have no premiership experience and who need time. Ideally, these players would have been eased into the game, but instead they've been thrown into the deep end and we have no cover for them if they falter. The big teams may have brought in new players, but they have also kept the core players to ensure a smooth transition. You can apply icing once you have a cake. At the moment Spurs have lots of icing (Modric, Dos Santos) but no cake.
I don't necessarily blame the club for the departures of Keane and Berbatov. It's been debated over and over and I don't want to go over it, but they both seemed desperate to leave and we got good money for them. The timing of Berbatov's departure was probably worse than the fact that he left. What seems more shocking is the sale of vital squad members such as Lee, Taino, Kaboul, Malbranque and Chimbonda, particularly since Ramos refuses to play Rocha (who can't be any worse than Dawson) and KPB, who looked crap, but had a few solid games for the club.
As for Ramos, he's something of an enigma. A lot of the fans now calling for his head were very likely the same fans who called Jol tactically naive and applauded Juande when we won the CC. It's clear from his track record that he is a good coach, tactically at least. His record in the premiership with Spurs was mediocre last season, and he was hamstrung earlier this season by the departure of Berbatov and our lack of strikers. He does seem fond of tinkering with the team and playing people out of position. My concern is more his man-management and motivational skills. Is he a leader? For all the modern obsession with tactics, a large part of a manager's role is making the players feel confident, that they can go out onto the pitch and express themselves without fear, willing and desperate to fight for every ball and feeling fantastic about playing for the club. I remember Chelsea players speaking about Mourinho and how he made them feel totally unbeatable. Who knows, behind closed doors Ramos might be just like that - geeing the players up in fluent English. But the Ramos we fans see is an isolated, remote figure, stony-faced and unapproachable, speaking only through a translator. I find it hard to imagine the players going that extra yard to win games for him, but I may be wrong. At the moment he strikes me as a fish out of water. I desperately want Spurs to remain settled - the last thing we need is a new manager, so I'm just praying that things turn around soon.
It seems to me that people overcomplicate football - all this talk of formations, when there are loads of teams out there who keep it simple, go 4-4-2, get the players motivated and play the squad in the right formation. Compare Spurs to a team like Wigan. Spurs are a fashionable club, with loads of money to spend, so we're constantly rehauling the squad and buying glamour signings. In contrast, Wigan have kept things simple: they have a coach who motivates the players. They do the basics well (defending, keeping their shape), have kept hold of their players and have bought one of two extra players. Most important of all, the players go onto the pitch knowing exactly what position they are playing in, and are willing to fight for their team-mates. I'm not saying Wigan are amazing, but given their limited resources, they do very well. They won't break into the top four, but they'll do ok.
Do we have the right players? Where do I begin? Defensively, we look worse off than last season, although Gomes is an improvement on Robinson. We've chopped and changed so much in defense. Gomes and Woodgate seem the only constants. If King cannot start every game, we should have bought cover for him. In midfield we have a surplus of riches, but have not actually got a single custom-made DM. We're either playing Huddlestone or Zokora in that role, and neither works. Corluka may play there, but he's not really a midfielder. In terms of attacking midfield, we have too many players, so we've ended up putting players out of position to accomodate everyone. Modric looks terribly lightweight and his purchase meant playing Jenas out of position. In terms of attack, we've relied heavily on Bent, who is a decent player but no Berbatov or Keane. He's not going to create chances, so he's dependent on service. Pavlyuchenko and Campbell may help, but it's too early to tell, and they've been thrown into the deep end. It would have been nice to have started the season with them in the team. What worries me is that we have a leaky defence, a faltering attack and a midfield full of players out of position, with no natural DM. Worrying times.
My hope is that Ramos can work out what his best team is (even if that means sacrificing some of our big-name players) and get them well drilled defensively so that we have a platform for the create players to start scoring goals. If we can put a couple of victories on the board, climb off the bottom and regain a small amount of confidence, we may well end up doing ok. And that will buy Ramos the time to really get things right.
So, what do we do now?
First of all I don't want to talk about Martin Jol. Yes, I loved the man and it's unpleasant to see Hamburg at the top of the Bundesliga, but I'm more interested in what we're going to do now than wistfully looking at what might have happened had MJ stayed at the club. He's moved on. So should we.
At the moment, my main concern for the club is avoiding relegation this season. That might seem hysterical after 4 games, but I think it's fair. In previous seasons there have been enough whipping boys in the league to give us a healthy cushion, but I don't think that's the case this year. The promoted teams have all won games, which will boost their confidence and perennial strugglers like Boro, Bolton and Fulham have all improved significantly over the summer. The teams who were challenging for the UEFA Cup last year (Man City, Pompey, Villa) have all invested well and look like they'll improve on last season. One or two teams look to have gotten worse (Blackburn, Everton) but even they have wins under their belt. On current form, there are very few teams that I think we're guaranteed wins against, even at home. Last season we looked very dodgy at the back, but we knew that we would score enough goals to win quite a few games. That no longer looks the case. I hope that at some point the attacking players will click and we'll start scoring goals, but whether we will score enough soon enough is a big question.
Most importantly of all, we don't look like a team. When you're down at the bottom of the league tactics are less important than team spirit and a willingness to fight for every ball. We don't have that, mainly because we've got a team of relative strangers who hardly know each other and in many cases still need time to adapt to premiership football. I'm not saying that tactics don't matter, but at this stage we don't need genius tactical football to win a match, we need to put out our best, most settled team and then play as a collective unit.
It's hard to know who to blame for all this. It's clear that the departure of Keane and Berbatov has unsettled the team, and in particular the fact that we shifted Berbatov so late in the window, without signing replacements for before the start of the season, has had a negative effect. If you're a new striker coming into the club, it's hard to start the season scoring loads of goals, but it's ten times harder if your first game is three weeks after the season started with your team already rock bottom and confidence faltering. More worrying is the fact that during the transfer window we failed to address the need for a defensive midfielder, and instead sold a lot of solid, dependable squad members. The likes of Malbranque, Tainio and Chimbonda are all experienced Premiership players who were settled at the club. They may not have been "world-class" (a horrific term) but they were good enough for us. They have been replaced by players who may or may not be "world-class" but who have no premiership experience and who need time. Ideally, these players would have been eased into the game, but instead they've been thrown into the deep end and we have no cover for them if they falter. The big teams may have brought in new players, but they have also kept the core players to ensure a smooth transition. You can apply icing once you have a cake. At the moment Spurs have lots of icing (Modric, Dos Santos) but no cake.
I don't necessarily blame the club for the departures of Keane and Berbatov. It's been debated over and over and I don't want to go over it, but they both seemed desperate to leave and we got good money for them. The timing of Berbatov's departure was probably worse than the fact that he left. What seems more shocking is the sale of vital squad members such as Lee, Taino, Kaboul, Malbranque and Chimbonda, particularly since Ramos refuses to play Rocha (who can't be any worse than Dawson) and KPB, who looked crap, but had a few solid games for the club.
As for Ramos, he's something of an enigma. A lot of the fans now calling for his head were very likely the same fans who called Jol tactically naive and applauded Juande when we won the CC. It's clear from his track record that he is a good coach, tactically at least. His record in the premiership with Spurs was mediocre last season, and he was hamstrung earlier this season by the departure of Berbatov and our lack of strikers. He does seem fond of tinkering with the team and playing people out of position. My concern is more his man-management and motivational skills. Is he a leader? For all the modern obsession with tactics, a large part of a manager's role is making the players feel confident, that they can go out onto the pitch and express themselves without fear, willing and desperate to fight for every ball and feeling fantastic about playing for the club. I remember Chelsea players speaking about Mourinho and how he made them feel totally unbeatable. Who knows, behind closed doors Ramos might be just like that - geeing the players up in fluent English. But the Ramos we fans see is an isolated, remote figure, stony-faced and unapproachable, speaking only through a translator. I find it hard to imagine the players going that extra yard to win games for him, but I may be wrong. At the moment he strikes me as a fish out of water. I desperately want Spurs to remain settled - the last thing we need is a new manager, so I'm just praying that things turn around soon.
It seems to me that people overcomplicate football - all this talk of formations, when there are loads of teams out there who keep it simple, go 4-4-2, get the players motivated and play the squad in the right formation. Compare Spurs to a team like Wigan. Spurs are a fashionable club, with loads of money to spend, so we're constantly rehauling the squad and buying glamour signings. In contrast, Wigan have kept things simple: they have a coach who motivates the players. They do the basics well (defending, keeping their shape), have kept hold of their players and have bought one of two extra players. Most important of all, the players go onto the pitch knowing exactly what position they are playing in, and are willing to fight for their team-mates. I'm not saying Wigan are amazing, but given their limited resources, they do very well. They won't break into the top four, but they'll do ok.
Do we have the right players? Where do I begin? Defensively, we look worse off than last season, although Gomes is an improvement on Robinson. We've chopped and changed so much in defense. Gomes and Woodgate seem the only constants. If King cannot start every game, we should have bought cover for him. In midfield we have a surplus of riches, but have not actually got a single custom-made DM. We're either playing Huddlestone or Zokora in that role, and neither works. Corluka may play there, but he's not really a midfielder. In terms of attacking midfield, we have too many players, so we've ended up putting players out of position to accomodate everyone. Modric looks terribly lightweight and his purchase meant playing Jenas out of position. In terms of attack, we've relied heavily on Bent, who is a decent player but no Berbatov or Keane. He's not going to create chances, so he's dependent on service. Pavlyuchenko and Campbell may help, but it's too early to tell, and they've been thrown into the deep end. It would have been nice to have started the season with them in the team. What worries me is that we have a leaky defence, a faltering attack and a midfield full of players out of position, with no natural DM. Worrying times.
My hope is that Ramos can work out what his best team is (even if that means sacrificing some of our big-name players) and get them well drilled defensively so that we have a platform for the create players to start scoring goals. If we can put a couple of victories on the board, climb off the bottom and regain a small amount of confidence, we may well end up doing ok. And that will buy Ramos the time to really get things right.
