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Ex-managers: I'm pining for the past and cannot move on

Which Ex-Manager?

  • Martin Jol

    Votes: 22 40.0%
  • Juande Ramos

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Harry Redknapp

    Votes: 22 40.0%
  • Andre Villas Boas

    Votes: 8 14.5%
  • Tim Sherwood

    Votes: 3 5.5%

  • Total voters
    55
This entire thread is almost a pointless discussion.

People tend to think;

good results=good manager

Bad results=bad manager

When neither is actually true. There are so many variables in managing a football club that I don't think anyone on the outside looking in can make an evaluation on how good a manager is.

To bring it back to where we are. Had we not got rid of Redknapp we still would have lost Bale, VDV, King, Modric. How he would have delt with that would have been very different to AVB. Better or worse no one knows.

The key point I'm trying to make is that this thread had obviously come about as we've not been great lately, if you drill down to the root cause, it wouldn't have mattered if we'd kept Redknapp, AVB, Sherwood or anyone because losing 4 world class players is why we are where we are.

This is the start of a new re-build which would be needed whether AVB, Poch, Sherwood or anyone was in charge.

Until we qualify for CL regularly (and even then it's not guaranteed) this will happen every 3-4 years. Changing manager every time is not the answer.
 
The key point I'm trying to make is that this thread had obviously come about as we've not been great lately, if you drill down to the root cause, it wouldn't have mattered if we'd kept Redknapp, AVB, Sherwood or anyone because losing 4 world class players is why we are where we are.

This is the start of a new re-build which would be needed whether AVB, Poch, Sherwood or anyone was in charge.

Until we qualify for CL regularly (and even then it's not guaranteed) this will happen every 3-4 years. Changing manager every time is not the answer.

I agree with that, though the players to replace those 4 would vary under the different managers imo, as would the integration of the signings and how they are used on the pitch.

Redknapp got more out of a group of players than Ramos did.

AVB got a lot out of the group when Bale was here, he helped maximise Bale's impact. He didn't get so much out of them when Bale was sold, in attack we really struggled. Sherwood took over the same group and got more goals (and in turn, more points) out of them. Now we have Poch and he's currently struggling to get his methods across and we'll have to wait and see.
 
This entire thread is almost a pointless discussion.

People tend to think;

good results=good manager

Bad results=bad manager

The key point I'm trying to make is that this thread had obviously come about as we've not been great lately, if you drill down to the root cause, it wouldn't have mattered if we'd kept Redknapp, AVB, Sherwood or anyone because losing 4 world class players is why we are where we are.

This is the start of a new re-build which would be needed whether AVB, Poch, Sherwood or anyone was in charge.

Until we qualify for CL regularly (and even then it's not guaranteed) this will happen every 3-4 years. Changing manager every time is not the answer.

Its a results oriented business and as such that is what most all managers are judged on. And they all know that. In losing 4 world class players its true that any manager here would have been in a similar boat at the outset. However, each of them would then have achieved quite different results. Whatever plight that pervades our club, or any club, the respective manager is tasked with overcoming it and some will achieve more success than others.

With regard to Poch, I doubt whether the shadow of those 4 players looms large over him since they departed a while ago. A passage of time, development, growth and acquisition has since occurred and more pertinent to him now is that he took over a young team, a 'very good squad' which underachieved in finishing 6th according to some. He is tasked with getting the best out of those young players...and the senior one's.
 
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Every manager of ours has had to make do with players he didn't want, bargains he didn't make, and expectations that hardly match the investment made into him or his vision for the club. Judging them is thus rather harsh, although in terms of instantaneous results, it'd probably be Redknapp wayyyy out in front, with the rest lagging behind.
 
Its a results oriented business and as such that is what most all managers are judged on. And they all know that. In losing 4 world class players its true that any manager here would have been in a similar boat at the outset. However, each of them would then have achieved quite different results. Whatever plight that pervades our club, or any club, the respective manager is tasked with overcoming it and some will achieve more success than others.

With regard to Poch, I doubt whether the shadow of those 4 players looms large over him since they departed a while ago. A passage of time, development, growth and acquisition has since occurred and more pertinent to him now is that he took over a young team, a 'very good squad' which underachieved in finishing 6th according to some. He is tasked with getting the best out of those young players...and the senior one's.

It is indeed, but it's the criteria that they are judged against that is the problem. I keep rambling on about it, but unrealistic expectations are slowly killing us.

Take AVB for example (this isn't a 'we should have kept AVB point btw, just wanted to use him to illustrate things a little better), he lost someone who was arguably the best player in the world that helped us get to our highest ever points total in the premier league. This points total still didn't get us into the CL. We then bring in 7 brand new players, none of whom have actually ever played in the league before. But no one said at the start of that season 'we've just lost Gareth Bale and signed 7 new players who've never played in the premiership, I think this year we can totally forget about 4th because it's unrealistic since we didn't even manage it last year with Gareth Bale'.

AVB then of course got sacked because the results weren't good enough 'For a team that should be challenging for 4th place'. We weren't a team that should be challenging for 4th place. We were a team that put up a decent fight for it with one of the best players in the world leading us there the year before. Last season we were a team with many new faces to integrate that has just lost one of the best players in the world. 6th was probably about right and in fact we done quite well to remain mathmatically able to obtain 4th for as long as we did (and fantatically well to get so close to the points total from the year before). Yet the season was seen as a failure in most fans and the media's eyes.

We do have a 'very good squad' but the days of going into every season expecting to strongly challenge for 4th place are gone. We, the media, the club and everyone else need to accept that and start again.

Every manager of ours has had to make do with players he didn't want, bargains he didn't make, and expectations that hardly match the investment made into him or his vision for the club. Judging them is thus rather harsh, although in terms of instantaneous results, it'd probably be Redknapp wayyyy out in front, with the rest lagging behind.

We don't actually know this statement is true or false because we have this magical mystical transfer committee where absolutely no one outside the club has a clue who makes the decisions. When Redknapp was in charge you could have judged him on his signings but he wasn't here to go through losing his top class players and being tasked with replacing them.

With Poch, the only players we can be sure he does not want are the wants he puts up for sale in Jan. The signings that are brought in, who knows. I do have my doubts about the whole 'He didn't want that player' thing though. I'm sure they have some kind of formal process for agreement on signing players.
 
It is indeed, but it's the criteria that they are judged against that is the problem. I keep rambling on about it, but unrealistic expectations are slowly killing us.

Take AVB for example (this isn't a 'we should have kept AVB point btw, just wanted to use him to illustrate things a little better), he lost someone who was arguably the best player in the world that helped us get to our highest ever points total in the premier league. This points total still didn't get us into the CL. We then bring in 7 brand new players, none of whom have actually ever played in the league before. But no one said at the start of that season 'we've just lost Gareth Bale and signed 7 new players who've never played in the premiership, I think this year we can totally forget about 4th because it's unrealistic since we didn't even manage it last year with Gareth Bale'.

AVB then of course got sacked because the results weren't good enough 'For a team that should be challenging for 4th place'. We weren't a team that should be challenging for 4th place. We were a team that put up a decent fight for it with one of the best players in the world leading us there the year before. Last season we were a team with many new faces to integrate that has just lost one of the best players in the world. 6th was probably about right and in fact we done quite well to remain mathmatically able to obtain 4th for as long as we did (and fantatically well to get so close to the points total from the year before). Yet the season was seen as a failure in most fans and the media's eyes.

We do have a 'very good squad' but the days of going into every season expecting to strongly challenge for 4th place are gone. We, the media, the club and everyone else need to accept that and start again.



We don't actually know this statement is true or false because we have this magical mystical transfer committee where absolutely no one outside the club has a clue who makes the decisions. When Redknapp was in charge you could have judged him on his signings but he wasn't here to go through losing his top class players and being tasked with replacing them.

With Poch, the only players we can be sure he does not want are the wants he puts up for sale in Jan. The signings that are brought in, who knows. I do have my doubts about the whole 'He didn't want that player' thing though. I'm sure they have some kind of formal process for agreement on signing players.

Not what happened.

This idea that we must finish in the top 4 or the manager will get sacked only exist in the heads of some of the fans. Nobody has been sacked for that so far.
 
Not what happened.

This idea that we must finish in the top 4 or the manager will get sacked only exist in the heads of some of the fans. Nobody has been sacked for that so far.

Why did we sack him then?

While I can understand what you are saying (Redknapp sacked because of England etc, AVB sacked because of hammerings and basically giving up himself, Sherwood sacked for being a bell-end), had the board, fans, media etc felt that the results/performances AVB was getting were acceptable then he wouldn't have been sacked.

They were not deemed acceptable because they were measured against a team that almost finished 4th the season previous with the 3rd best player in the world playing for them.
 
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I think the AVB sacking was more to do with him not being 'up for the fight' - rumors/reports of a meeting taking place after the Liverpool game where he didn't show himself in a good light
 
Not what happened.

This idea that we must finish in the top 4 or the manager will get sacked only exist in the heads of some of the fans. Nobody has been sacked for that so far.

Are you sure about that? I seem to recall it being a factor particularly in the Jol fiasco.
 
I think the AVB sacking was more to do with him not being 'up for the fight' - rumors/reports of a meeting taking place after the Liverpool game where he didn't show himself in a good light
That and he had fallen out with and ****ed off everyone at the club and had stopped communicating. It was a repeat of what happened at Chelsea.
 
The only manager I have "pined" for was Terry Venables, always wanted him back in the 90's. Of the current crop, each manager has improved on the team/results upto Redknapp (could argue Sherwood, but too short a time frame to truly judge). With AVB we stagnated and Poch is too early into his tenure to decide whether a decline will start or it kicks off an upward curve.
 
The only manager I have "pined" for was Terry Venables, always wanted him back in the 90's. Of the current crop, each manager has improved on the team/results upto Redknapp (could argue Sherwood, but too short a time frame to truly judge). With AVB we stagnated and Poch is too early into his tenure to decide whether a decline will start or it kicks off an upward curve.

He took money out of the club.
He ripped up a floor and installed it in his nightclub ffs.
 
Not what happened.

This idea that we must finish in the top 4 or the manager will get sacked only exist in the heads of some of the fans. Nobody has been sacked for that so far.

Exactly.

It's one of those self perpetuating myths - the more times that everyone repeats it (despite it being wrong), the more true it must be.
 
Are you sure about that? I seem to recall it being a factor particularly in the Jol fiasco.

Jol wasn't sacked for the specific failure to finish 4th. He was sacked simply because, rightly or wrongly, the board felt that we could get a better manager.

It's merely incidental that we happened to have finished 5th in the previous two seasons.

A further factor in Jol's sacking, by the way, was his clandestine meeting with Saudi Sportswashing Machine the previous year. Some members of the board never forgave him for that.
 
\It's up there with the Sherwoods Gooner tattoo and a load of other nonsensical myths that are constantly repeated on here

You seem to have missed Clive Allen's quote, posted by Steff on the previous page.

Not a myth at all, apparently.
 
The Hotspur Related twitter account has put up an article where Commolli talks about Redknapp wanting to sell Bale and the club used data to analyse that Bale should be played as a left winger while Harry wanted to sell him. On my phone so can't link it but it's worth a read if someone can link.
 
He took money out of the club.
He ripped up a floor and installed it in his nightclub ffs.

That and the fact that his reputation as a manager far exceeded his actual ability as a manager.

We played some pretty **** football under him at times.
 
****ing hell, Preston, Wolves and Huddersfield have won the league more than we have.
sm7-facepalm.gif

It does emphasise how inconsistent we've been in the league for most of the past century that even Derby County have been champions of England twice (lead by our very own former midfield general Dave Mackay in 1975) since Spurs last managed to finish in the top 2, whilst Stan Cullis lead Wolves to more league titles between 1954-59 than Spurs have won in total... and yet some of our fans still think we have some sort of entitlement to challenge for the title :-s
 
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