The End of The Affair

On Friday I wrote a little piece for The Football Project about Harry Redknapp's departure from Tottenham. It is up on their site now - http://thefootballproject.net/2012/06/17/harry-redknapp-the-end-of-the-affair/

The blog on the direction of the club will be coming soon on this site.

Yesterday's Papers

Tottenham Hotspur 2011-12 

At the end of the eighties Manchester band James released a song called ‘Sit Down’ which later became an anthem in student bars in the nineties, with more substance in the ‘pound-a-pint’ plastic glasses rather than a fairly flimsy song that is not representative of their best work. It did though contain the line “if I hadn’t seen such riches, I could live with being poor”, words that go some way to summing up why the under-achievement of a Tottenham season that contained some scintillating football at times, is such a big disappointment.

A more lasting memory from the eighties rather than sing-along-guitar-based-pop was a Tottenham side that not only played football with flair, but won things. It had stated ambitions to challenge for the title. And it was proud of a history that we should all know, and which includes these words from Bill Nicolson that are always worth remembering in any end-of-season analysis:

“It’s better to fail aiming high than to succeed aiming low. And we of Spurs have set our sights very high, so high in fact that even failure will have in it an echo of Glory”. 

Having seen a lot of football over the last thirty years, I knew that going into January 2012, Tottenham had a decent chance of winning the title. And I was pleased with some of the words at the time from players, the coaching staff, the Manager and the Chairman, which also echoed those ambitions. 

Not only were we playing football as good as any side in the country, we had shown signs of a strong winning mentality, and just as importantly, none of our competitors had a significant advantage over us, either in points or on paper. Manchester City had the strongest squad, but with all the expectation on them, no track record of success and a first-team set-up that looked like it could implode, we would have been in with a chance at the death if we kept in striking distance. Manchester United meanwhile were picking up points, but looked far from invincible in any game they played, both in the League and in all other competitions, suffering defeats that would have been shocks against past United sides of recent seasons.

And at that point it was just three-horse race. But I always expected us to be in the top three once we completed our summer transfer business. Anyone who saw Chelsea’s struggles since before Christmas 2010, looked at how Liverpool had spent their millions or even observed Arsenal closely, would have smelt those shovelling shit from the bag labelled “We'll be lucky to finish in the top four” a mile off.

We were worth our place in the top three, aiming high and playing great football. Everything about the club was positive. So far, so good.  In fact up until January there were only a couple of regrets.

Not for the first time we didn’t do our transfer business quickly enough in the summer. The unsettling of Luka Modric was handled superbly by Daniel Levy, and there is nothing we could do about the end of the window occurring after the season was under-way, with as far as keeping Modric’s mind on the job. Levy’s comments out of his car window, telling us how Modric had “understood” the situation, were as welcome as any other interview from a vehicle with the engine running outside a Tottenham Car Park. 

The problem instead was with the incoming players. As previous readers of this blog and my e-book of our Champions League Campaign 2010-11 will know, I had been in favour of signing Scott Parker for a long-time. (Back in the days when he was at Charlton originally, to be precise). Why that wasn’t done before the start of the season was never made clear, and the delay meant we were without him for two crucial games against the Manchester clubs, both of which should be recognised as six-pointers, because even following the defeat at City in January, would have meant the gap was minimal had we perhaps even drawn at White Hart Lane in August. We started that delayed first home game of the season well, Bale looking dangerous, but with Crouch rather than Adebayor being on the end of chances in the penalty area. But eventually City’s fluid attack found it easy to play behind our lightweight central partnership of Modric and Kranjcar, a midfield they already out-numbered anyway, and we lost by four goals, following a three goal defeat at Old Trafford. 

After the window was closed, and our business done we were excellent in the League, and even the points we dropped – draws at Newcastle and Swansea and at home to Chelsea as well as the loss to Stoke where diabolical refereeing decided the game – all contained positive signs in their own way. We should have been more clinical in the first half against Chelsea and in the second half at St James Park, but we were well placed.

In the League Cup and the Europa League the Manager rightly gave some squad players games, while still picking teams that were, on paper, strong enough to win the games they needed to comfortably. The crucial defeat in Europe, to PAOK Salonika at White Hart Lane, highlighted performances that were either lacklustre or not good enough from players including Corluka, Rose, Bassong and Kane, the first three of whom were supposed to be able to step-in as replacements at anytime.

However, we produced so much good football before the defeat at the Etihad in January, it would be wrong to not also mention some of those highlights before moving on.

The win at home to Bolton in early December delivered, for me, our goal of the season by Aaron Lennon, who finished a sweeping move that was started by Kyle Walker, and finished beautifully by Lennon himself, as once again he stretched an opposition with a starting position from wide on the left, coming inside to score a significant goal. 

Bale’s goal second goal at home to Queens Park Rangers, from a central starting position that involved an interchange of passes with Lennon (again from the left), was also full of style, drawing comparisons with Barcelona from observers, although also bringing back memories of Tottenham of old, when passing and movement underpinned many of our greatest days.

And the flexibility in tactics and fluidity of movement were often a key part of that our success in the first half-of-the-season. Lennon, once again from the left, scored another wonderful goal at Fulham, in a team performance that showed a combination of quality and real mettle. 

Arguably the best team performance of the season came away at Norwich, when unlike in the great display that followed at home to Newcastle in February, we didn’t get an early goal, but continued to play football in our efforts to win the game. A fluid front three of Bale, Adebayor and Van Der Vaart all had licence to roam and Bale’s two goals in the second-half that evening, including a great run and finish from deep, were a reminder of his constant ability to win matches.

Alongside Bale and Lennon, Rafa VanDer Vaart is our other genuine match-winner, with a consistent ability to turn games. He showed it with the vital run he went on, scoring in consecutive games in our unbeaten sequence, which included a couple of crackers away at Blackburn and the opener in the North London Derby win. But as well as goals he offers more, with a combination of technique, football intelligence and desire. When we have struggled to break teams down, his ability to play between the lines, such as in the second-half at home to Everton when he played at the front of the diamond, has allowed him to change games in less obvious ways.

The versatility for the team to switch between systems including 4-4-1-1, a diamond, 4-3-3, and three at the back, boded well at the turn of the year, and even in the second-half fight-back at Manchester City it was the movement of Bale and Lennon that caused City the most problems as we piled on the pressure.

The decisive moment was of course Defoe just failing to convert the chance that would surely have won the game and killed City off from Bale’s cross in that game. Not only was it a six-pointer that would have closed the gap, it would have been City’s first home defeat in the League of the season, and caused serious doubts to side that had only won one trophy in 25 years at that point, and who following their pre-Christmas exit from the Champions League had been knocked out of both domestic cup competitions that month. They had a long way to fall after their early season promise, and Defoe scoring may have caused them to look down with four months still remaining.

But instead that let-off, which they capitialised on by going up the other end and nicking it, caused a psychological blow for us from which we never recovered. We stumbled along in the FA Cup, and produced one last sparkle in the League, against Newcastle, following a couple of early goals in a Saturday early-kick-off at White Hart Lane that boosted the well oiled crowd that after three days of incessant media coverage had almost convinced itself we had the Messiah running the show.

We unwisely took the same team in to the North London Derby the following week, perhaps gambling in an effort to pressurise a suspect Arsenal defence with two big strikers, and arguably our hand forced by injuries. We had a good opening ten minutes, but were soon outnumbered by a team who for all their faults, know how to keep possession; though we got the second goal that always looked likely from a break, we were overrun, and rather than ending Arsenal’s season, we gave them the biggest boost of all.

Tactical errors followed in other games as well; we temporarily got away with 4-4-2 at home to Manchester United because they played the same shape for the forty-five minutes. But a silly foul at the end of the first half gifted them a set-piece, from which they scored, and they were able to re-jig at half-time, as our injury depleted XI looked too weak to fight back. At Everton Van Der Vaart was left on the bench while 4-4-2 failed again. His introduction later wasn’t enough to overturn a lead the home side already had, and were happy to defend deep, and in numbers. 

Van Der Vaart considers himself an attacking midfielder, which is exactly what he is, and he is far more potent a goal threat than Luka Modric when Spurs decide to play with a midfielder behind two strikers, whereas Modric’s greatest strength is dictating the pace of play centrally from deep. For all the fluidity of our play at times in the first half of the season, too many times in the second half, players were not deployed where they could be most effective. And Van Der Vaart is always more effective on the pitch, than on the bench.

Things out of our control also didn’t go our way. Adebayor’s goals that had previously been wrongly ruled out against Stoke, Wolves, Chelsea and Manchester United started to grate more, the worse our latter performances and results became. Even the lost day of training ahead of the midweek home game against Stoke, as the players understandably had to cope after seeing a fellow professional stop breathing in front of them, could be considered a factor when looking into the minute detail of where points were dropped in the season.

The ghost goal in the FA CupSemi-Final, a crucial decision that affected the game was typical of the season’s disappointments, and a growing sense of injustice, which continued to the last day, when Arsenal benefited from Martin Fulop’s shocking display to stop us going third, and then beyond, when the most negative of displays was still enough for Chelsea to stop us getting even a Champions League qualifier.

But for all of that, it should never have come down to little elements of luck. Even with the last two league games left, we knew two wins against inferior opposition would secure a top three finish, which was all we had left to fight for, and the least we should have expected this season. Yet, bizarrely, Scott Parker, apparently struggling with an achilles injury, was brought on for the injured Van Der Vaart instead of Dos Santos, Defoe or Saha, when we needed a goal at the death at Villa Park. The previous week, the insistence to keep the injured Lennon on against Blackburn for an extra ten minutes, despite having a goal-lead and knowing his importance in the coming games, was also worrying. And finally, sending out the injured Kyle Walker for the second-half on the last day, again despite being in the lead and having two alternate options at right-back, was a final sign of erratic decision making from the Manager.

It has been a hard season for Redknapp. He had a heart operation, then the culmination of a Court Case which has been a cloud hanging over him for years. The day that ended he was immediately under pressure again, as the England job became vacant ahead of time. He was always going to be a contender, and it was long expected 2011-12 would be his last as Tottenham Manager, but the very public distraction as he was touted for the Office he has always openly courted didn’t help him or the players, as results started to slide. 

At the time we were riding high and he could have committed to Tottenham in the knowledge if he was offered the England job he could have done it on a one-off basis with public backing for the summer - without the hassle of qualifying, with no worry of blame, fulfilling his ambition while challenging for a major international tournament with nothing to lose. And as I wrote at the time, he could then have returned to work with better players at his club, and the knowledge they were as likely to win the Champions League at Wembley in 2013, as England were to win the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Chelsea’s win has emphasised how achievable that would have been, as they won the Cup on foreign soil with an inferior team to ours. But Redknapp didn’t commit, and after over three and a half years in charge, is also solely responsible for us not guaranteeing qualification next season.

For the players, as the results got worse, and the season neared to the end, the uncertainty of Redknapp’s position, and their own situations, helped no one. While the long-standing doubts over Redknapp’s future, which were there before February, have no doubt been a factor in the lack of activity in the transfer market in the last two windows. 

It is clear where we need to improve in the squad. Watching Ledley King struggle this season has been painful, and a centre-back is imperative. A left-back that can challenge Ekotto is also essential, as is cover for Walker, and strong back-up players who can come-in to the team and turn games, like Krancjar used to be able to do in the past. And for all Adebayor’s contributions, for the money reportedly involved in the deal, it is likely there could be a better options available – ideally someone who has a good first touch and can consistently time his runs, as well as being always motivated and clinical in front of goal.

The Club has made good transfers in Redknapp's reign without much involvement of the Manager, notably Van Der Vaart, Sandro and Pienaar, the last of whom is now only fully appreciated under a different Manager (which is maybe how Dos Santos will finally be viewed positively). But the limbo, now recognised by all, is not helpful. It is a loose end must be tied one way or the other.

It is why “just one more year” won’t work in this circumstance. This is not Pep Guardiola on a rolling-contract at Barcelona, with a footballing philosophy behind it, and an orderly succession in place from the backroom staff. If the decision is to wait for Guardiola himself, who may well fancy a job in London after a year’s break and who, reports suggest, will consider clubs not involved in the Champions League, it is understandable, though from the outside it looks like a massive gamble, unless he signs a pre-agreement. 

Either way, something should be happening behind the scenes and I will expand on long-term solutions in my next Spurs blog, coming soon.

MG

My e-book on Tottenham Hotspur's return to the European Cup in 2010-11 is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

Glory Nights: From Wankdorf to Wembley

My e-book about Tottenham Hotspur's return to the European Cup after an absence of 49 Seasons, is now available to buy for £4.27 including VAT from Amazon and Smashwords. It documents Glory Nights when Spurs put the then European Champions Inter to the sword at White Hart Lane and the famous win at the San Siro, as well as past recollections, including Deigo Maradona's one appearance in a Spurs shirt at White Hart Lane. From the qualifier on the plastic pitch in Berne through until I ended up in the front row at Wembley as Barcelona won the Final, via an epic series of El Clasicos, it captures football at the highest level, as well as the Glory and Escape of travelling to matches over land and sea.