Lordnelson's Points of View

Why Spurs changing ambitions have made things a little easier to handle

LordNelson — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:12:00 GMT

The atmosphere and feeling amongst Spurs’ fans before and after Sunday’s Carling Cup Final could not have been in more contrast to last year’s corresponding fixture. The opposition were different - the bite and history of a heated rivalry conspicuous in its absence – but the trophy was the same. So, why the lack of enthusiasm and subsequent disappointment?

Of course, fans of the North London club wanted to win. A trophy is a trophy and to retain one is always satisfying, as is overcoming more illustrious and successful opponents. The fans, as always, were fantastic. However, compared to last year there was a noticeable lack of zeal.

Superficially, the situation at the club is very similar to that of last season. A poor start to the season, a sacked manager and a new appointment who has stirred a revival of sorts. Despite these similarities, the wider context reveals a clear difference in attitude and atmosphere at the club. Last year, there was a feeling that the side were on the up: a manager with a fantastic track record taking over a side that, in the two previous seasons, had enjoyed relative success. A squad of very good players, strengthened in the January transfer window, the annihilation of the old enemy and a team who looked fit, confident and full of quality. It felt like Tottenham deserved to be in the final and had every right to win it.

The reality of that optimism did not quite turn out as expected and this season the feeling is slightly different. The club has been on a stuttering downward course over the last year, recovered slightly with a new appointment, but with little improvement in performances and even less quality. The Carling Cup campaign itself was unconvincing and the final was against a side fielding a weakened team. The distance that Spurs have slipped was palpable, a reminder of what was and the course that the club have been on.

Perhaps winning last season dampened the enthusiasm somewhat and any excitement for UEFA cup qualification is understandably lacking after the disdain shown for it by the club this season. However, the apathetic reaction to defeat reveals the diminishment of ambition at the club.

It’s not all doom and gloom for Spurs: the performance was encouraging if not spectacular and the side was missing several key signings who will surely strengthen the side in their league endeavours.

For now Spurs need to consolidate their league position and ensure survival. For the future, Harry Redknapp needs to get that feeling back, the feeling that we have the right to challenge at the very top of the game.

For more Spurs comment and chat, check out the Tottenham Football Fancast:

You can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes here: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=207001846

Or download it directly here: http://podcasts.footballfancast.com/tottenham_fancast/

It's Just Not Fun Anymore

LordNelson — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:53:00 GMT

Last weekend’s North London Derby produced a rare thing in modern football – a rousing, end to end Steven Seagal-style action romp of a football match. There may have been no goals but it was furious, exciting and, most importantly, great entertainment.

Of course, there are still thrilling games in the Premier League (the previous meeting of Spurs and Arsenal being a prime example), but compared to past years there appears to be a noticeably scant amount of entertaining teams, players and matches. Certainly, if there are entertaining individuals then the top teams appear to have monopolised their services (Do Man Utd really need Berbatov, Rooney, Tevez and Ronaldo? Play fair guys).

Cast your mind back 10 or 15 years to a time when the Premier League was attempting it’s first kiddy steps, tottering towards world domination and ludicrous salaries. Cynics would suggest that it is easy to look upon this era through rose-tinted specs and coo about the thrilling yet ultimately naïve performances of the majority of the sides plying their trade at the time. True, the league has certainly wised up tactically and the influence of various and abundant foreign players and coaches have improved the technical reaches of the game, but at what cost?

When the Premier League began, games were captivating, not because of tactical prowess or fantastical technical displays but because of pure blood, guts and fire. Not only were games exciting, but nearly every side in the league, even the less fashionable ones, had at least one fascinating, unpredictable or down-right brilliant player. Players like Georgi Kinkladze, Paolo Di Canio, Stan Collymore, Benito Carbone, Matt Le Tissier, Dwight Yorke, Tony Yeboah, Juninho, Fabrizio Ravanelli, and Les Ferdinand all served clubs in the lower echelons of the table at one time or another and were all players who were worth watching. That’s not to say that these players were always magnificent, nor that they would make it into many of the teams today (tactical naivety again) but they were all players who, at times, did the unpredictable, the exciting and the mesmeric.

A question. Which of the current Premier League sides would you pay to watch? Bolton? Fulham? Sunderland? Newcastle? Stoke? Middlesbrough? Blackburn?... you get the idea. Indeed, out of those sides mentioned, how many have individuals that would excite you sufficiently to pay out your hard earned wages? Not many I’d imagine and this is indicative of the wholesale shift in ethos of English football.

We all know the cause: money. Too much cash has made teams more worried about not losing than winning; the stakes have become too high. Combine that fear of failure with the defensively-minded successes of messrs Mourinho and Benitez, and it’s easy to see why managers may err on the side of caution when selecting their teams.

So, we are left with this somewhat depressing credo: The cautious rather than the captivating; the industrious rather than the imaginative; the effective rather than the entertaining.

For more Spurs comment and chat, check out the Tottenham Football Fancast:

You can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes here: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=207001846

Or download it directly here: http://podcasts.footballfancast.com/tottenham_fancast/

A Bit Of What You Don’t Like...

LordNelson — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:10:00 GMT

A razor. A functioning alarm clock. Root canal surgery. A job.

There are some things in life which you’d rather not have either because of what they do or the hassle they cause you. This is part of life, sometimes you just have to have a bit of what ails you to make things easy or so you don’t end up as some sort of tardy social outcast with a huge beard, bad teeth and no money.

It would appear that Spurs have never quite got the hang of this concept. The club has a proud tradition of flair, creativity, panache and élan with some of British football’s most thrilling stars having peddled their wares in the N17 area. Thoughts of Greaves, Hoddle, Waddle and Ginola spill through the mind with enough tricks and magic to make Derren Brown look like, well, an annoying beardy con-man. Add to that the numerous circus players that Spurs have feted with lightning feet, step-overs galore but as much end product as a constipated anorexic.

What Tottenham haven’t got to grips with for a long while is that for all these diaphanous fancy Dans to be able to flit about like ballerinas, there has to be someone to do the unglamorous dirty work. It’s like a comedy duo; the straight man and the funny one, the former a foil for the latter. Every Zidane needs his Deschamps, every Lampard his Makelele, every Gerrard his Mascherano and every Modric his Zokora.

Ah, did you spot the odd one out?

This is Spurs perennial Achilles’ heel, an obsession with flair that is lop-sided and reductive. The bigger picture is ignored, the talented players are unable to flair up and the fans despair at the failure of yet another starlet who seemed so talented at their previous club. What could have changed?

Step forward Wilson Palacios. An abundance of drive, work-rate, strength, guts and passion which can act as a snowplough for the dainty skates of messrs Modric, Lennon and Bentley. ‘To let the opposition know they’ve been in a game’ – that was Harry Redknapp’s reason for bringing Palacios in and the Honduran can hopefully allow his team-mates to actually play in a game.

Palacios’ remit will be to inspire those around him, to bring out the fighting side of players who have shown little or no resolve during increasingly tough times for Spurs.

If he can do this and allow the genuine skill and creativity of the current crop of talent to flourish, Spurs will have no problem at all in surviving another season in the Premiership. After that, who knows what might happen? Spurs might even sign a decent left-winger…

For more Spurs comment and chat, check out the Tottenham Football Fancast:

You can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes here: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=207001846

Or download it directly here: http://podcasts.footballfancast.com/tottenham_fancast/

A thumb in the dam, or two fingers up to Levy?

LordNelson — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 10:14:00 GMT

This week, US citizens breathed a collective sigh of relief as George W. Bush finally took his finger off the button and relinquished his grasp on the White House front door key. Bush came into office in 2001, the same year that Spurs Chairman Daniel Levy took over at White Hart Lane and, for some supporters, his departure would be met by a similar level of rapture.

Levy’s reign has seen more than it’s fair share of turmoil with no less than 7 Managers, 2 Directors Of Football (DoF) and more than 200 million spent on players in that time. Players to have joined (and since left) the club in that time include Dimitar Berbatov, Robbie Keane, Michael Carrick, Fredi Kanoute and others, including Luka Modric, Jonathan Woodgate and Jermain Defoe remain at the club. This revolving door policy of staff and players is common in top flight football nowadays but Tottenham’s treatment of personnel has left them in a situation where stability is lacking and the side find themselves in real trouble in the Premier League.

Certainly, Levy must shoulder a large part of the responsibility for this debacle. His introduction of the Director of Football system to Spurs (recently dispensed with) has led the club to build a group of players current manager Harry Redknapp brandished a ‘mish-mash’. Furthermore, the fractured lines of communication between board, managers and players has been evident at the club for many years now, beginning with Glenn Hoddle’s frequent and notorious spats with David Pleat, continuing with Jacques Santini’s clashes with Frank Arnesen and culminating with Martin Jol and Juande Ramos’ incongruent working relationship with Damien Comolli.

The sheer amount of employees mentioned in those two roles gives an indication of the scale of the failure of Levy’s ‘continental’ system. Upon introducing the method to the club, the chairman announced that it would lead to greater stability and continuity for the club, the idea being that when a manager leaves, there would still be a senior member of the management staff remaining to keep the club’s objectives on track. This clearly hasn’t happened and the benefits of the system, at least to an outsider, seem very few and far between.

Despite these errors, Levy should not be held totally responsible. Three of the managers he has employed (Hoddle, Santini, and Ramos) have all been managers with extremely good track records who have clearly struggled with the DoF system. However, they have also all struggled to find consistent results and performances despite having large transfer budgets and talented players to work with. Of the three he has sacked, Hoddle is the most baffling, his firing coming only 6 games into the season after having spent £25 million the previous summer.

Dutchman Jol had 2 very strong seasons at Spurs, including two 5^th place finishes, but towards the end of his reign his Spurs side rarely turned in good performances and the capitulation to Getafe in his last game epitomised the regression that the team had suffered. Spurs fans were split on the sacking, but all were united at their disgust in the treatment of a manager who had brought them a level of relative success. Levy certainly appears to be better at hiring than firing.

In contrast to the sacking of Jol, very few fans complained at the acquisition of Juande Ramos; a manager with a superb track record of both winning and playing attractive football. Levy trusted the Spaniard with footballing decisions including his advice to sell Berbatov and coaching of the team. However, it is clear now that Ramos did not repay that faith, a poor run of results after the initial success of a Carling Cup win sealing his fate.

With the appointment of Harry Redknapp, Levy has attempted to steady a sinking ship. Initial results were very promising but the recent league form shown by Spurs and their near-capitulation in the Carling Cup semi-final against Championship side Burnley have brought the jitters back and the club know that they are in a relegation battle till the end of the season should things not improve drastically.

Levy has made some mistakes. His persistence with a misfiring DoF system has hampered the club for years, exacerbated by underperforming players and a profligate transfer system. Despite that, he appears to have learnt from his errors and has not been too proud to rectify them; just not always in the most tactful way.

Levy has had success. He has presided over the best two league finishes in the past 20 years, 2 Carling Cup finals (soon to be 3 and including one victory), a return to European football, the signings of some world class footballers which the club have made a huge profit on and also put the club on a fantastic financial footing. Indeed, Levy’s fine running of the White Hart Lane club’s finances has often been used as a stick with which to beat him, accused of being overly obsessed with money rather than success. Fans would do well to remember that it is virtually impossible to compete at the top end of English football without this stability and considering Spurs have never played in the UEFA Champions League, his proficiency in this area has been nothing short of brilliant.

Redknapp’s regime appears to be Levy’s last throw of the dice. Providing the club stay in the Premier League, should Levy leave then he will have left the club in a good position to be able to progress, despite the disappointment of the last year. His biggest crime, as evinced by his sacking of Jol, would appear to be over-ambition. In his eagerness to take the club into the upper echelons of British and European football Levy has over-reached, sacking managers too soon and signing players (on the advice of his staff) who were perhaps more fashionable than right for the club at the time. Despite those good intentions, it seems very unlikely that that will be enough for fans to remember his regime with any affection at all.

For more Spurs comment and chat, check out the Tottenham Football Fancast:

You can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes here: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=207001846

Or download it directly here: http://podcasts.footballfancast.com/tottenham_fancast/

Can Hang-dog Harry swing things with some New Year deals?

LordNelson — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:14:00 GMT

Harry Redknapp, or ‘Arry to his mates, has got his chance at the big time and found that perhaps he’s bitten off a big chunk of unchewable stuff. The latest victim for the White Hart Lane manager’s office (fully furnished and complete with revolving door) entered the job full of enthusiasm, vim and good ol’ cockney common sense. The opening games of the East Londoner’s regime were a fantastic turnaround, win after win dragging the side out of the drop zone to the dizzy heights of 16^th. Since that initial flourish, Spurs have endured a miserly Christmas that Scrooge would have seen as tight and had an underwhelming set of results which has seen their upward ascent halt faster than a home-made space rocket. Of course, the festive season is followed by the official Most Wonderful Time Of the Year™, the football transfer window. Harry professes that he ‘hates’ this month of rumours, haggling and sniping and his demeanour in press conferences has certainly changed from chipper to downright depressed.

With Sunday’s defeat at Wigan, Redknapp took his record as Tottenham Hotspur manager to 11 wins, 4 draws and 5 defeats in 20 games. Despite this strong record, Spurs sit at only 18^th in the Premier League, just two points off the bottom of the table. This, of course, is no fault of Redknapp’s, the disastrous early season tenure of his predecessor Juande Ramos left the club with only 2 points from 8 games with the very real prospect of relegation looming. With that in mind, Spurs turnaround has been nothing short of amazing.

When Redknapp joined, the squad he inherited consisted of, as he phrased it, ‘some good little footballers…but we need some men’. The likes of Luka Modric, David Bentley, Aaron Lennon, Gareth Bale and Vedran Corluka are all players with undoubted footballing ability – intelligent, creative, neat and tidy – but they were never going to put the fear into some of the more physical sides in the Premiership. Certainly, Modric versus Papa Bouba Diop in a 50/50 has a fairly predictable outcome; if Diop is the ‘Wardrobe’ then Modric could be seen as more of a pouffe. This is a problem that Redknapp addressed in his very first comments as Spurs manager, seeing the squad as ‘unbalanced’, an observation that presumably saw many Spurs fans letting out an audible sigh along with a “Finally, a manager who sees what we’ve been saying for years!”, a bit like if a girlfriend or wife were to suddenly say “You know what, I’m not sure this X Factor is really that good”. Despite Redknapp’s astute comments, that early run of results suggested that perhaps there was a lot of talent in the squad, an observation made by many on the outside of the North London club. However, it now appears that profitable period was buoyed, as is always the case, by the incoming of a new manager and now that initial boost has gone, the Tottenham side are left as lop-sided and toothless as ‘Arry had suggested.

With the signing of Jermain Defoe doing nothing more than adding to the White Hart Lane “League Of Incredible Midgets”, ‘Arry has turned his attention to midfield enforcers, left sided wingers and, in Brazilian boozer Adriano, a powerful striker to lead a forward-line clearly lacking in presence. With a little cash but few willing sellers, Spurs may have to settle for some shrewdly bargained loan deals or free transfers in order for Redknapp to put together something approaching a balanced squad. One thing is for certain, Harry is beginning to see the realisation of his own comments upon joining the club, the only difference being that the momentum of an incoming manager has gone and some impetus is needed.

For more Spurs comment and chat, check out the Tottenham Football Fancast:

You can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes here: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=207001846

Or download it directly here: http://podcasts.footballfancast.com/tottenham_fancast/

Return of the Messiah? Not quite, but sort of…

LordNelson — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:38:00 GMT

12 months ago, Tottenham fans were fortunate enough to have arguably the best strike partnership in the Premier League. Robbie Keane and Dimitar Berbatov provided 46 of the side’s goals last season, a number of assists and played some dazzling football along the way. In a role consisting of sporadic cameos, 16.5 million pound-man Darren Bent also chipped in with 8 goals with Jermaine Jenas and Steed Malbranque in similar supporting roles getting another 13 between them. Tottenham’s soon-to-be £50 million strike-force managed to help blast the team to a Carling Cup success and another season of European football.

Just outside this picture, Jermain Defoe found himself isolated from first-team football under both Dutchman Martin Jol and his successor, Juande Ramos. Despite a strong record for Spurs (43 goals in 139 games), the England international was unable to compete with the dynamic partnership formed between Berbatov and Keane, his poachers instinct no match for the guile, craft and footballing intelligence displayed on a weekly basis by the duo who, at times, almost single-handedly kept Spurs afloat. When Portsmouth came knocking with a sizeable bid and the offer of first team football, it didn’t take Nostradamus to predict what would happen.

At the time minimal fuss was made about Defoe’s departure. There was certainly an appreciation of what the diminutive forward had done for the club but it was accepted that he was now surplus to requirements, what with the greater quality the squad now appeared to have. The money was good, and Spurs fans were otherwise distracted with the useful acquisitions of defenders Jonathan Woodgate and Alan Hutton.

Fast forward a year, and the welcome home for Defoe upon his return to Spurs at Tuesday night’s Carling Cup semi-final first leg against Burnley was nothing short of reverential. Spurs have just experienced a Christmas so lean it could have been written by Dickens and the hunger for a goal-scorer was clear for all to see.

But what will Defoe bring to Spurs that they don’t have? Well, the North London club have definitely found a goal-scorer as the striker’s record will testify, but Darren Bent and Roman Pavlyuchenko are also not to be found wanting in that area. What Defoe does have is quick feet, a directness and a low centre of gravity that makes him much more nimble and lithe than his new team-mates. This will give Spurs a dimension they have lacked since the departure of their mercurial strike-pairing, a player who can quite happily have ball at feet and perhaps create a chance for himself, rather than rely solely on the service of others.

The acquisition of Defoe will also give Harry Redknapp the options he has so sorely missed since his arrival at the club. Bent, Pavlyuchenko and the Manchester United loanee Fraizer Campbell all sing from a very similar hymn-sheet and Redknapp has long-required an alternative to give his side a viable plan b in times of trouble. The likes of Luka Modric, David Bentley and Tom Huddlestone will also look forward to the opportunity of linking up with a player who can do more than merely chase hopeful balls over the top.

On the other side of the coin, many fans will not have forgotten Defoe’s ‘relaxed’ work-rate and his tendency to go through somewhat streaky patches of goalscoring form. Furthermore, the fee paid (which may require Vorderman-esque levels of mathematical skill to clarify) appears to be somewhat more than the club sold the player for a short time ago and may take funds away from other areas that also need urgent attention. This is perhaps indicative of Sky pundit Andy Gray’s recent observation that “it’s a good time to be an average centre forward”, which certainly make sense when considering the fees paid for both Keane and Berbatov by the club in recent years.

Defoe will certainly want to prove a point. His record at Portsmouth was impressive, but he missed out on the club’s F.A. Cup success and the disappointment of that experience could have only been compounded by his former club’s success in English football’s other cup competition. However, with Spurs comfortable victory against Burnley in the first leg of this year’s Carling Cup semi-final, it looks likely that Defoe will have a chance to impress at Wembley this season. Add that to the fact that he was seen as dispensable only a year ago, and the 26 year-old will surely want to firmly cement himself in Tottenham folklore alongside two of the most famous recent striking greats to have returned to White Hart Lane for a second spell - Teddy Sheringham and Jurgen Klinsmann.

Defoe’s arrival will not allay the ghosts of Keane and Berbatov, but he will provide an excellent goal-scoring option to a limited strike-force that has struggled to find the back of the net recently. Given service and support, Defoe can make sure his second spell at Spurs can be much more fruitful, and long-lasting.