Next Spurs manager mega-thread

[Armchair Expert]

Who performed better this season, Redknapp or AVB? It's not a hard question is it?

And I'd give AVB rope for sure. In recent times I was glad to see the back of George Graham (style of play more than performances) and David Pleat (because I genuinely believe he undermined both Graham and Hoddle and reaped what he sowed). I wasn't glad to see the back of anyone else. Not even Ramos, who perplexed me and who I do think lost the plot.

I'm a great believer in giving Manager's time. I am a great believer in not getting on the back of a Manager in a rough form patch ESPECIALLY if the Manager has had us playing well in the past. We are all so keen to back the team when it's winning and far too keen to jump on them when they're not. If a Manager underachieves for 18 months straight (and by under achieve I mean at least a couple of levels below what the squad is capable of) then I'll join the chorus of wanting them to go if there are no circumstances beyond the Manager's control, e.g. injuries to key players.

I'm grateful for Redknapp. Worst case scenario now is that we'll finish 6th. So in his tenure

First Season - 8th (after 2pts from 8 games) with a pts per game ratio that would have been good enough for 6th (and only 1pt behind 5th).
Second Season - 4th
Third Season - 5th
Fourth Season - 4th to 6th.

That makes him our most consistant manager since Bill Nick. However it ends, no one can say Redknapp was a failure at Spurs. We were down in the dumps for over a decade. Jol dragged us out of it and under him we started to get some self respect. Under Redknapp we got that self respect back completely and for a period of time people were waxing lyrical about our performances and style of play. And yet people turn on him so easily after a run of 15 or so bad results? It's a fudging disgrace. They'll take the glory but won't support the team during any downswings? Pathetic plastic fans at their worst.

Erm actually those finishes show no prgress, and actually if we do finish 6th this year, a gradual decline - inverse to an improving squad (up until January).

It's getting to the point where posters are ignoring each others points as the two camps of thought appear set in stone.

I think Redknapp needs to be judged on what he has produced with the resources available to him; opposition squads are weaker (Man Utd, Arsenal etc) than at almost any other time in the premier league - and we are stronger. Our previous finishing positions are irrelevant. If we sell Modric, Bale, lose Adebayor and replace them with Andy Booth, Toda and Andy Sinton (or their modern equivlents) will it be fair to judge the new guy in comparisin to REdknapps last season? Of course not.

Moonlit/Mick - do you think were in our 'lofty position' due to Redknapp? And do you think the team has performed to a level greater than the sum of its parts?

 

[Armchair Expert]

Chancer - I think Redknapp was criticised for Stevenage away ashe felt the need to alter our own formation to counter the 'massive aerial threat' posed by the 3rd division lot. The majority of us felt we should be good enough to take the game to them.

 

[tm1210]

I get up at the crack of dawn every morning hoping on an announcement from the FA these days. They're taking the tinkle now.

 

[DubaiSpur]

chancer,

1)> Every time Harry rotates out a player he is slaughtered for not playing the best team. Stevenage away and last week's QPR game just 2 examples.

Someone's already addressed Stevenage, and as for the QPR game, I remember Lennon. Just Lennon, no one else rested from our strongest side. If he was slaughtered for benching Lennon, it's because nine games into a slump is not the time to start belatedly trying to employ a minimal version of rotation. The beginning and middle of the season is when you need to rotate players around, and I don't recall him doing very much of that then. As for getting slaughtered for doing so, it's only when we lose. 'Rotation' involves switching the squad around without drastically affecting performance, and when harry tries it, he tends to change the entire formation to accomodate the missing men, which doesn't help our on-pitch performance at all. Effective rotation should see us being able to win or at least put in mostly unchanged performances from week to week; see Swansea for an example.

2) I still don't know what the board consensus here is on formation: some swear by 442, some 451, some 433...and yet there's supposedly some obvious golden formation Harry can't plainly see. Find consensus here before hammering Harry for this.


I wasn't referring to the formation at all. As far as I'm concerned, there are multiple effective formations that can be used, depending on the opposition. No, I'm talking about practised moves; set, rehearsed movements that focus on specific phases of play, and are drilled into the players to the point where it's natural for them to fall back on those rehearsed movements and tactics when the 'just go out there and play' tactic isn't working. See Barca's bait and switch with Messi dropping deep and runners from midfield pushing up as examples; they use it endlessly, and there's videos of them rehearsing it in training. Do we have such moves designed to break down crowded opposition penalty areas? Nope. Nilch. Nada. Hence our recent struggles, as players don't really know what to do when the opposition stifles their play.

3)> Several other teams this season have dreadful set-piece records...I actually think Manyoo's corner goal rate is really low.

Did you see Rooney's goal against us at the Lane? you had players running diagonally to draw defenders away, players running parallel to confuse the covering players near the spot, and a player blocking friedel to ensure his non-interference. As a result, the ball dipped right into the center of the area onto Rooney's lumpy head. He didn't even have to jump to nod it in, just stoop. Now how is it that our corners fail to clear the man 99.995 percent of the time, while United's that day fell to one of their shortest players? Plus, on the 'Set-Piece Shooting Specialist' thread, or somewhere similar, I believe someone embedded a table that shows that United are the second top scorers from set-pieces in the PL, so that doesn't really hold water.

4) You cannot possibly know that's true.

I can extrapolate from the pictures of grinning coaches, the lack of training supplied to our lads (as evidenced by their poor set-pieces/finishing/defending (mark as appropriate, we've gone through periods of all three this season), the fact that both Kevin Bond and Joe Jordan failed as coaches, the fact that none of our current crop of first-team coaches are specialists in their field, unlike at Arsenal, United and Chelsea...so if they're that bad at their jobs, what exactly are they there for if not to grin and nod their heads when Harry makes a quip?

5)None of us had heard of Cisse before last week, Ben Arfa is not yet proven as a consistent long term, he's had discipline problems, was let go by a big club and has missed a lot of games, Suarez is a **** and I don't want him, and Sessegnon isn't exactly an obvious, no-brainer purchase - more obvious than Pienaar? I don't think so. I also look at out squad and ask whether those players are better than what we have. Maybe, but it's not certain. And BTW, if you'd mentioned any of those players before 2 months ago and people here would have snoozed right past their names

I chose all those players because all of them were mentioned by Harry as being players he or the scouting team looked at at various times. But Harry always turned down the chance to sign them, for varying reasons. Suarez because he wasn't sure if he could play on his own up top. He subsequently did, to great effect. Cisse, because he thought he was no better than Pav or Defoe. Well, this is the man spearheading a Saudi Sportswashing Machine side who are above us atm, and a man who has forced Demba Ba out wide. Ben Arfa and Sessegnon because he didn't want too many players hanging around, which is downright ridiculous considering VdV's constant injuries, the need for cover/competition on the wings and the subsequent signings of Saha and Nelsen. As for whether they're better than what we have, Saha vs Cisse, Pav (last season) vs Suarez, VdV vs Sessegnon and Kranjcar vs Ben Arfa. Out of all those, the only one I'd tag as better than their non-Spurs counterpart is VdV.

6) You can't judge him on what he said to that donkey Pav. "Running around" is all the stupid cun* would have understood! Over the last 2 or 3 seasons Harry has made good substitutions, sent out good formations and has won loads of games. Not in the last 6 or 8 games, but there it is.

-What about all the games we slumped through at the tail end of last season? And as for the last six or eight games, it started with Arsenal, so that'll be nine, which nearly a fourth of the season. A fourth of the season spent standing helplessly as opposition managers out-think and out maneuever him (See Lambert, Hughes, and just about anybody else who's shut us out recently and at the back end of last season). Plus, his tactics really are 'fudging run around a bit', according to VdV. He lets his teams go out and just play, with no worries. Which is fine when you're winning, but when you're losing, it's disastrous.

7)> He's in a fudging impossible situation here. Distance himself from the job and then take it, and people here will be calling him Judas II. Say he's going to take it, and risk turning off the players. I don't know what he's supposed to do.


Focus on his job. Which he evidently isn't doing, judging by our recent disasters. He can blab to the press about what an honour it would be all he likes, as long as he himself is concentrated on the Spurs job. But at the moment, he evidently isn't.

8)> That's a purely subjective view of it, and I don't particularly agree with it.

You have the right to disagree, and I respect your opinion. Myself, I consider his '2 points from 8 games', and 'they've never had it so good' spiel to be self-aggrandizement, as is taking the credit for Bale's emergence when he was preparing to loan him to Nottingham Forest the day before BAE got injured and ridiculing the fans and the club for pointing out his many deficiencies.

9)> Maybe.

Why is there doubt? Did he learn anything from last year? Judging by present form, evidently not.

 

[1882]

the 'playing the best team' argument is subjective anyway... Harry's best team, is probably not the same as many of ours... we all know the core 6-7 players we'd have in the team, but surely, it's the managers job to make sure we have a BEST SQUAD of anything up to 15-18 players... whereby ANY 11 chosen IS the strongest! That way, whoever gets picked, will fit in seamlessly with whatever system the manager chooses, and the (love the) way we play!

 

[bookhouseboy]

I'd like to point out that people aren't turning on Redknapp because he looks like finishing in the top six.
They're turning on him because, for so much of the last two seasons, they've seen what the team can really do when they turn it on, only to then suddenly fall away pathetically. Why?

[...]

If we do, he can leave with the respectful send-off he deserves.
If we don't, his legacy will be the eventual disassembling of the most talented squad we've had in the Premier League era. Simple as that.

#1029

Great post - all of it.

 

[mick cooper]

Dubai and armchair expert.

You really are a pair of condescending buggers at times.

You seem to be labouring under the opinion that I (MK can do his own talking, as I'm sure you have noticed) seem to think that the position that we are now in is something that I find perfectly acceptable or am happy with. Just what planet are you two from? You make your self satisfied posts about all that is wrong in Harry world, as if you are telling the world about the kings new clothes, and only gifted tactical geniuses of your stature can see it.

I for one have never tried to make out that Harry Redknapp is the new messiah in world football, but neither have I tried to point him out to be the latest pariah. You smartalecs trot out your reams of reasons, because you are doing from your narrow field viewpoint of trying to compile lists of everything that you perceive to be wrong. All this, because of your limited understanding of what it takes to elevate and maintain a large unit of professional footballers to the top end of the EPL and then guide and control the expectations of a boards of managers, backroom staff, histrionic and deluded half wit millionaires whose only gift is ball control. Add to that the small issue of hundreds of thousands of self opinionated ****s who all know how to do your job better than you do - because they played for their school second team 30 years ago.

You both signally fail to recognise that you are just as qualified to bang on about how to manage and run Tottenham Hotspur football club as you are to carry out a neurological procedure on someone with brain cancer, on the basis that you have seen every episode of Greys anatomy.

Perhaps if you stopped feeling so satisfied with yourselves, and actually sat back and recognised just how ignorant you really, genuinely and truthfully are, you might actually start to accumulate sufficient humility to wind your neck in a bit.

You neither of you understand what it takes to manage a club at that level, the interaction and dependancies between manager and the board, the training, fitness or nutritional regimes, coaching requirements, tactical appraisals, or man management requirements necessary, but yet you feel that its OK for you to slag the guy off - in the way that so many of you know alls do. And then you get on your high horse when Harry gets the arseholes when he has to listen to a bunch of similar minded rocket scientists ripping his achievements to bits on a radio phone in.

We all want THFC to win the league, we all want us to be top 2 every season, with cups falling out of the cabinet. Just because we have lived through years of mediocrity doesn't mean that its where our horizons lie, its just that experience tells you what to reasonably expect, and humility tells you that its not a bad thing to be grateful for what you have been served up, given the crap you have had to consume for so many years.

Most of all, and this is the bit that you seem to be unable to grasp - because if you did, you would stop trying to justify your tiresome condemnations of the man, is that you are slating him as if he was satan in a managers suit, that he HAS ACTUALLY been the best manager we have had - FOR DECADES! Yet you people talk about him as if he was just some lucky futwit who happened to come across a discarded lottery winning ticket.

Before you start your next tirade, imagine yourself in harrys shoes, reading the scorn that you tiresomely spew out on a constant basis, and think how you would feel, if your achievements were dismissed in a similar condescending manner, and equate that to your current position professionally.

Finally, and don't bother telling me - try to define the word supporter and think what you would want in the way of support for yourself, your job and the company you represent - and the people who depend on that company, and the role you play in it.

Then convince yourself that the crap you come out with actually is support.

 

[indianspur]

MK - thanks, for fighting that particular battle, as it is a thought process along the lines that I have covered before. Particularly heartwarming was the way that the 2 you were dealing with had not one line of argument that made any sense, was backed up by anything tangible and made the pair of them look like schoolboys arguing with a teacher.

A good read, as they say.

you hater you.......

:lol:

 

[DubaiSpur]

Right. No, you're right mate. We're all ignorant simpletons who have no ability to analyze anything that happens on a football pitch, or offer our own opinions about it. How dare we attempt to analyse why things have gone so wrong over the last couple of seasons post-February. how dare we.

On the same note, how dare we criticise our governments when they implement policies we disagree with? Obviously they've got decades of experience, while we men of the common herd have none, so obviously they must know what they're doing, let's leave them at it. Splendid idea.

Yes, Harry is more qualified to run the football club than 99.99 percent of us are. But that doesn't mean we can't point out why there are better men for the job. Am I advocating myself for the post? No, at least I hope not. But I can see that there's more to running a football club than what's apparently going on at Spurs, in terms of training and coaching. The players themselves have confirmed as much. Is it wrong to want people who can evidently do a better job than Harry can? Because, while I or someone of my low stature in the football world might not be qualified, there are plenty of managers out there who are, who do things with their squads that draw admiration, and that would arguably do a better job than Harry could. Rene Girard, for example, is leading a distinctly unglamorous unit of players at Montpellier to CL qualification at the very least, and very possibly the Ligue Un title. With players of far lower quality than the ones at Spurs, and up against opponents in Lyon, Marseille, PSG, Lille et al who are far ahead of Montpellier in terms of stature, finances and squads. Yet there Girard is, and, in the meantime, here we are, in fifth, behind Saudi Sportswashing Machine, having thrown away the mother of all leads.

He's the best manager we've had for decades, true. But that shows the level of manager we've had as opposed to the job he's doing, imo.And If your logic held true in every case, every match would be a wall of support for ninety minutes. Because who are we to criticize players who can pass the ball so much better than we can, or a chairman who can manage a club so much better than we can, or a manager who can manage so much better than we can? Yet you see Genoa ultras demanding that the players turn over their shirts due to poor perfomances, Blackburn fans protesting against the chairman and the board, and Aston Villa fans demanding McLeish's resignation. Because in the end, no one can be a machine of constant, unrequitted support. There will come a time when you will feel that someone's doing something wrong with the club you love, and you want them to either start doing it right or fudge off and let someone else do it right. That's you being human.

I am a Spurs supporter. What do I mean by that? I mean that I'll support the man or men in charge, and the men on the pitch, for as long as I see honest effort, commitment and a willingness to learn from past mistakes and not repeat them. Same goes for my job- as long as I show an honest commitment to my work, and a willingness to learn from past mistakes, I expect loyalty from the company I represent in return.

The reverse is also true. When the team stop caring, I stop caring. About the players, not the club. The club is something none of us, not you, not Armchair Expert, not moonlit Knight...the club is something none of us can ever truly stop supporting. But when the players don't care, should the fans themselves continue giving them unrequited support? Same thing goes for my job; if I'm uncommitted or lazy, I expect to lose it. Same thing goes for the manager. When the manager doesn't care, when he seems like he wants out, when he keeps making mistakes that his peers (note; his peers, not us simpletons) don't make, game after game after game...when he has the most promising squad in ages at his disposal and and a supportive media who will never criticize him...when he does that, does he truly deserve your utter blind faith that he'll make things right?

It's academic, in any case; he's off to England, in all probability, and good luck to him. But just because he's one of our better managers does not make him immune to all criticism by us bozos in replica shirts. We may be drooling macarons, but at least we try to find reasons why our season's derailing ,as opposed to calmly gaze off into space because we can't possibly know the inner workings of the almightily complicated football machine that is Tottenham Hotspur.

And, as an aside, I know you're ill, mick, but I can't help but feel that, for all your bluster about us being condescending bastards, you're proving to be an enormously condescending bugger yourself. I won't say more, because of the 'take the ball, not the man' thing, but that's just a feeling I have.As for accepting mediocrity, what is it but accepting mediocrity when you're happy with a manager who's seen his team throw away a 13 point lead over his arch-rivals and stumble into fifth, just because he was slightly better at his job than the last five-odd blokes? You'd like to see us win trophies as much as I would, I'm sure .But I see these sorts of things as failures which we, as a non oil-rich, non mega stadium-owning club, cannot afford to make, whereas you, who's probably supported the club far longer than I have, see them as...well, acceptable, ultimately.

 

[ArcspacE]

He's the best manager we've had for decades, true. But that shows the level of manager we've had as opposed to the job he's doing, imo.And If your logic held true in every case, every match would be a wall of support for ninety minutes. Because who are we to criticize players who can pass the ball so much better than we can, or a chairman who can manage a club so much better than we can, or a manager who can manage so much better than we can? Yet you see Genoa ultras demanding that the players turn over their shirts due to poor perfomances, Blackburn fans protesting against the chairman and the board, and Aston Villa fans demanding McLeish's resignation. Because in the end, no one can be a machine of constant, unrequitted support. There will come a time when you will feel that someone's doing something wrong with the club you love, and you want them to either start doing it right or fudge off and let someone else do it right. That's you being human.

I am a Spurs supporter. What do I mean by that? I mean that I'll support the man or men in charge, and the men on the pitch, for as long as I see honest effort, commitment and a willingness to learn from past mistakes and not repeat them. Same goes for my job- as long as I show an honest commitment to my work, and a willingness to learn from past mistakes, I expect loyalty from the company I represent in return.

=D>

 

[indianspur]

AVB's handling of Lampard doesnt look so clever right now.....Lampard was excellent against us, dominated Modric and Parker, scored that outrageous free kick, and again last night he was immense and that ball to Ramires was sublime

there is still some life in the old dog yet. AVB should have kept him onside, played him more, and then this coming summer he should have made a decision whether to get rid or not.

 

[mick cooper]

And, as an aside, I know you're ill, mick, but I can't help but feel that, for all your bluster about us being condescending bastards, you're proving to be an enormously condescending bugger yourself. I won't say more, because of the 'take the ball, not the man' thing, but that's just a feeling I have.As for accepting mediocrity, what is it but accepting mediocrity when you're happy with a manager who's seen his team throw away a 13 point lead over his arch-rivals and stumble into fifth, just because he was slightly better at his job than the last five-odd blokes? You'd like to see us win trophies as much as I would, I'm sure .But I see these sorts of things as failures which we, as a non oil-rich, non mega stadium-owning club, cannot afford to make, whereas you, who's probably supported the club far longer than I have, see them as...well, acceptable, ultimately.

Lets get one thing straight, I'm not as ill as was feared, as any serious issues (lymphoma, lung cancer etc) have been ruled out, and I have never exhibited any symptoms of illness, save that of having enlarged lymph nodes picked up on a CT scan. So take it off the table, I'm neither simple, nor are my faculties impaired.

You have completely ignored one of the simplest points I made, and have spelled out quite clearly on several occasions. Lets do it again though.

I AM NOT SATISFIED WITH MEDIOCRITY
I AM DISTINCTLY UNHAPPY WITH THE RECENT FORM - AS IT MEANS THAT WE ARE NO LONGER CHALLENGING FOR WINNING THE LEAGUE
WHICH I WANT TOTTENHAM TO DO EVERY SEASON

THERE IS NOTHING ACCEPTABLE ABOUT THIS SLIDE AT ALL, ITS HEART RENDING.

and lets clear up a few more points
Harry has been better than all Spurs managers back to and including Bill Nicholson on points gained.
Harry is a danger to himself, because he is too open and speaks his mind too frequently for his own good
Harry has been more loyal to the club, than the club has been to every manager back to Venables.

The difference between us, as I said before as a general statement, is that (probably because of years of experience) I can take the disappointment without needing to lash out at anyone and want to see heads roll - because I am tinkled off because nasty people are making jokes at my, or my clubs expense.
The difference is that I don't need to take my minimal knowledge and try to inflate it to pruduce a dissertation on why Harry Redknapp is a bell end of weapons grade proportions, to show how smart I am.
furthermore, I have better things to do than to foment or breed all of this anguish and cat calling, BECAUSE ITS FECKIN' TIRESOME.

Tell me, just what does it all achieve?

It seems to me that all we have is a bunch of hysterical and, frankly, immature posters starting thread after thread justifying the public sacrifice of Harry Redknapp, and the subsequent condemnation of everything he has achieved, and an apparent desire to see everyone who fails to join in with the cries for blood a heretic.

All I see are the substandard forum contributors, the constant whiners and critics rubbing their hands with glee at all of this as the collective madness rises and the calls for death to the unbelievers to mount. Gutterboy and wriggly must be beating their knobs to pulp over all of this.

and fans of other clubs look in, through this window into the minds of Spurs fans and must tinkle themselves laughing.

You may be more articulate about the way you throw petrol onto the flames, but you still look like one of the mob, and behave like one too.

 

[indianspur]

Harry has been better than all Spurs managers back to and including Bill Nicholson on points gained.
Harry is a danger to himself, because he is too open and speaks his mind too frequently for his own good
Harry has been more loyal to the club, than the club has been to every manager back to Venables.

do you think Levy has also been loyal, especially regarding Redknapp's continued tax saga which had been hanging over Redknapp and the club for the majority of the 3 and a half years he has been here?

Also, hasnt Levy been loyal to Redknapp all the while the media and England fans have been clamouring for his appointment, not just since Capello resigned, but for a long while before that, because Redknapp has always been considered the heir to the throne and he himself has done nothing to dampen the excitement. It cant be easy for a club chairman to plan for the future when his manager is most likely to leave at some point in the near future.

 

[mick cooper]

do you think Levy has also been loyal, especially regarding Redknapp's continued tax saga which had been hanging over Redknapp and the club for the majority of the 3 and a half years he has been here?

Also, hasnt Levy been loyal to Redknapp all the while the media and England fans have been clamouring for his appointment, not just since Capello resigned, but for a long while before that, because Redknapp has always been considered the heir to the throne and he himself has done nothing to dampen the excitement. It cant be easy for a club chairman to plan for the future when his manager is most likely to leave at some point in the near future.

do you want me to go and get that point you missed completely, or do you want another chance to work it out for yourself?

 

[indianspur]

do you want me to go and get that point you missed completely, or do you want another chance to work it out for yourself?

id rather you did it....concisely please. We are not all as clever as you

 

[DubaiSpur]

I never meant to imply you were simple in any way, mick. My bringing up your illness (which I'm genuinely glad to hear wasn't an actual one) was a justification for not going further with my 'condescending bugger' line, since I generally can't find it in me to insult ill people, as they've got enough to worry about.

But I do find this idea of yours strange, to say the least. You're disappointed, like all of us, and you hate us going into these tailspin slides, like all of us, but you're not willing to blame anyone at all for it? So how exactly would you react if this kept happening? Keep insisting that the disappointment alone is enough, and no action needs to be taken to avert more in the future? Because at some point, something will go right, someone will figure out what they need to do in the old boys' club we call management?

As for your points about Harry,

1)I'm not quite sure whether you're talking about overall, or average points per season. In either case, it's unfair to compare him to Nicholson, who was here much longer and did operate inthe 'two points per game' era. Since then, our best manager per points gained? Absolutely, though, again, I must point out that that has more to do with how sub-standard our previous managers were, as opposed to him being a genuinely good football manager, a la Bill Nick

2)Harry speaks too frequently, about everything under the sun, which is fine. If he'd talk a bit more about England either way, maybe we'd be doing better. But no, we persist in this charade of him not officially wanting to confirm anything but letting his mind wander and letting his management suffer as a result, which leads to this place being so revolutionary and distasteful.

3)Harry's been loyal? Who's tried to poach him away? Except England and some rumoured poxy Qatari club? In three and a bit years at the helm, the one time he's been approached has been this whole England debacle, and we all know how well that's gone.

Maybe you're right, you know. I've only been a supporter for about twelve and a bit years now, not long enough to watch us win the FA Cup, or watch Gazza, or watch us beat Anderlecht on penalties to lift the UEFA Cup. I missed out on all of that. My time supporting Spurs has been punctuated with managerial comings and goings, bits of false hope and a whole boatload of false dawns. Much like Spurs before, I suppose. But I've never seen us have as talented a squad as we do now, and I've subsequently never been more frustrated with the way it's misused, game after game. Now, I might appear to be part of the Harry hating mob, and to all intents and purposes I am one. Forgive my youth, and inexperience in dealing with these things, but when I see these kinds of opportunities which a club like ours has rarely, if ever, been given, being thrown away due to ineptitude, I for one am loath to sit back and be quietly disappointed, hoping for better things later. I believe we can do much better than we are doing; I believe there's a cause for that, and that won't really change unless the man himself changes. He's not the Anti-Christ, by any means, but there are better options available we can and should go for. I want to see us actively reaching for glory, GHod-damnit.

Sigh. You have your view, and I have mine. I respect yours, even if I disagree with it. We're both hoping for a win against Blackburn anyway, so let's do that instead of arguing over something that neither of us will budge on. Then maybe this place will be a little more settled and peaceful.

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

It is impossible to call who had the better season due to the fact AVB was sacked halfway through rendering it impossible to draw an objective parallel between the two.

And just to summarise - you are digging into fans for turning against Arry over a 10-15 game bad run (far deeper issues than that but let's simplify it for argument's sake) then in the same breath have tarnished AVB for his bad run of 8-10 games (shorter and slightly better run of games than Arry) during his maiden season in one of the most fickle managerial positions in the world for which he was sacked. I hope you take some time and read / think about that.

I think it was longer than that and AVB had built up zero credit. To use a similar situation I was absolutely stunned by Arsenal's fans reaction earlier this season. After all Wenger has done for them they should stay loyal to him even if he lead them to relegation.

 

[ArcspacE]

It wasn't longer than that, 1957. He hit a bad run just after Christmas (around the time we drew 1:1) and ended with the 1st leg Napoli CL loss

During that time he picked up 15 out of 36 in the PL starting from his 1:1 draw away to Wigan and ending with his last PL game - away loss to WBA

So - AVB's the devil but Arry's unappreciated and misunderstood?


Wenger's bad run was around 7 games, iirc. They were on title-challenging form prior to that, having recovered from their earlier shockers.

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

It wasn't longer than that, 1957. He hit a bad run just after Christmas (arond the time we drew 1:1) and ended with the 1st leg Napoli CL loss

During that time he picked up 12 out of 30 in the PL starting from his 1:1 draw away to Wigan and ending with his last PL game - away loss to Everton

So - AVB's the devil but Arry's unappreciated and misunderstood?


Wenger's bad run was around 7 games, iirc. They were on title-challenging form prior to that, having recovered from their earlier shockers.

AVB is the devil? Where have I said that? He certainly had his team underachieving the most in the Premiership, but he is hardly the devil! He just struggled in the role.

Redknapp hasn't struggled at Spurs. We're in a bad run of form, but comparative to the rest of his reign, it's insignificant. As I said, I'll be grateful for Harry whatever happens over the next four games.

 

[ArcspacE]

Redknapp hasn't struggled at Spurs. We're in a bad run of form, but comparative to the rest of his reign, it's insignificant. As I said, I'll be grateful for Harry whatever happens over the next four games.

Look at your earlier AVB comments - you clearly don't rate him for brick. AVB to Spurs - fudge off, etc.

We are currently on releagtion form, Redknapp is most certainly struggling.

The rest of his reign means nothing at the moment, we can't get extra point from that.