Over the past months, Tottenham Hotspurs has turned into a complete joke. Heavy defeats to teams who are supposedly our equals, scrappy narrow victories over teams who’re supposedly nowhere near polishing our shoes. Seven players signed, not a single one of who has as far improved the squad. The sacking of the man who was meant to lead us into the future. Now we find ourselves without a manager, a squad with zero confidence, on the back of two poor defeats and being completely tactically defeated by Sam Allardyce. And when you put it all into perspective, this has been coming for a while.
Today I was thinking of recent managers of ours, Juande Ramos, Martin Jol, Jacques Santini and Andre Villas Boas amongst, yet who was the man who we were most successful under? Undeniably, Harry Redknapp. When Harry took over, we were in a far worse state than now. Ramos had been sacked after accumulating only two points from the first eight games of the season, leaving us bottom of the league and looking certain to be going down. Redknapp came in from Portsmouth with a big reputation after leading the small club all the way to Wembley and winning the F.A Cup, with his man management being revered by many.
Redknapp turned our side around, going back to the basics and turned us from a laughing stock to one of the best counter-attacking sides in Europe. He signed five players that January, no big name foreign players, but tried and tested players plying their trade in the Premier League, Defoe returned to the lane, as did Robbie Keane. Wilson Palacios was another who came from Wigan, Cuidinci from Chelsea and finally Chimbonda came back from Sunderland. We finished that season 8th in the league. In thirty games, we accumulated forty nine points, not by adding a revolutionary game plan, not forcing players to play a dedicated ‘Redknapp style’, by simply playing football and showing belief in the side.
The following season we finished 4th, therefore was able to play in the Champions League the following season, undoubtedly the biggest and most important club competition in the world. The following season, still under Redknapp, we finished 4th again, but failed to secure Champions league football due to Chelsea winning the competition, therefore where required to occupy the 4th slot allocated to Premier league sides.
Redknapp then subsequently left the club. I’m not going into the full details, as for one it isn’t confirmed the reasons for his contract being termination, but I’m sure if Chelsea had lost to Bayern Munich on that night, Redknapp could well still be our manager.
Ever since the Redknapp era, AVB came in and was in just his first season given three huge tasks. First, to revolutionise the structure of the club and our tactics to introduce us to 21st century football. Secondly, to replace three key players to the team and the fans, catalyst and magician to our side, Luka Modric who’d joined Real Madrid, Fan favourite and superstar Rafael Van Der Vaart and one-club, one-kneed captain, Ledley King. Thirdly, to secure a Champions League spot as this had become the base expectation of us.
Sometime I wonder if our own expectations, as Spurs fans, are getting the better of us. We had two magnificent seasons under Harry Redknapp, who let’s face it, overperfomed on the biggest stage in the world, with players like Peter Crouch and Roman Pavlyuchenko looking incredible against a side like Inter Milan. How is it possible, when you compare our squad back then, against the squad now, how we can struggle to get back into the top four? Are the teams around us better? Yes. But importantly, back then we had personality and character in the side.
We lost 5-0 at home to Liverpool on Sunday and it isn’t the first time Liverpool has shown us up this season. In the summer, Luis Suarez was quoted as saying that he no longer wanted to play for Liverpool, meanwhile Gareth Bale had insisted he was happy at Tottenham. So, Mr. Daniel Levy, why was the only Welshman on the pitch on Sunday Joe ‘Bloody’ Allen? Why was Liverpool able to keep Luis Suarez, who has gone on to score 17 goals this season? Even if Gareth Bale tried to push his way out, he had a contract. Hold him to it, I can guarantee at this stage he would’ve done more for our side than Paulinho, Chiriches, Chadli, Eriksen, Soldado, Lamela or Capoue.
Yes, we’ve always been a selling club. Dimitar Berbatov, everybody loved him at the club, despite arriving for over £10 Million, we hardly knew of him, but he soon changed that, winning the Player of the season award and taking his place in the ‘PFA Premier League Team of the Year’ squad. So obviously we sold him. But it’s okay! We made £20 Million profit. Luka Modric, deep lying playmaker who drove the team under Redknapp, slightly goal shy, but was and still is one of the cleverest players in the modern game. So we sold him. Last season, Gareth Bale blitzed the Premier league, especially the second half of the season, finishing the season with over 20 goals in the league alone. Blistering pace, powerful, with a left foot which is out of this world. So we sold him. If we’re constantly selling our best players, we aren’t going to evolve and move upwards.
Now sure, Bale brought £85 Million into the club which allowed us to buy so many new players, but we sold others. If you take the sales of Tom Huddlestone, Scott Parker and Clint Dempsey which would be around £22 Million, from which we still could’ve signed Capoue, Chadli and Chiriches. Then with other money within the club, I’m sure we could’ve ‘squeezed’ out a further £12 Million for Eriksen, or £15 Million for Paulinho.
The finger has now started to be pointed at Daniel Levy, suggestions coming that he’s to quick point the blame away from himself and alienate the current manager. Maybe this is true, but there are far worse chairman out there. Don’t forget, it was Levy who made the decision to fire Ramos and bring in Redknapp, without that decision we could very well be playing the likes of Burnley and Watford this season, rather than targeting Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.
We must concentrate on our next step now. Our next manager is so crucial to our club long term, if the wrong decision is made, we could so easily slip back into mid-table mediocrity, whilst a strong positive decision, could see us go all the way.
COYS!
Source: DSG
