There can be no excuses for how badly Tottenham have started this season.
Yes, they lost Robbie Keane, but that deal was done a long time before the season started. Yes, they lost Dimitar Berbatov, but a bit like Christmas, I don't think anybody was surprised when that came along.
Spurs: time to dig deep
Tottenham knew in May that Berbatov wanted to leave and they should have done something about it rather allowing the situation to drag on for the sake of a couple of million more pounds.
They ended up getting those extra millions, but I believe it has cost them a lot more than that. It should have been handled better, the player should have been sold well before the start of the season and Juande Ramos should have had a chance to get somebody in before a ball was kicked.
Tottenham may be rueing the fact they got an itchy finger last year and got rid of Martin Jol. They may be regretting that decision, especially when they see what a fine job he's been doing in the Bundesliga.
Andy Gray
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Stoke v Tottenham
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Instead, Berbatov was hanging around for the first two weeks of the season and surprise, surprise he ended up at Manchester United on the last day of August. "Shock, horror!" exclaimed Tottenham but they were fooling nobody. They'd known for three months that he was going.
If you have ambitions to move forward and you decide to sell your best two strikers then you have to make sure you have someone ready to step in. Damien Comolli and the people in charge of the club's transfer policy have not exactly covered themselves in glory this summer.
They brought Roman Pavlyuchenko in and they had a nibble at his countryman Andrei Arshavin. Maybe if they'd got him they would have been fine, but it still takes time to settle into this league and I'm not sure that would have been an ideal solution.
They made some big mistakes this summer. Sometimes your hands are tied over selling a player, as in the Berbatov scenario, but it was far from done and dusted that Keane had to go.
If they wanted to keep him then they maybe could have fought a bit harder. It was almost as if Liverpool showed an interest, Tottenham said okay and he was gone overnight. We all thought then that they had somebody lined up to come in, but nobody came.
They had plenty of time to plan for the departures of those two players and it is a nonsense to suggest that the Berbatov situation is the reason why they are down there. He didn't play in goal, he didn't play at the back and he didn't play in midfield; it is clear there is a lot wrong at the club that has nothing to do with Berbatov.
Shot
I feel the whole place is in need of something to give them a shot in the arm and get them moving in the other direction. Every time I see them they look like a team playing on eggshells; everyone is frightened to make a mistake and nobody is taking responsibility. There's a lack of passion and a lack of fight - those things shouldn't be an extra in a footballer, they should be a given.
Who knows if Juande Ramos is the right man to give them that shot in the arm? After only one year in the job, I'm not going to sit here and say he should go. That's a decision for Daniel Levy and the Tottenham board of directors.
What I would say is they may be rueing the fact they got an itchy finger last year and got rid of Martin Jol. They may be regretting that decision, especially when they see what a fine job he's been doing in the Bundesliga.
I think he did a very good job at Spurs giving them two fifth-placed finishes, but as soon as there was any sign of a stumble he was sacked. After two good seasons I think he should have been allowed a shaky start to a campaign, but for some reason Tottenham seemed to think they should have been a top-four side. I don't know what gives them that idea because they've got to earn that right.
All they've done is reverse the three years of work that Martin Jol had done and start all over again. It goes to show that changing managers time and time again is not always the answer.
I don't know Ramos, but he has no excuses now. He had six months to assess his squad last season and they were clearly doing something right because they won the Carling Cup, the third most important trophy in this country.
But from the moment they won that trophy they've been awful and there's no rhyme or reason for that. Any manager worth his salt should not allow that to happen and should use that success as a catalyst to move forwards. Instead it seems the weight of expectation has been too heavy a burden for these players to carry.
The simple fact of the matter is the whole team has not been good enough. As a man and as a team they've been severely lacking and they've let the fans down. I speak to a lot of Spurs supporters and they simply cannot understand or come to terms with why this team has started so badly. The word I've heard mentioned quite often is "listless" - there's no energy, no drive and there seems to be an inevitability every time they go a goal down.
Dig deep
At the weekend they will come up against a Stoke team who will intimidate them and bombard them with long balls, long throws and pressure. It will be a real test of whether they are up for it. Tottenham may have some good footballers but they will need to dig deep.
It will be interesting to see how Ramos sets his team up because Tottenham surely can't go to Stoke thinking about anything other than winning. Stoke will be eyeing up victory themselves and I simply don't know what Ramos is going to do. Will he be positive and play two up front or is he going to pack his midfield and hope to nick it? I'm not sure what Ramos' philosophy is - and I'm not sure if he knows himself at the moment.
Unless they string five wins in a row together, they've got a relegation battle on their hands. There's no doubt about that.
They've given the teams in the top half a big head-start and it's going to be really hard to close that gap. It sounds simple, but they need to start winning football matches and that comes from working hard, digging deep and perhaps putting some of the niceties of the game - the free-flowing football or whatever - on the back-burner.
This team has got to roll their sleeves up, put some good old fashioned hard-work in and do some of the ugly things in football that make great teams successful. Once you're down there it's really difficult to put together back-to-back wins to get out of the mire.
If they get into the top half of the table this season they'll have done incredibly well after the start they've had. The sad fact for Tottenham fans is the only way they are going to get into Europe this year is if they enter the Eurovision Song Contest.
Comments (56)
Alan Spencer (Tottenham Hotspur fan) says...
I don't believe Tottenham held out for an extra couple of million on the Berbatov situation. I Truly believe that Comolli thought that he could hold on to him and become a hero with the Spurs fans. By the time he and the club realised that wasn't going to happen it was too late. Levy should realise the Director of Football role doesn't work not unless he is responsible for simply signing the players the coach asks for!
Posted 12:39 19th October 2008
Alex Aleleh (Arsenal fan) says...
Spurs should stop comparing themselves to Arsenal. Arsenal are miles away. They should first try and beat the 2nd rate teams (5th - 9th) before thinking of top 4. Bentley should prove he is good and stop talking ill about his past at Arsenal. If spurs put their act together they can be good
Posted 11:00 19th October 2008
Reece Evans (Arsenal fan) says...
Look, evryone has got it all wrong, spurs are not far from a good team, infact their not that far from a great team, Arsenal is only a couple of miles down the road!!! as an arsenal fan, if we finished 4th and the spuds got relegated, i would take that rather than us finishing 2nd and spurs finishing mid-table. yes they might have beaten us 5v1, but it was the CARLING CUP, its not a big trophy
Posted 08:57 19th October 2008
Dominic Smith (Tottenham Hotspur fan) says...
I like to start off by saying Martin Jol did a brilliant job he took us from being a mid table side that were going no where to a side that finished 5th two seasons runnning. But at his first real sticky patch he was sacked, WHY? I dont blame Ramos at all. The board knew that Keane and Berba were going and they knew a rough estimate of what the price was going to be, so why didnt they just go out and get some top quality strikers, instead of waiting for the cheque to cash before they spent it. Meaning get a player that definately wasnt first choice. The person i blame for this is Damien Comolli. He has made some shocking signings and one of them being Bent - why spend 16 odd million on a player that had one good season. Comolli has always looked shifty in my eyes from when he first arrived. He knows nothing about football or if he does then he is just here to ruin us!!!! GET DAMIEN COMOLLI.
Posted 05:00 19th October 2008
Ashley Baker (Newcastle United fan) says...
Spurs only have themselves to blame. How can they sell their two best strikers and bring in a russian who has had no experience of the premier league? It's like one step forward and 3 or 4 steps back. All the work that Martin Jol had done has now been reversed by the spurs board and if they are not careful during the January window, they could be looking forward to playing the likes of Blackpool, Ipswich and Swansea in the Championship. It's a shame really with all the quality that Spurs have, however no team is too good to go down and I think that ramos should be looking at more realistic targets like mid-table rather than pushing the top four.
Posted 01:17 19th October 2008
Roger Holmes (Tottenham Hotspur fan) says...
Football is about statistics. The best managers will tell you that they study stats before they sign or release a player. For example, a keeper's stats may include penaltys saved, or crosses caught over a season. I bring this up because I believe nobody at spurs is interested in stats. Zokorra, Jenas, The Hudd and Modric do not have the ball winning, ball possession, or killer-pass stats to justify a place in a team with ambitions of going where Lampard, Gerard, Scholes, Fabregas are. Also, you cannot lose 60 goals, replace them with an apprentice(campbell), a fish-out-of-water(pavlyuchenko) and a ball-boy(dosSantos) and expect to do better that last years 11th. My point? Spurs are in dreamland. I wish this expectation would just go away, and i wish we could get back to what being a spurs fan is all about - not giving a sod who wins it as long as we are watching a Ginola, a Gazza, a Hoddle, a Klinsmann, a Villa etc etc. Bring back the 5-4's i say :-)
Posted 00:48 19th October 2008
Stefan Fernandez (Manchester United fan) says...
Is it me or do tottenham like to get rid of great fowards??? Just look at kanoute, defoe and mido an wat they hav done since tottenham. They should hav put more effort into keeping keane at the club, he is a world class striker an put his heart and soul into every match in a spurs shirt unlike a certain mercenary named berbatov. They get rid of this talent an replace it wit Pavlychenko, he may be good but he is not as good as either berbatov or keane let alone them together. Other problems come from the fact that a few of there new signings havent performed these being Modric and Bentley. Hopefully they can bring in some new talent and hav a injection of morale an turn this slump around, I think getting rid of Ramos now wouldn't help matters. I really hope they can turn this around i would hate to see a club as good as tottenham get relegated. You can do it spurs just keep your heads up!!!
Posted 00:26 19th October 2008
Chris Deal (Tottenham Hotspur fan) says...
I don't think the whole situation with King is helping he's in one game out the next I think it might of been wiser to Make Woodgate Captain, and the decision to make Jenas vice captain very bizarre there is no leadership once that whistle blows, And why does Ramos insist saving King for cup games when it's the bread and butter of the premiership we need him to be playing in. I'm sorry but there seems to be a bit of poetic justice here with us bottom whilst Martin Jol is taking the Bundesliga by storm. Mr Levy please do us all a favour get rid of Comolli, get Ramos the players he wants in January, if you can't do that then find a wealthy oil billionaire that can, I know it's selling the soul of the club but I just can't bear the thought of playing in the Championship next season and if we don't win tomorrow that's where I see us heading.
Posted 00:22 19th October 2008
Daniel Lomas (Tottenham Hotspur fan) says...
It's good to see people acknowledging Malbranques work last season, was one of our best players and should never have been sold. Would have formed a great left side with Bale. So many mistakes been made, Robbie Keane probably saw it coming... the influx of unproven, over rated, overpriced players... and got out of there. If the likes of Man Utd, Chelsea, and other top european sides aren't in for these so called top talents, why are we buying them and paying so much for them? Comolli needs to go. "...for some reason Tottenham seemed to think they should have been a top-four side. I don't know what gives them that idea because they've got to earn that right. All they've done is reverse the three years of work that Martin Jol had done and start all over again" This is sadly spot on. And I don't see it getting any better any time soon.
Posted 00:20 19th October 2008
Mark Baker (Tottenham Hotspur fan) says...
Nobody can disagree that Spurs have had a woeful start but what did anyone expect after the massive turnover of players in the summer? You can't change half your team and expect it all click into gear overnight. Ramos IS the right man and will turn it round given time. If anything he should be given more power at the club and Commoli should be removed. As for Jol, people are looking back with rose tinted hindsight. This time last year they won once in their first 10 games (against Derby!) and were leaking goals. The year before, they finished 5th despite not winning throughout January and February in the league! They also had Chelsea and Arseanl beaten in the two domestic cups before Jol's substitutions handed away the initiative and saw us lose in second games. As for the year before, they were 10 pts clear of Arsenal at one time before taking 6 pts from the last 6 games saw them overtaken on the last day. The team was tactically and physically ill-prepared for games. The handling of Jol's disnissal may have been harsh but the move itself was quite correct. By Xmas they will be sitting around mid table in the league having progressed in Europe and all this will be forgotten.
Posted 22:18 18th October 2008
Steve Curtis (Tottenham Hotspur fan) says...
On 20 February 2008 it was announced that Johan Cruyff would be the new technical director at his boyhood club AFC Ajax¿this would be his fourth stint at the Amsterdam club. However, Cruyff announced in March that he is pulling out of his planned return to Ajax because of "professional difference of opinion" between him and Ajax's new manager, Marco van Basten. Van Basten said that Cruyff's plans were "going too fast" The man to have is CRUYFF, dont wait till January, it will be far too late. You want Tottenham playing football again THEN GET CRUYFF IN NOW. I am that sick I dont watch sport on TV or read newspapers anymore.
Posted 22:14 18th October 2008
Nick Taylor (Arsenal fan) says...
Spurs problem is they think they are still a big club. Sorry but your not. You have to win summat better than the carling cup for that. Even Want to break in the top 4? Dream on. Getting rid of Berbatov was a good decision, getting rid of Defoe and Keane wasn't. How many managers have you had since Wenger has been in place? You won't go down though, you'll just throw some more money about to plug the gaps, then dream about how next year will be the one....again.
Posted 19:24 18th October 2008
Zane Osborne (Tottenham Hotspur fan) says...
As a Spurs fan, I am not happy where we are. For the club they are in a situation they cannot change, so they have to work with what they have, and in my opinion we have a good squad. Personally I think Spurs have made a mistake making Jenas captain, they need someone on that field who can control the game and the team and Jenas is not it. For me the problem lies with the leadership on the pitch. I have never been a Jenas fan, he is just not strong enough as a midfielder and we lose the game far to often from our weakness there. He should have a role just behind the strikers like Gerard. Our defence is much better than last season and our goalie much better than Robinson, just imagine our goal difference had he still been around. We will get better and I have faith that when Spurs get going they are going to do some damage and get revenge on all those losses we suffered so unjustifiably so far - Go Spurs - but sort out the captaincy, that's where we are losing the plot.
Posted 17:59 18th October 2008
Maxmillian Diah (Tottenham Hotspur fan) says...
No one should have been taken by surprise that this kind of start could have happened to Spurs. The Premiership is the best for a reason (all the teams are capable on any given day of winning). Spurs have done a great job of promoting the club as an upper echelon side but the fact is that they have been nothing but mediocre at best if one were to look at their body of work over the past ten years. As a fan I have fallen for the promos every year but when they got rid of their two best players this year I stopped drinking the "Kool Aid" and I am definitely not shocked by what has transpired thus far. Spurs wasted a king¿s ransom on Darren Bent, who by the way did nothing last year that would lead anyone to believe he could carry the team up front. Nonetheless I love Spurs but if they don¿t get their act together, much like the U.S. economy we are all going down.
Posted 16:11 18th October 2008
Niall Campbell (Dagenham & Redbridge fan) says...
Being a Spurs supporter of old, I remember back to 1979ish, when a gutless team were floundering and Keith Burkenshaw brought in Terry Yorath as an old war-horse to marshall the middle of the field. He wasn't a great flair player like we were used to, but he played with a passion and pride in the shirt that was infectious. He was 100% commitment and demanded it of everyone around him. He was a leader and, as good as Ledley is, he isn't on the pitch often enough to offer that kind of leadership.
Posted 16:05 18th October 2008
Arthur Blundell (Tottenham Hotspur fan) says...
Painful analysis but I am afraid spot on, every word of it. Yes Levy made a bad error of judgement in holding on to Berbatov for more cash. They also for some unknown reason sold Chimbonda and Malbranque, who were good players. Bentley and Modaric are both being played out of position and I just feel that we are going down.
Posted 15:50 18th October 2008
Dave Dribble (Blackburn Rovers fan) says...
As a Blackburn fan I have to say thank you for the ridiculous amount of money you paid us for Bentley, a bloke that can't pass the ball 5 yards, yes he's brilliant at 25 yard belters but what should be his bread and butter (passing, crossing, heading) are all poor. I dont understand why Spurs think they have any right at all to be a 'top 4' team, yes i know they won the Carling Cup but hey so did the Rovers! Any real top drawer footballers want to leave Spurs as soon as a big club comes calling, that should tell you everything about Spurs. They are a UEFA Cup standard team, 6th/7th in the league and a good cup run should be seen as success every year but for some reason the fans seem to think they deserve a top four spot! Look at the top fours squads and then i think even the most die hard Spurs fan would have to say that Martin Jol getting 5th twice was unbelievable. In football you reap what you sow and there's no better example of this than Spurs.
Posted 13:34 18th October 2008
Will Fay (Crystal Palace fan) says...
Jol was a brilliant manager, brought in Malbranque & Berbatov, the best players of last season, and got the best out of Lennon, Huddlestone and Keane!! Ramos has abused a massive amount of money on a bunch of players that are simply inaffective, Pavlyuchenko/Modric/Bentley cost somewhere in the vicinity of £50 million and have produced 2 assists between the lot of them!! He now has 2 of the best English young players (Lennon/Huddlestone) regularly warming their backsides on the bench!! Spurs problem is that they think they are better than they really are, this is only a problem when players are moving in and out of the club like dirty underwear, and at maqssive costs! For all Ramos can offer in bringing in big game players he cannot compete with Martin Jols superior man management skills! I hope Tottenham are relegated this season, teach John Bostock a lesson & his dad a lesson!!
Posted 13:08 18th October 2008
Tom Wilkin (Arsenal fan) says...
Have faith, Spurs - it's not as if you're going down. You have too much class in your squad and as a club. Yes, there have been mistakes made, but they cannot be undone now. Rally round your troops and make the best of what you have. Other than Arsenal, there isn't a club I want to see stay clear of strife more than you guys - long may the rivalry continue!
Posted 09:11 18th October 2008
Okon Effiong (Chelsea fan) says...
Agreed that nobody wants to keep an unhappy player who wants to leave a club, but how did the player become unhappy in the first place? Football goes beyond money-making or winning trophies. It also requires people-management. skills The club, manager and players need to sync for the fans to smell any success. Fans can vote with their season's ticket to teach the board, manager and players a few lessons. Greed trickles from the boardroom down to the playing pitch and only the fans who sacrifice their time and money can be absolved of this disease called greed. The Spurs fans need to show that they have the power, not the greedy lot in the board or dressing room.
Posted 08:44 18th October 2008
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