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Team Baldini vs Team Timmeh - power struggle

Wasn't the AVB at risk rumours much more substantiated? No quotes, but there were news articles from much more reliable journalists and there had been talk of friction between AVB and other club employees for some time iirc.

Even if it had been a very similar situation for the sake of argument I don't see how one speculative article being right means that we should trust another speculative article. Even a broken watch is right twice a day and all that.

Agreed, I don't think we can necessarily trust it. All I'm saying is I think people are very quick to say 'No quotes = ********' when we've had stories recently, such as Glenn Hoddle being considered when AVB was still here, to be proven to be pretty much on point despite no quotes.

I don't know if there is any truth in this one, but my personal opinion is it has come from somewhere. An argument about the appointment of a chief scout is hardly a money spinner for a paper to make up.
 
My own worry would be the source of the article; There are several possibilities as far as I'm concerned:

1) Completely made-up by bored or under-pressure journo to fill website or column inches - Why? Perhaps journo is a Gooner or at least anti-Spurs and knows there are slight disagreements on certain things between Sherwood and Baldini which aren't major but journo is taking an opportunity after a Spurs loss to try and undermine the club and their quest to get their season on track.

2) From Levy and the Board - if this is the case then there are moves afoot to perhaps undermine Baldini to make his position untenable and make him again offer his resignation. This being cheaper as Levy and co don't have to pay compensation. But what would have changed between now and when Baldini allegedly first offered his resignation?

3) From Tim and his people - a stupid power move if this is the case as he's just got his own job and is doing well, but not so well yet that he's being discussed as the next Bill Nic. On purely football gravitas at this stage Sherwood vs Baldini produces only one winner: think of Baldini's contacts worldwide, plus his clear ability to get deals done, especially with overseas clubs particularly those from South America. Unless Tim is really dim as some claim, why would he do this? And now?

4) From Baldini and his people - trying to paint an early picture of how troubled relations are between himself and Sherwood/Levy so that if he resigns he can claim his role become too difficult to perform due to the undermining etc and he can effectively claim compensation for constructive dismissal? Or perhaps trying to paint Sherwood as the devil a section of Spurs fans view him ton be to win an upcoming PR war?

Whilst very annoying, I'm sure all of us hope it is just number 1...if it's any of the others then we really are in a shambles, though imo less so if 3 or 4
 
My own worry would be the source of the article; There are several possibilities as far as I'm concerned:

1) Completely made-up by bored or under-pressure journo to fill website or column inches - Why? Perhaps journo is a Gooner or at least anti-Spurs and knows there are slight disagreements on certain things between Sherwood and Baldini which aren't major but journo is taking an opportunity after a Spurs loss to try and undermine the club and their quest to get their season on track.

2) From Levy and the Board - if this is the case then there are moves afoot to perhaps undermine Baldini to make his position untenable and make him again offer his resignation. This being cheaper as Levy and co don't have to pay compensation. But what would have changed between now and when Baldini allegedly first offered his resignation?

3) From Tim and his people - a stupid power move if this is the case as he's just got his own job and is doing well, but not so well yet that he's being discussed as the next Bill Nic. On purely football gravitas at this stage Sherwood vs Baldini produces only one winner: think of Baldini's contacts worldwide, plus his clear ability to get deals done, especially with overseas clubs particularly those from South America. Unless Tim is really dim as some claim, why would he do this? And now?

4) From Baldini and his people - trying to paint an early picture of how troubled relations are between himself and Sherwood/Levy so that if he resigns he can claim his role become too difficult to perform due to the undermining etc and he can effectively claim compensation for constructive dismissal? Or perhaps trying to paint Sherwood as the devil a section of Spurs fans view him ton be to win an upcoming PR war?

Whilst very annoying, I'm sure all of us hope it is just number 1...if it's any of the others then we really are in a shambles, though imo less so if 3 or 4

The most likely is that it has been copied from somewhere else and not been checked.

If the Mirror had an inside source they would most likely have gone bigger with the story.
 
The most likely is that it has been copied from somewhere else and not been checked.

If the Mirror had an inside source they would most likely have gone bigger with the story.

Copied from somewhere else ultimately leads to options 1 to 4 at some point, no?
 
It is never a good idea to believe a story just because it reinforces your prejudices. The fact that there are no quotes, no named sources and is pretty short, so probably filler, should be enough to get most peoples' spidey sense tingling. It could turn out to be true but for now I would be highly sceptical of its reliability.

Absolute top notch post!

In fact one should be extra sceptical of any information that seems to confirm one's own beliefs. There's a quote about it that I can't quite remember the source of at the moment.
 
Copied from somewhere else ultimately leads to options 1 to 4 at some point, no?

Not really. It could easily be copied from Twitter or a message board from someone who was just making stuff up or seeking to stir things up.
 
Not really. It could easily be copied from Twitter or a message board from someone who was just making stuff up or seeking to stir things up.

Oh I see what you mean.

But still if that's the case you have to wonder why said paper/journo went with it; must have had an agenda as I'm sure there are hundreds of message board/Twitter crap written and made up about Spurs. Why would they take this one and publish?
In fact why not take a made-up story about how Levy, Sherwood and Baldini are going to identify new targets in January or how they are going to do that and spend 50M or so doing it?
 
Oh I see what you mean.

But still if that's the case you have to wonder why said paper/journo went with it; must have had an agenda as I'm sure there are hundreds of message board/Twitter crap written and made up about Spurs. Why would they take this one and publish?
In fact why not take a made-up story about how Levy, Sherwood and Baldini are going to identify new targets in January or how they are going to do that and spend 50M or so doing it?

Like I said. Journalists are under pressure to file stories and do not have time to fact check or even check more than one source. There doesn't have to be a willful deception on the part of the journalist, just tight deadlines and other things that they also need to cover. This would have been especially true over Christmas and New Year when newsroom would have been on skeleton staff.

Flat Earth News really is an excellent read and gives a lot of detail about cost cutting which leads to publishing and recycling of incorrect stories.
 
The most likely is that it has been copied from somewhere else and not been checked.

If the Mirror had an inside source they would most likely have gone bigger with the story.

Is a dispute about who gets to appoint the chief scout really going to sell the papers with a bigger story? Seems they went as big as they could on it, really. In fact, they could probably make something up that was far more interesting, give it more space and still get away with it.

I don't necessarily believe this, but I think it makes a lot of sense. It may even be an honest discussion with no back stabbing or politicking involved. I mean, Baldini tends to sign players to play possession football, while Sherwood has talked about the importance of transitions. It's actually quite understandable that Sherwood would want someone who is more in line with his own preferences.
 
Like I said. Journalists are under pressure to file stories and do not have time to fact check or even check more than one source. There doesn't have to be a willful deception on the part of the journalist, just tight deadlines and other things that they also need to cover. This would have been especially true over Christmas and New Year when newsroom would have been on skeleton staff.

Flat Earth News really is an excellent read and gives a lot of detail about cost cutting which leads to publishing and recycling of incorrect stories.

I understand the lack of fact-checking and the cost-cutting in the newspaper industry.
My point was that there are probably a plethora of 'articles' from different twitter/facebook/forum sites than journos could copy and paste into their papers without fact-checking, and that it then becomes a choice as to which one you copy and paste without the fact-checking:

A random story on twitter/facebook/forums about Tim and Baldini have a power tussle VS another random story on twitter/facebook/forums about how Tim and Levy are sending Baldini out to check for two players - a LB and a striker - that they are going to blow 50M on in January window to push for the top 4

or

A random story on twitter/facebook/forums about how Tim really doesn't rate most of AVB's summer buys vs another random story about how Tim and Baldini both think AVB didn't get nearly enough out of the players who are top quality

Ultimately, my point is that the choice of which story to run with and not check the facts comes down to which bias the journo has (i.e. pro or against Spurs/Levy etc) and so which will cause a greater stir or get better clicks/curry more favour (again depending on the journo's bias)
 
Is a dispute about who gets to appoint the chief scout really going to sell the papers with a bigger story? Seems they went as big as they could on it, really. In fact, they could probably make something up that was far more interesting, give it more space and still get away with it.

I don't necessarily believe this, but I think it makes a lot of sense. It may even be an honest discussion with no back stabbing or politicking involved. I mean, Baldini tends to sign players to play possession football, while Sherwood has talked about the importance of transitions. It's actually quite understandable that Sherwood would want someone who is more in line with his own preferences.

It is about filling space and attracting web traffic more than selling papers. I am sure that all of the biggest newspapers have a Target to carry at least one story about the best supported clubs each day in order to attract visits to the site and drive advertising revenue. We're a gullible and easy to attract crowd us football fans.

I think that it is too early to say whether Baldini and Sherwood have different preferences about transfer targets. It wouldn't surprise me if they did, Sherwood as first team coach will probably favour players who can make an immediate impression now but that is true of our last manager too and almost certainly our next.
 
It is about filling space and attracting web traffic more than selling papers. I am sure that all of the biggest newspapers have a Target to carry at least one story about the best supported clubs each day in order to attract visits to the site and drive advertising revenue. We're a gullible and easy to attract crowd us football fans.

I think that it is too early to say whether Baldini and Sherwood have different preferences about transfer targets. It wouldn't surprise me if they did, Sherwood as first team coach will probably favour players who can make an immediate impression now but that is true of our last manager too and almost certainly our next.

It would be more likely that they had similar preferences had Sherwood been Baldini's man, and talked about values that tie in with the previous regime. As it is, he's talked about entirely different values, which is why I believe there would be some disagreement between them.

For selling papers in my post, read generating clicks. My point still stands that they could make something up far more interesting and get much more interest.
 
It would be more likely that they had similar preferences had Sherwood been Baldini's man, and talked about values that tie in with the previous regime. As it is, he's talked about entirely different values, which is why I believe there would be some disagreement between them.

For selling papers in my post, read generating clicks. My point still stands that they could make something up far more interesting and get much more interest.

It's about headlines, believe me, I work for one the largest companies in a specific vertical, and the amount of bull****, unfounded stories with a sensationalist headline I see daily is obscene.

Most "journalism" in the traditional sense is gone, it's mostly bloggers/contributors doing **** from a basement, and they don't work very hard at making **** up. The easy route is grab something from somewhere (we have proven this on GG) and embellish.
 
It's about headlines, believe me, I work for one the largest companies in a specific vertical, and the amount of bull****, unfounded stories with a sensationalist headline I see daily is obscene.

Most "journalism" in the traditional sense is gone, it's mostly bloggers/contributors doing **** from a basement, and they don't work very hard at making **** up. The easy route is grab something from somewhere (we have proven this on GG) and embellish.

So it's option 1 then?
 
It's about headlines, believe me, I work for one the largest companies in a specific vertical, and the amount of bull****, unfounded stories with a sensationalist headline I see daily is obscene.

Most "journalism" in the traditional sense is gone, it's mostly bloggers/contributors doing **** from a basement, and they don't work very hard at making **** up. The easy route is grab something from somewhere (we have proven this on GG) and embellish.

I agree with you, but I also wouldn't be surprised if there is some truth in this somewhere. Even if the truth isn't a sinister 'power struggle' and more an exchange of views with both fighting their corners reasonably. Sherwood isn't Baldini's man so I'm not surprised there would be differences in this sort of thing.
 
I agree with you, but I also wouldn't be surprised if there is some truth in this somewhere. Even if the truth isn't a sinister 'power struggle' and more an exchange of views with both fighting their corners reasonably. Sherwood isn't Baldini's man so I'm not surprised there would be differences in this sort of thing.

There could be but surely the sensible thing to do is to be highly sceptical of the article until there is something to corroborate it.
 
There could be but surely the sensible thing to do is to be highly sceptical of the article until there is something to corroborate it.

Again, I am sceptical, which is why I dosed my original post with a large dollop of 'if true...'.

But at the same time, considering we seem to be doing everything we can not to allow the continental structure to work as it is supposed to by hiring people from different angles when there is supposed to be one clear vision running throughout the club, the idea that Sherwood and Baldini will have differences of opinion on which scouts to hire or anything else football related is not something I have to stretch much to imagine.
 
It is exceedingly likely that Baldini and Tim don't particularly care for one another. That's understandable given the circumstances at the club, and as long as neither of them lets said animosity affect their own performances there isn't much to worry about.

What is deeply worrying, however, is the likelihood that Baldini has been effectively sidelined by Levy when it comes to the future of the club. First, his mate is sacked. Then, Levy appoints his own 'favoured' man Tim in his place. And now, we hear reports that Louis Van Gaal ( whose desire for full control at his previous clubs seems incompatible with the presence of Baldini) has had private discussions with Levy over a full-time role come the summer should Full-time Tim fail to impress.

It smacks of Baldini being sidelined, all that. Which, if true, is absolutely horrifying in its implications: we give him 120 million to spend and then seek to remove him just a few months later to return to either Tim's 'Harry lite' approach or a setup without a DoF, all of which indicates stupidity, short-sightedness and utterly idiotic thinking permeating the very top brass of this football club. In other words, massive problems at the top, which likely cannot be solved without ENIC selling up. A troubling possibility indeed.

I don't particularly agree with that. van Gaal has worked with the DoF system all through his career and has performed both roles. He actually went from DoF at Ajax, back to being a coach under a DoF at AZ and Bayern. van Gaal is actually way more into organic growth through coaching than he is trading his way to success.

Baldini by all accounts is calm, smooth, decent guy. I can see no reason whatsoever why the two wouldn't work excellently together.
 
I don't think Van Gaal would have a problem working with either Baldini or the squad. Daniel Levy not so sure.
 
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