Entries Tagged 'Tottenham News' ↓

There seems to be this shared feeling sweeping around the internet at the moment, pervading the minds of spurs fans young and old. That Martin Jol, great manager and all-around-nice-guy, was “shafted” in the way he was treated by the board. That somehow, he was “owed” more.

Let this be the first and possibly last time I will ever defend Levy and the board. They owe him nothing. Tottenham Hotspur Football Club made Martin Jol an indecently rich man. They made him a household name. They put him in one of the top jobs in the country (even in light of our recent decline since our glorious heyday). Whatever the results of this season, they also cemented his reputation as a relatively decent head coach and ensured that he will remain employable even after the admittely poorly handled last two months before the axe fell.

Martin Jol claims to “love” Tottenham. So much so, that he claimed he would stand in the Paxton just like the rest of us if the sack came. So much so that, when it did come, he still claims he will be back as manager one day (”I’ll be back [at Spurs].  I still have that feeling that you never know in the future… I was thinking of Hitzfeld at Bayern”). See The Sunday Times, the Observer - in fact get hold of just about any newspaper.  We get it. I love Martin Jol, Martin Jol loves me. So why can’t he see that what he is doing now - sniping at the board, going after Ramos, shamelessly giving interviews all over the place, claiming that he would tear down the Emirates if he had the money (”I’d make a big parking place from the Emirates and make a new stadium for Spurs”), revealing embarrassing things told to him in confidence by Damien Comolli (“I wanted Elano, Distin, Petrov - Damien didn’t”) and Dimitar Berbatov (”Berba came to me after the first two defeats this season and said: “Boss I want to achieve something. I’m not worse than Eto’o or Rooney or Tevez”) - is simply destabilising at best and borderline treacherous at worst?

Martin Jol will go down in Spurs history as a thoroughly likeable chap who gave us some of our best moments in the last 20 years of Tottenham supporting. Maybe he does feel it is time to tell his side of the story.  But sooner or later, one hopes he realises that his current media onslaught, which he somewhat bizarrely claims is due to a gag being forced on his during his time on Spurs (”I’m the only one in the whole Premier League who never talked to a journalist”), is not characteristic of “love” - it is simply the deluded talk of a drunken, spurned lover. Under immense pressure, the soundbites became more and more vain, conceited (”nobody else got us 5th…”) and misguided (”…not even Mourinho could”) as his time at White Hart Lane ran out.  Now they are running thick and fast, and flipped right around - portraying himself as being a victim (”I was so lonely”), a helpless cog in Levy’s master plan.  If what he feels for us is still love, he should forget the craftily forged quotables, and concentrate on getting a new job - so that when the day should come when he rightly returns to the Lane with another team, he will get the welcome he so richly deserves - based on his achievements, not some Levy-baiting soundbite.

Good luck Martin, but I am sure I speak on behalf of many when I say - let the Juande Ramos era begin.  Perhaps it is just as well our new man prefers to let somebody else do his talking, for now.

I’ll write thoughts on the match once I can wipe the shit that is covering my eyes from sitting through that 90 minutes of utter dross. But Jol’s recent press quotes are really starting to piss me off,

“I feel we have had a pretty good spell (three successive draws), the only thing we needed was more wins. A win today and we would have been fine,” Jol said.

“We lack a bit of leadership (in defence). Someone has to stand and pull the strings at the back. Hopefully Ledley King will be fit in a couple of weeks. He was not there and wasn’t there for the last seven months so we have to get results without him.”

About the pressure on him, Jol told Setanta Sports 1: “I’m already used to it, even before the season started.

“The only thing that counts is results. We’re still in a good position in the cups and hopefully, on Thursday (in the UEFA Cup) we can get a result.”

Three successive draws are not good results. Lacking leadership in defense is the club’s fault for only having 1 alleged leader in Ledley (although I think he’s just our best defender rather than a leader) and choosing to buy young talent rather than experienced winners.

And we are not still in a ‘good’ bloody position in the cups. Passing the first round counts as good now? Well yes, I suppose it does.

Well, we did it. The last two seasons have ended up with our club looking stronger than it ever has been thanks to a surge in fortunes on the pitch, a respected, successful and secure management regime and a chairman and board ready and capable of making the right decisions for once - Spurs have posted record profits and revenues. Hang on a minute…

Levy said that breaking the 100 million mark was “largely driven by the club competing on four fronts, both domestically and in Europe.”

Now what would be the appropriate thanks to the manager who helped achieve that?

So the rumours hitting the street are that Jurgen Klinsmann has answered Daniel Levy’s ad in the classifieds to replace Martin Jol and finally expressed his interest in the job. On the one hand, Jurgen is an incredibly progressive coach who will introduce the latest techniques in training and fitness. On the other, he has done absolutely nothing on a club level and only managed to take a German national team to the semi-finals of the World Cup on home soil. A decent, if not particularly surprising result. But other than actual managerial experience, Klinsmann ticks all the right boxes. He showed the strength to pick unknown, form players for Germany in the face of public disapproval. He introduced training techniques that got him laughed at in the press, but ultimately proved innovative and decisive.

But at this point its moot. Levy and the board’s utter mishandling of the manager search earlier in the season has forced them to back Martin Jol publicly, far more than they would have wanted to, and are slave to results rather than availability of the right man. Only if Spurs are still struggling come Christmas, hardly an unlikely scenario given our upcoming fixtures, can Levy pull the trigger on Jol without massive backlash. Even if Jurgen is the right man and wants to come, the board will not have the balls to do anything now after all the bad press they’ve received for their treatment of Jol.

Yet that is the comparison Steve McClaren is making, adding to his ever growing list of quotes or actions that he eventually lives to regret the England boss claims to have the same faith in Tottenham’s hilarious stopper as he did in one of the greatest goalkeepers in Manchester United, and football, history.

I’m glad to see Robinson maintaining his place for England but, like making Keane captain, it is one of those things that appears to influence Martin Jol’s team selection and force him to pick a team based on some factors other than performance on the pitch. Keano hasn’t been playing great despite the goals and it does seem that Bent and Defoe would have had more chances had Keano not also been team captain. The same goes for Robinson, Jol has said before that being England’s #1 is important to Robinson and the club and if Robbo is suddenly dropped from Spurs’ eleven then how can he start for his country?

Although with McClaren comparing him to Peter Schmeichel, maybe it won’t be such a problem after all.

- Death;

- Taxes;

- Tottenham will choke whenever the game is on the line and all is required is a little keep-ball;

- Tottenham supporters will chant “England’s No.1″ when current porky incumbent even so much as controls a back pass successfully; and

- Chris Hughton will point a lot and look pretend-mystified when Spurs defence eventually crumbles like an oreo cookie under a steel toecap.

Both Peter Crouch, no doubt thinking fondly of the years he spent toiling away unappreciated in the Tottenham reserves, and Rafa Benitez have stepped forward to praise our fighting spirit against Aston Villa, and the overall work Martin Jol has done at Tottenham respectively.

Sounds more like their attempts to keep themselves grounded ahead of their match with use rather than any genuine admiration for what is happening at White Hart Lane this season. Though this is the kind of match where we’d pick up a point, just enough to keep the vultures from devouring our corpse but not enough to really do us any good. And after resting players, and resting during the match itself, against Famagusta the lads better come out swining.

I don’t know a single Spurs fan who hasn’t written off Ledley King in the short or long term. His return to match fitness keeps getting pushed out and every time he does come back he’s injured again after a couple of weeks. The club has always tried to pull the wool over our eyes (and perhaps the eyes of whoever might pay some money for the lad at this point) but Martin Jol seems to have written our captain off as well,

“I can’t rush him,” Jol said. “I can’t wait for Ledley all the time because I have other players to focus on.

“If he will be back, it will be a big bonus for us.”

“Can’t wait for Ledley all time time”? “If he will be back…”? The splurging of cash on Younes Kaboul was may have been to cover Ledley’s prolonged absences but its another area that our youth-only transfer policy is hurting us. Buying young talent is great, but when you buy youth you are also buying inexperience and errors - both of which we have seen from Kaboul already. He’ll take at least a season to adapt to defending in the Premier League and… well I guess that doesn’t matter since we’re pretty much screwed already.

The ever-reliable folks at the Daily Mail reckon that Sevilla boss Sergio Ramos has turned down a massive contract from us, leading the club to turn their attentions to Blackburn’s Mark Hughes.

Ignoring the merits of Jol and whether he should be out or not, Hughes would be a good appointment. He comes from the highest pedigree working with Sir Alex and clearly sees the game in equally simple terms - pass, move, get the ball to the wings and be organised and hardworking in defense. No fancy formations or confusing instructions, just win the ball back and get it to the people who can do damage.

Hughes also has a winners mentality, few would question his ability to make a tough decision or to inspire his team for the big game. Tottenham could use a bit more of that.

Speaking to the local florists, or whoever the Daily Mail are getting their sources from these days, Aston Villa midfielder Nigel Reo Coker confirmed some of the speculation from the summer,

“There were certain conversations, which could have ended up with me going to Spurs but in the end it didn’t happen for whatever reason,” said the 23-year-old midfielder.

“Another couple of players at our club, Ashley Young and Curtis Davies, were also linked with Spurs but, like me, ended up here and I believe we are all happy with our decisions.”

Well, we didn’t want them anyway! But in reality, this only confirms the fact that Spurs’ transfer policy involves buying whoever the hell might be available rather than scouting and acquiring the right players for the right position. Pure opportunism that generally results in inflated fees and a poorly balanced squad, sound familiar?