A positive article on Pochettino and Levy (by Marcotti)

[SpurSince57]

I asked this question the other day, so I'll try again, does anyone know if Levy's manager roster is any worse than the EPL average ?

I posted this the other week:

In the 40 years since Bill Nicholson retired we've had 16 full-time managers (that excludes Clem & Livermore, Pleat and Shreeve in their caretaker spells, and Sherwood). That's one every 2.5 years, but KB's eight years skew that a lot. Leaving him out, it's 15 in 32, or one every 2.13 years. Under ENIC, the figure is 2.16 years. It's a Spurs thing, not just a Levy thing.

Liverpool and Everton have had 11 managers in the same period, Chelsea 22 (!) counting Maureen just the once, City, Sunderland and Stoke 21, Fulham 20, West Brom 25, Villa 15, Bolton 15, Newcastle, Blackburn and Southampton 19. (I may have counted in the odd caretaker, but I don't think those figures are too far out.) We don't seem unusually trigger-happy.

A&C replied that I shouldn't have left Pleat and Sherwood out of the ENIC list, but I'd argue that neither was seen as a long-term appointment (no-one was fooled by that 18-month contract, were they?). And as others have pointed out, Santini walked, and it appears that AVB may have done the same.

 

[JimmyG2]

So should we have stuck with Hoddle? Or Ramos? The Mullet? Gross? Gooner George?

The root of our failure to make progress is that there are five clubs with greater resources—four of them with vastly greater resources.

I don't really care whether they were sacked or resigned
or were caretakers or temporary fort holders or whatever.
The disruptive effect on the team and the club is the same.
Perhaps they shouldn't have been appointed.
Perhaps for a little club we are doing really well.
Appointing the wrong man or sacking the right man
or sacking the wrong man and appointing the right man
and then sacking him on a regular basis isn't helping.
Successful clubs have money or stability and a plan
We have neither.

 

[SpurSince57]

I don't really care whether they were sacked or resigned
or were caretakers or temporary fort holders or whatever.
The disruptive effect on the team and the club is the same.
Perhaps they shouldn't have been appointed.
Perhaps for a little club we are doing really well.
Appointing the wrong man or sacking the right man
or sacking the wrong man and appointing the right man
and then sacking him on a regular basis isn't helping.
Successful clubs have money or stability and a plan
We have neither.

Of course you don't.

We're having the best run of form in the league for 50 years. The 'disruption' has had very little effect, with just one poor season since 2004-05, and we won a cup in that. Even in 2008-09 our form under Redknapp would have got us to sixth. We are not going to do better without a massive injection of money or a truly exceptional manager.

 

[SteveH]

Many managers does not equate to failure.

This is just a media reaction

 

[parklane1]

But it's not really 8 managers, is it?

Hoddle
Santini
Jol
Ramos
Redknapp
AVB

Pleat and Sherwood, as caretaker coaches, don't really count. Not to forget that Santini wasn't sacked or that the best informed reports suggest that AVB might not have been sacked either.

Will not stop the agendas that, true or not.

 

[easley91]

Up until now Arsenal and United have been the only ones to stay with the same man for many a year. Pretty much every club will have gone through managers like a fat man goes through cake when he's hungry. In some cases (Real Madrid for example) a manager can win something then get the sack at season's end. The hire/fire rate means bugger all in terms of success. Yes, the same man for many years may bring stability, but that will reach it's limit. How long has it taken Wenger to win a trophy since his last one? Even then, they scraped it. Fergie has been the only man to consistently win trophies at one club for 20 years. Nobody will equal that again (at least not in our lifetimes).

The media just like to put their own spin on statistics to make it look how they want it too. Then the naive public will buy into it.

 

[jambreck]

Sherwood counts. Come on.

You really think he was anything other than a caretaker? That his "18 month contract" (with an oh, so convenient break clause after six months) was anything more than a ruse to prevent his tenure from becoming any more of a lame duck interval than it already was?

I don't.

 

[Rocksuperstar]

Always respect Marcotti's views/articles, he's a level headed guy with a genuine grasp on the game. Even when he doesn't say flattering things about Spurs, he never swerves from the truth.

With Pochet-Rochet in charge Levy has perhaps finally built the staff team he's been after for so long - as the article says, Mauricio isn't exactly a sleuth in the transfer market but does appear to have some tactical nous, and maybe the ability to get the most out of under-achieving players too. To take the weight of transfers off of his shoulders, as long as him and Baldini can get the same hymn-sheet sorted out, and let him concentrate on the team in front of him could be a smoke & a pancake pairing.

I genuinely think (and anyone who knows me will tell you i fear change and often romanticise about the good old days) managers in the Fergie/Wenger/Atkinson/Venables/Graham mould, their days are virtually numbered. The weight of expectation and responsibility on one mans shoulders has gotten too big a deal in modern football and i think the only reason the sole old-skool style manager left who's actually succeeding at the top level continues to cling on because he has evolved through the transition from game to business and has kept the workings of the Woolwich on tight reigns so he can keep control. If he went to another club and tried to do the same, i don't have any doubt that it would be a disaster.

 

[Rocksuperstar]

I don't really care whether they were sacked or resigned
or were caretakers or temporary fort holders or whatever.
The disruptive effect on the team and the club is the same.
Perhaps they shouldn't have been appointed.
Perhaps for a little club we are doing really well.
Appointing the wrong man or sacking the right man
or sacking the wrong man and appointing the right man
and then sacking him on a regular basis isn't helping.
Successful clubs have money or stability and a plan
We have neither.

This reads like a tragic poem

write more, dude, it's whimsical

 

[NEVILLEB]

One of the key reasons why many on the board wanted Jol out - and why they presumably weren't too bothered about going behind his back to speak to Ramos - was that he himself had gone behind Spurs' back to speak to Newcastle earlier that year.

Where's the proof?

Have you ever considered that Jol picked up that his job was gonna be under threat?

 

[jambreck]

Where's the proof?

What proof do you want?

Funnily enough, no one had a secret camera recording the meeting between Jol and Newcastle officials. Jol never denied it, though, and I'm pretty sure that he would have denied such an accusation had it been false - especially given that he was so quick to deny lesser accusations (see SpursSince57's earlier post in this thread).

 

[NEVILLEB]

What proof do you want?

Funnily enough, no one had a secret camera recording the meeting between Jol and Newcastle officials. Jol never denied it, though, and I'm pretty sure that he would have denied such an accusation had it been false - especially given that he was so quick to deny lesser accusations (see SpursSince57's earlier post in this thread).

It's just a rumour then.

Still doesn't mean that the teams performance in the early part of the season wasn't effected by the speculation over Jol's job. So difficult to justify sacking a man for poor results when you've taken away his authority in the dressing room in the first place.

 

[jambreck]

It's just a rumour then.

Still doesn't mean that the teams performance in the early part of the season wasn't effected by the speculation over Jol's job. So difficult to justify sacking a man for poor results when you've taken away his authority in the dressing room in the first place.

And Paul Kemsley and Juande Ramos might only have been talking about their favourite recipe for paella when they met in that restaurant in Spain.

After all, you don't have any proof that they were talking about the Spurs job.

 

[SpurSince57]

And Paul Kemsley and Juande Ramos might only have been talking about their favourite recipe for paella when they met in that restaurant in Spain.

After all, you don't have any proof that they were talking about the Spurs job.

I thought Kemsley and Alexander were in Spain buying sherry for the boardroom and just happened to bump into Ramos and Jimenez.

 

[JimmyG2]

Many managers does not equate to failure.

This is just a media reaction

No but it's a cause of underachievement due to disruption.
It's not a failure in itself obviously.
Our seven new players are trying to cope
with a new league, a new country
and their third manager in under a year.
No wonder they haven't settled.

 

[SpurSince57]

No but it's a cause of underachievement due to disruption.
It's not a failure in itself obviously.
Our seven new players are trying to cope
with a new league, a new country
and their third manager in under a year.
No wonder they haven't settled.

And what heights should we have been reaching?

Do you believe we'd have reached them if we'd stuck with Hoddle or Jol? Or with Harry?

 

[JimmyG2]

And what heights should we have been reaching?

Do you believe we'd have reached them if we'd stuck with Hoddle or Jol? Or with Harry?

Or AVB or Sherwood. Who knows. They never get long enough for us to find out.
Hoddle was possibly sacked prematurely, Jol had made good progress, and Harry built on that.

But you are missing my point.
If we can do as well as we have done
with the constant disruption caused by sacking our manager
how much better could we have done with more stability.
A new manager means new coaching staff, new approaches, new formations
new priorities, new training techniques, new players and a whole lot more probably.
Regular squad members are forgotten, new favourites emerge.
Some might call it constructive tension.
I call it disruptive and unsettling.
But it's only an opinion. You can't prove anything here.

 

[SpurSince57]

It's just a rumour then.

Still doesn't mean that the teams performance in the early part of the season wasn't effected by the speculation over Jol's job. So difficult to justify sacking a man for poor results when you've taken away his authority in the dressing room in the first place.

It's one thing having an accusation made anonymously on a message board, another entirely for Levy to make it in a press conference. If it had been untrue, Jol would have had a stone cold case for slander and defamation.

 

[SteveH]

No but it's a cause of underachievement due to disruption.
It's not a failure in itself obviously.
Our seven new players are trying to cope
with a new league, a new country
and their third manager in under a year.
No wonder they haven't settled.

I'm not sure we have underachieved.

Seven new player in itself was always risky.

I understand where you are coming from JimmyG2, but most our problems are nothing to do with amount of managers per se.

 

[SpurSince57]

Or AVB or Sherwood. Who knows. They never get long enough for us to find out.
Hoddle was possibly sacked prematurely, Jol had made good progress, and Harry built on that.

But you are missing my point.
If we can do as well as we have done
with the constant disruption caused by sacking our manager
how much better could we have done with more stability.
A new manager means new coaching staff, new approaches, new formations
new priorities, new training techniques, new players and a whole lot more probably.
Regular squad members are forgotten, new favourites emerge.
Some might call it constructive tension.
I call it disruptive and unsettling.
But it's only an opinion. You can't prove anything here.

Oh, I assure you I'm not.