- Jul 21, 2003
- 8,642
- 9,313
Well I wouldn’t characterise our best manager since at least Venables as “the devil we know”.
There weren't really sound reasons for replacing him with Ramos. There were reasons to admire the way Sevilla played but that was much due to other playing, coaching and managerial personnel and not merely Ramos. More than that, it smacked of choosing the flavour of the month without realising two things; that he didn’t speak English and his achievements pre Sevilla were pretty modest to say the least. The idea that you could drop Ramos into a new country, new league, new team etc and replace him with a hitherto successful manager was at best risky and at worst, as it played out, reckless.
Effectively the decision to dismiss Jol was political, it wasn’t a footballing decision. Putting the pieces together this as yet unknown Newcastle courting and shady characters working behind the scenes, I think we can surmise that neither Levy or Jol behaved impeccably. In fact both are probably quite difficult but given what Jol and Levy had achieved for the club, it would have been nice if they had kissed and made up. Ditto Redknapp actually.
Spot on.
Sorry to butt in - Ramos IMHO was complete naivety on DL part and a lesson learned I hope. Ramos was a real shock to me personally.