South Sea Bubble

The Pre-season Friendly. What’s that all about then?

These days they are primarily an exercise for Premier League Clubs to market their ‘brand’ around the world. Hopefully the club does some good work in local communities while they are there, but as well as getting players back to fitness and form, and in some cases the development of commercial relationships between clubs, the primary exercise is to market their brand, while earning as much money as possible through sponsorship and TV rights, and often flogging shirts back at an extorted price to people that made them in the first place for peanuts.

Football merchandise has mastered the art of capitalism as mentioned in the 1991 Billy Bragg song, ‘North Sea Bubble’ – “You keep buying these things but you don’t need them/But as long as you are comfortable it feels like freedom”. (Still, I have got a wardrobe full of some lovely Spurs gear).

We can often turn a blind eye to whoring of our clubs abroad in the hope this will fund a new world class striker. Two weeks to go until the start of the season, and we are still hoping.

Not that I mind Spurs playing pre-season friendlies abroad per se; if I had both the money and the time I’d try and go to the some of these games overseas, because football is the vehicle of my choosing to visit a few different countries. A few years ago I saw Spurs play a meaningless post-season friendly in the USA, a match I wouldn’t have gone to were it in Barnsley, for example (a town I found to be less than hospitable on my last visit there after David Ginola ran through their team in 1999). Spurs were a great excuse to go to Washington DC, Atlantic City and New York. The 1-0 defeat at the hands of an MLS side was inconsequential.

Likewise, yesterday, it was the idea of Spurs playing on a Saturday afternoon in Brighton in July that appealed. It promised to be a good day out, and it was.

About an hour after the final whistle I finally got back into Brighton from the ground at Falmer (nine minutes on the train, over half an hour in the queue) and felt that the £11 breakfast I had in The Lakes that morning hadn’t filled me up for the day as I planned. Both my friend and I now wanted a snack. Stopping of somewhere, we went up to pay for our sandwiches. The bloke behind the counter asked my friend what the score was. She was wearing Spurs colours. (Wearing a bit of football identification often invites a football chat. I was, incidentally, wearing an ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ t-shirt). Just an hour after the game though, my friend was hesitating when asked what the score was, before she remembered we’d won 3-2. The bloke was disappointed, he had heard Brighton were winning 1-0. When asked the scorers, my friend had to ask me, as already she couldn’t recall. It took me a minute as well. Pre-season games are very forgettable.

In fact, looking back now, I have been to a lot of Spurs pre-season games over the years, but for many struggle to recall too much detail about either the match or the final score.  

There have been things that stand out in some of the games though. In one of a number of Spurs friendlies I have been to at Watford over the years, Jurgen Klinsmann’s debut in 1994 was the one that stands out. The attraction of Klinsmann meant I had to queue two hours for a match I was already planning to go to. Seemingly every Watford fan, as if made up exclusively by readers of tabloid newspapers, started enthusiastically belting out the Dambusters theme as Klinsmann came out, while we out-sang them with “One Jurgen Klinsmann”. Teddy Sheringham scored our goal in a 1-1 draw, the beginning of a beautiful partnership.

Seeing Edgar Davids in the ground at Reading in 2005, shortly before we’d officially signed him was also another nice moment, on a day when another of our new signings, Wayne Routledge, sparkled on the right-wing;  Edgar stood up and gave us a wave a couple of times, and went on to be influential for us in a good season, but Routledge unfortunately got injured on the opening day of the season and was never properly given a chance.

Over the years I have been in the wrong end at Wycombe, seen fighting on the pitch at Oxford United, on a day when Bobby Zamora was hitting the back of the net rather than the car park of their three-sided ground, and have also been to lots of forgettable Tottenham pre-seasons games at Loftus Road, Craven Cottage and of course White Hart Lane. (The Bill Nick Testimonial against Fiorentina in 2001, and Robbie Keane’s cracking volley against Torino in 2007 being a couple of rare gems in home games).

And there have been a few other exceptions when football has been the centrepiece rather than the sideshow. When I was young I went to the second day of the Makita tournament at Wembley in 1988, and saw Marco Van Basten, Ruud Guillit, Frank Rikkard, Franco Barasi and a host of greats play for Milan against us. We had the new record signings Paul Gascoigne and Paul Stewart, who both looked slightly above fighting weight, in our team, as well as Terry Fenwick in our defence. It was perhaps no great surprise we lost.

Also at Wembley, I bought an expensive two-day ticket for the manufactured ‘Wembley Cup’ a couple of years ago.  Seeing Spurs play Barcelona on the Friday night, having a great view of Lionel Messi warming up beforehand, and then seeing Messi play a half of football two days later was money well spent in my book.

And there are sometimes occasions which you can notice things at friendlies; in the summer of 2007 in away wins at Stevenage Borough and Leyton Orient, I felt Michael Dawson, who I am a fan of, wasn’t himself. And that coming season did turn out to be one season when he was below his best form. We were pretty good that summer in pre-season actually, Adel Tarrabet had looked exciting against Stevenage, our new signings Younes Kaboul and Darren Bent had both looked good in an attacking performance at Orient, and Keane and Berbatov had both scored against Torino. It was another time in consecutive years when we had looked impressive in pre-season. We won the Peace Cup in 2005 playing some attractive football, and were also in good form in all of the following three pre-seasons. But in all of those following three seasons we went onto to lose the first league game we played, as part of poor starts.

If club rankings were judged in the six week period beginning in the second Saturday in July, we would have been World Champions between 2005 to 2008. But it’s not. And though we looked awful on the second day of the Wembley Cup, embarrassingly beaten by Celtic in 2009, we went on to have our best season in the League for 20 years.

Back in the sandwich shop yesterday, I eventually remembered that our goals yesterday were scored by Kaboul, Corluka and Jake Livermore.  And thinking back now, I can remember a few other things that happened yesterday, that weren’t washed away with all the beer I drank throughout the day, so I can record them here now, so they can be stored for prosperity somewhere in the Cloud.

After watching forty minutes of very average football from Spurs, I received a text from a mate to see where I was sitting. Turns out he was in the same block, and he came over and had a chat. And in that minute I missed Kaboul’s equalizer. Brighton had deservedly been 1-0 up, having a real go at us, in what will probably be one of their bigger gates of the season for the official opening of their new ground.

And it is a nice ground, Olympic Stadium style looking architecture from the outside, and posters of their former past legends, who happened to include Guy Butters and Bobby Zamora, on the approach to the stadium. The location is good, and crucially back in Brighton, after 14 years of hard campaigning by their fans. Wouldn’t want to be in that situation, when your club is dislocated to another area. Perish the thought.

Facilities were decent for the away end as well, and being the first club there, it was safe to assume that no Palace fans had yet pissed in the sinks. The away end is one of three one sided tiers, with the main stand a smart looking three-tiered stand that will no doubt provide them some sizeable income from corporate hospitality now they are back in the old second division again.

Their new signing, Craig Mackail-Smith, prolific at Peterboro, had set up the opener, and he looked particularly lively, and is an astute signing by Gus Poyet. Our new signing, Brad Friedal, meanwhile looked like he had my friend’s sun tan lotion on his gloves, spilling everything like a drunk waiter serving a full-tray of cocktails while walking on ice. If Gomes had looked that shaky, he would have been slaughtered.

Despite Brighton being the better team though, we actually went into the break in the lead. Corluka, who had a decent first half, constantly belying his lack of pace by getting into advanced positions, coolly finished to put us 2-1 up. I would like to see Kyle Walker start the season at right-back, and am in the minority that actually prefers Alan Hutton to Corluka, not least, because I am not a fan of full-backs who consistently pull-out of challenges, but Corluka had a good game yesterday.   

A couple of our other players who actually looked interested were Aaron Lennon, who came close to scoring for us in the first half, and the eventual match winner Jake Livermore. Livermore played well in central midfield, getting involved throughout, shooting when he had the space and he took his goal well, a gift from their keeper. I understand that Livermore has enjoyed the lifestyle of being a footballer for a while, good to now see him back it up on the pitch when he is given the chance.

With all the players who played at Leyton Orient the previous evening not involved, the only notable absentee (apart from the injured Sandro and Huddlestone) was Luka Modric. Reportedly sick, it would not beyond the realms of possibility he was fearful of a hostile reception, so stayed away, perhaps sensibly waiting for his next Spurs appearance to be a competitive game, when the focus is on the result. In the urinals of a bar on the seafront later in the evening I was stood in the middle of two Spurs fans, literally and metaphorically; one who said they came to Brighton cheer Modric, and one who said they wanted to boo him. I wouldn’t boo him, and as I said clearly to the bloke who didn’t want him to play for Spurs again, the last thing we should do is sell him to Chelsea. But we know what Modric did this summer, and it has hardly been heart-warming stuff.

The fact that someone who wasn’t playing was the Spurs topic of conversation hours later, bore out that it was a largely forgettable game though, and it was a day on the seafront that was a much as an attraction as the match.

On Saturday we have another pre-season friendly, a home game against Athletico Bilbao with tickets priced higher than admittance for the decisive last day of the 2,000th test at Lords earlier this week, which had the attraction of the greatest batsman in the history of the game, as the two best teams in the world competed in the first test of the series. I sadly didn’t get to the cricket, and I won’t be going to White Hart Lane on Saturday.

It is understandable people will, because during the summer we miss football, and we miss White Hart Lane, just like we feel proud to wear nice retro tops with our club crest on.

Yesterday was a reminder though that I am not the only one who is not that interested in pre-season friendlies anymore. Most of the players aren’t, either.

MG

My e-book on Tottenham Hotspur's return to the European Cup for the first time in 49 seasons is now available on Amazon and Smashwords.

 

Get the Message

When ‘Soccer AM’ first started it was a breath of fresh air to previously tired football programming; good graphics, Frank Butcher impressions, classic punchlines and pretty good incidental music. It’s hey day has long gone now, and the once four hour programme had gradually been halved in size.

It is a very occasional watch now on a Saturday morning before setting of to White Hart Lane, but I happened to catch the ‘Team Mates’ feature last season when Jermaine Jenas was on; the only answer of his that sticks in my mind was the one on the subject of ‘The Least Intelligent Player’. A quick trawl on the internet shows that when most current Spurs players have been on this feature and asked about who the least intelligent player in the squad is, the stock answer is David Bentley.

No real surprises there, although as Aaron Lennon said when he was interviewed, we don’t have the brightest set, before going on to name Gomes as the most intelligent player on the basis he wore glasses. (It’s a good thing Lennon makes up for it on the pitch week-in, week-out).

But the reason Jenas’ ‘Least Intelligent Player’ answer was memorable was because he named Luka Modric. He gave a very good example as to why he named him as well (as per the link), which can only perhaps partly be explained through mistaking a literal translation in a second language. And while Jenas may not be the most popular player in the annals of Tottenham Hotspur History, he is clearly one of the more articulate players off the pitch of the current crop, so it was a rare insight into the Spurs dressing room.  

For those of us who have watched Modric and seen him to be a player of remarkable intelligence on the pitch, this revelation was a bit of a disappointment. But, being an intelligent player on the pitch doesn’t always mean they will be a bright spark off it. There are a few that are clearly both, with Johan Cruyff, Ossie Ardiles, Socrates, Jorge Valdano and Michel Platini being prime examples of brilliant brains on both sides of the line.

Yet we are now of an age where players think cutting up each clothes seems to be the height of comedy. Even the aforementioned Jenas has tweeted about the non-stop amusement he finds with these practical jokes; the type of high jinx and team spirit Joe Kinnear would have been proud off and that gave football journalists in the early nineties something to talk about when covering The Crazy Gang as opposed to their hospitalizing tackles.

So unless Modric is fooling us all, and playing a very Machiavellian game of turning all Spurs fans against him, which could admittedly be a strategy from his advisers, and one that is bearing fruit according to my twitter timeline today, I would suggest that perhaps it’s Modric’s lack of common sense that leaves him to believe we would sell him at a knock-down price to one of our major rivals when he has five years of his contract left to run.

It is not clear yet whether he knew his telephone interview with the Croatian paper that came to light this morning would be published, a technique that has undone far greater players and more experienced men than him, notably Glenn Hoddle. But regardless, the comments from it show a real naivety in how business and life work.

It is possible there was a genuine misunderstanding about would happen if another club made an offer; misunderstandings happen more often than they should in business, and needlessly so when contracts are involved. If Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have both had different impressions of a conversation that is still talked about over fifteen years later, it’s not unthinkable that Modric may not have got the right end of the stick when having a chat to with Levy in a language that his not his mother tongue.

But someone needs to put him right about big clubs and about Chelsea as well. It’s a shame we haven’t got a Stevie P in the dressing room now to have a word with him. The current Manager may not be the best to talk about loyalty, and he has his own mood swings about ambitions and big club status; just earlier today I happened to be watching back our 3-2 win in at The Emirates, for something else I am writing, and in the post-match interview Redknapp says “it’s no good talking about coming fourth or fifth... you’ve got to aim for first”. If he could get back to being the personality he was that day, I wouldn’t mind him speaking to Modric. But failing that, it is being left to Daniel Levy to play bad cop, and he is doing it willingly, so Modric’s team-mates and the Manager can play the nice guys, and Spurs as a club can reap the reward.

Had Levy thought there might be a possibility Modric may go this summer, it is likely he would have signed Charlie Adam as a potential replacement in advance, just as he signed Darren Bent when he thought Berbatov may and try and force his way out one year before he actually left. Adam fits the bill on a number of other levels, including being young enough so he wouldn’t become dead stock if a new manager didn’t fancy him; affordable in both transfer fee and wages; and importantly a player who has shown he can dictate the pace of any game in English football from central midfield while also scoring and creating goals from both open play and set-pieces. But that ship has sailed, and it his highly unlikely there would be any attraction to sell Modric to anyone now, unless as well as it commanding a big fee, it also involved a player exchange of someone who could fill his boots.

Chelsea don’t have anyone like that, which is why they want to buy him. There had been a laughable suggestion Michael Essien would be a makeweight before his injury this week put paid to that. In reporting Essien’s injury Sky Sports News ran a ticker tape saying they had a “source” at Chelsea telling them that he was injured in training before it was officially announced; not exactly a shock SSN have a source at Chelsea, which is why they have led with the Modric story, as their leaks dictated. And they will continue to run interviews with people like Kerry Dixon, who while he might be a nice bloke (I met him once), is on the Chelsea payroll; so any clip of him saying he Modric be a Chelsea player can also be part of the evidence of tapping up.

The SSN stories seemed to have died down after Levy’s statements, and considering the editorial policy of Sky News, and other “sources” the part-owned News Corp organisation has, we should be grateful Sky Sports News is generally fair and will turn the focus away if Tottenham’s media relations say the right things to them (I am assuming here we have got a media relations team that are capable of saying the right thing).

Those right things would include the subject of tapping up, which Modric’s comments over the last few weeks have also provided ample evidence of, and which Levy may well pursue. But that doesn’t mean he’ll be sold.

Modric has obviously been led to believe by his advisers that a move was fait accompli and he has probably been thinking about what he’ll be spending his new salary on, as well as his signing on fee, which he’d get, because he has been loyal enough not to ask for a transfer...

Like any disappointment in life, he will get over it, even if it takes a few weeks.

I would like to see Daniel Levy sticks to his guns, and hopefully Modric gets the message.

MG

My e-book on Tottenham Hotspur's return to the European Cup after 49 seasons is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

 

Summer Wind(ow)

I have done my best to avoid transfer talk, it is mostly rubbish and I find it particularly disrespectful when journalists continually speculate about our players, most of whom have never indicated, even off-the-record, that they would like to leave. But I do have some views how I would like to see the Spurs squad at the end of the transfer window.

The first thing is obvious, we need to keep our best players – and they are Luka Modric, Rafa Van Der Vaart, Aaron Lennon, Gareth Bale, Sandro and Michael Dawson. And we can safely assume that our best player of all, Ledley King, won’t be going anywhere. And I think unless there is a falling out with the Manager, the others won’t be going anywhere either. Both the Chairman and Manager are strong and ambitious, and for all their other faults, won’t be bullied by other clubs or the players’ agents.

By and large over the last couple of seasons, unlike at other clubs, our best players have made no real noises about leaving, and the recent quotes from Modric while he was away at Croatia have been the exception. In the last year Rooney handed in a transfer request at Man Utd, Tevez has made no secret of wanting to leave City, Torres left Liverpool without a thought, and Arsenal’s captain has spoken non-stop about how he would like to sit on the Barcelona substitutes bench.

And that is why the recent quotes from Modric were disappointing, because there is a very good case for him to stay if he was given the choice about whether follow the footsteps of Carrick and Berbatov and sit in the shadows at Old Trafford (a choice I don’t think he will be given).

The idea that previous Spurs players were fed, that they could only win titles at Man United, and never at Spurs, should now be quashed. The fact that we have half a dozen players (including King) that would get into the United side shows there is no big gap. It is lazy, complacent thinking. It swallows the Sky status quo whole, and the broken logic that the World doesn’t spin around, but stands still with a manufactured ‘big four’. But, as Sir Alex Ferguson often acknowledges, football is cyclical.

United are in heavy debt, they have an ageing team to the extent where their biggest priority is now replacing Paul Scholes – a player who only started 16 League games last season, half the games started by Modric – and their cycle will end one day, just as Liverpool’s did before them. In 1992 we hadn’t won the league for 31 years. At the same time, Manchester United hadn’t won the League for 26 years. Things changed quickly in a short space of time. And with four teams now qualifying for the European Cup, the chance of success at the highest level is also now greater than it has been for many years, despite the down playing of expectations from Harry Redknapp.

Manchester City can spend silly money on James Milner, Liverpool can go to town on Jordan Henderson and Andy Carroll, and United can spend big money on Phil Jones (who showed in the U21s last night he is comfortable losing possession with long balls, an attribute that no doubt made Sam Allardyce such a fan); but their extravagance doesn’t mean their teams are better than Spurs.

But, it is a squad that is needed to succeed, and whereas Spurs currently have a good team with some high quality players, there is a need to invest in good players that can step into the first team now – players that are comfortable on the ball, players that have a winning mentality, players that can change a game, and players who when used are effective enough so we don’t notice any of the aforementioned quality players are missing.

Players who fit that bill include players we have been linked with, and arguably players we should have signed before this summer. Had Scott Parker been a Spurs player last season I think there is a very good chance his dynamism could have made the difference in home games against Wigan, West Ham and Blackpool. Parker is a better player than Palacios, and he is a better player than Jenas, and when he did play last season he was often the best player on the pitch, who ever the opposition was. (When he was absent, West Ham suffered). And he has looked good at International level now he has finally been given the chance. (And from what I heard a while ago, he has been openly saying that he wants to join Spurs for some months).

Too often last season we persisted in relying on a small group of players. That was partly because the manager didn’t trust the squad enough, and this summer is the time to resolve that. He rotated his team more in his second spell at Portsmouth then he did at Spurs last season, and next season we should be having a real tilt at the title, as well as having a go in all the cups. Cups are important, we know that. Our History tells us that. And even Arsene Wenger is finding that out now from his own fans.

We shouldn’t have a situation where Van Der Vaart is playing two games for Holland and then playing out of position away at Wigan three days before the Club’s biggest game in Europe since 1984, as we did last season. Ideally, by the time the squad of 25 is named, we will have two quality players for every position, plus an extra keeper, a third striker (in additions to two ‘number 10s’ – VDV and one other), and a fifth CB who is versatile – i.e. Younes Kaboul.

It is not even worth speculating who the three strikers are at this stage, though I would expect at least two new ones, and maybe three, especially if the manager doesn’t want to have an exact like-for-like cover for VDV. (The fact that Modric played in the VDV position against Milan suggests that there is room for an extra midfielder).

There are strikers I like that we have been linked with, but nothing solid to suggest we are actively going for them, or that they want to come (unlike Scott Parker, where I understand West Ham want to sell him to anyone but Spurs). Likewise, we have been recently linked with Jack Rodwell, a real quality player who was originally an England Under-16 Centre Back and Captain, but who could go on to play in the holding room for the national team, and would be happy to start of as a squad player for Spurs as he is at Everton – but it could just be speculation, and the market for young talented English players seem to be inflated, to say the least.

So, credit to the scouts that bought Kyle Walker and Danny Rose, who regardless of their age, could now both be considered as first choices, which is particularly welcome, as the full-back positions have been a weakness for us for many years now. And for a club with our aspirations, we should never have a full season where we effectively only have one left-back, as we did last year, when the apparent decision was made that Bale’s permanent position was further forward. Regardless, with the amount of games we will be playing next season, both Walker and Rose will get games.

It is tempting to name the ideal 25 squad I would like see now, but as successive windows have proved, there is no point in second guessing. Not signing a World Class striker in January was a big disappointment, but getting Van Der Vaart in the previous window was an unexpected triumph.

So I’ll wait and see. (While checking the BBC gossip column every day, before they sell it off because of pressure from the Daily Mail and BSkyB). 

MG

My e-book on Tottenham Hotspur's return to the European Cup after 49 seasons is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

 

F.E.A.R. – Martin Jol’s time at Spurs

An ex-colleague of mine once told me that people only do impersonations of you if they like you. He told me that after my then MD did an impression of me, when telling a funny anecdote. I do an impression of Martin Jol. Everybody knows that.

I like Martin Jol. Everybody likes Martin Jol. He was a very popular figure in English football in his time at Tottenham manager, an unusual period when non-Spurs fans would often mention in passing how much they liked our manager. And most people that met him have a good story to tell, be it the family of a young player I know that Spurs tried to sign in 2007 or my own group of football friends who met him in Braga a few weeks earlier when we were staying at the neighbouring hotel.  Once during Jol’s tenure, I happened to be eating in a restaurant in central London, got talking the owner, and it somehow came out in conversation I was a Spurs fan. (I can’t reveal the interrogation techniques used to get me to volunteer that piece of information.) The owner told me Jol had eaten there a few times and had given him tickets for his kids to come to the training ground. Most satisfyingly for me, the restaurant owner, a West Ham fan, told me that Jol said he hated his club, and would never forgive them for their fans singing “Arsenal” on that infamous final day of the season in 2006.

Jol was a good manager for Tottenham, and they way he was treated publicly by the club in his last few months, culminating with his sacking, was appalling. Reading Levy’s vote of confidence (effectively an undermining vote of no confidence) a few weeks earlier on Sky Sports News graphics, was one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen in a pub in London on a midweek evening, and that’s saying something. But tweets from numerous Spurs fans yesterday wishing that Jol was replacing Harry Redknapp now, seem to be based on sentiment rather than logic, and there is a tendency to look back in the past on his managerial spell through a rose tinted mist.

Similar to Redknapp, Jol is a manger who gives journalists good copy and makes people laugh. The footage of him at a Tottenham supporters meeting retelling of his confrontation with Mark Clattenburg after he didn’t give Pedro Mendes’ “goal” is particularly funny. Redknapp produces those moments on a regular basis, but while Jol never committed the crime of treating Spurs fans with disdain, both his ego and negativity were problems that led to his downfall.

It is well known that Jol seriously considered jumping ship for more money to Newcastle, but it is often forgotten how he openly coveted the Chelsea job while Frank Arnesen was the Director of Football there, even saying in a Guardian interview the day before Spurs played Chelsea in the 6^th round of the FA Cup how he wanted to win a title in two or three years, and dismissing Tottenham’s chance of even challenging, talking about a satisfactory top six finish.  

That Chelsea game was just three days after Braga, and followed a spell where Spurs had a good run of wins, after a period when Jol himself was under pressure. There had been rumours Levy wanted to bring Redknapp in then to replace Jol, and when Spurs won 4-0 away at Fulham in the 5^th round of the FA Cup, the relief to Jol was clear as he left the field ecstatic as he walked past the away end. He blamed the poor slump up until mid-February, and that game at Fulham, on the absence of Jenas and Tanio, but it was quickly forgotten with the good run that followed, which included a great Berbatov performance at home to Bolton when Spurs had ten men (after Keane got two early goals before being sent-off), the memorable 4-3 win at West Ham, and wins away at Everton and Braga.

The cup-tie at Chelsea that followed highlighted both the good and bad sides of Jol’s football decision making; the previous summer during the World Cup he wrote an excellent column for The Times, showing a great tactical understanding, which he rarely seemed to put into practice at Tottenham, almost with a fear of losing. One of the things he said during his World Cup columns was how Aaron Lennon was capable of playing in the hole, behind two strikers in a diamond formation. Against Chelsea that day, he played Lennon there, and as he predicted, Chelsea couldn’t cope. Spurs went 3-1 up early on, and the atmosphere in the away end on a hot day at Stamford Bridge, just two days after we had returned from Braga, was fun in the sun.

We missed a great chance to go 4-1 up at the start of the second-half, and an opportunity to score four goals for the fourth consecutive Sunday, and also a chance to go on and get our own 6-1 win. As the game went on, Jol’s negativity got the better off him. He took off Berbatov (who reportedly only played because Levy insisted on it) and Spurs dropped deeper and deeper, eventually conceding a last minute equalizer, and narrowly avoiding defeat in a game that should have been wrapped up.

Jol understands the principles of good football, and his use of Carrick to dictate the pace of the game transformed the side that was struggling under Santini, to a side that was comfortably one of the best four teams in the league the following season, despite dropping down a place on the last day. Towards the end of that season we out played Arsenal in the last North London Derby at Highbury, and had we won that by four or five clear goals, it would have been a true reflection of the game. I was too busy celebrating Robbie Keane’s goal in the Clock End to see Jol’s confrontation with Wenger until I left the ground, but what stood out during watching many replays of that goal, was Jol’s firm instructions to “Play. Play. Play.” Simple instructions, but the players rightly listened, and when Spurs did play under Jol, we were a very good team.

Six times in Jol’s that season we lost a decisive late goal, which cost us in both cup competitions, as well as of course Champions League qualification. It was no coincidence that when those goals were conceded, Edgar Davids was off the pitch – he was a great influence on that side, and an excellent signing. With a Director of Football it wasn’t always clear who made which signings – it is safe to assume Arnesen got in Carrick, Comolli got in Berbatov, Kevin Prince-Boteang, Beniot Assou-Ekottto and Darren Bent, but Davids was probably Jol’s choice, and a very good one at that.

That Davids was taken off in games was understandable, but it was Jol’s general use of substitutes that was worrying. He liked the idea of having a big striker upfront, even when Keane and Defoe seemed to be the best pairing before Berbatov arrived. And it wasn’t until he fell out with Mido towards the end of 2005-06, that he gave them regular starts together. For someone who has tactical knowledge, Jol seemed reluctant to change things during a game, and would often fall back on the old Dutch trait of having a big man in the box at the end of the game.

By the time of the 2007-08 season expectation was high, particularly from the chairman who invested heavily in the team, and the first team had financial backing no other Spurs manager had had for years. That all the players weren’t Jol’s signings was an issue and team selection started to become a problem. Bent was bought in case Berbatov left, Jol’s treatment of Defoe was strange, particularly if he wasn’t acting on instruction on the club because Defoe wasn’t signing a new contract, and he didn’t have his old favourites to rely on (he was still be bemoaning the big loss of Carrick after a year) and Jenas flattered to deceive (him if no-one else).

The poor start, coupled with perceptions of Jol’s ego behind the scenes caused the club to look elsewhere. And Jol can’t complain about the club keeping their options open, when it is a practice he not only did himself while Spurs manager, but one he has continued to do; when he was at Hamburg, he publicly courted Sunderland, and when he left from Ajax it was hours after Newcastle had sacked his former right-hand man, and true Tottenham legend, Chris Hughton. (Had Jol stepped in Hughton’s shoes then, my “I love Martin Jol” t-shirt may never have seen the light of day again, and the memory of singing “Martin Jol’s Blue & White Army” in Leverkusen might have been tarnished).

When Jol became Tottenham Manager, he was the right man, at the right time. Even after a couple of early defeats in his first games in charge, there was a collective confidence in him, and we went on to score five goals three times that season, as well go on a five match winning run in the League culminating with a memorable win at Carrow Road on Boxing Day. The following season, we were solid as a team, playing good football, with King and Dawson masterful, Carrick pulling the strings, and Lennon a constant threat. And in his final full season, with Berbatov added, we scored goals in all competitions, but were left to wonder how well we might have done had Carrick stayed, and King had been fit (things we sometimes still wonder now).

The handling of his departure was awful, and unbefitting of this great club, but Spurs have moved on now, past the limited ambitions, and seemingly past the internal managerial in-fighting. Jol was replaced for a reason. He is not the right man now, but that doesn’t mean to say, if his mind-set has changed, he may not be sometime in the future, if a vacancy naturally opens itself up. But no man is bigger than the club, and we at Tottenham set our sights high. At times Jol forgot that.

MG

My e-book on Tottenham Hotspur's return to the European Cup after 49 seasons is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

 

The Trouble with Harry

Earlier in the week I went back and watched ESPN’s preview to the Blackpool match last Saturday, which I had recorded. I like ESPN’s coverage of football, but last week one of the pundits was Dion Dublin. Ahead of the game, Dion’s opinion of Spurs was that they had over-achieved this season, and he said another midfielder was the only outfield signing we needed to make in the summer.

Of course this was the usual problem of pundits not really knowing their subject, particularly signified by Dublin’s comments on our squad. More worryingly though, some of the better football writers were also tweeting on Tuesday night, after defeat at Manchester City, that Tottenham had over-achieved this season.

For those of us that do see us week-in, week-out, of course know that is not the case. Expectation is currently high. Unlike many a well-paid football writer, we can make our own mind up, and Redknapp’s comments about going for the League Title were not a factor. In fact Redknapp’s ambition has been a great quality, which is why his comments, justifying Tottenham’s recent slump, are so annoying, coupled with a thinly disguised arrogance, which appear at times to reveal a self-belief that he is better and bigger than the club.

In fact amongst his modern day contemporaries, only Jose Mourinho is a bigger self-publicist who consistently displays a bigger ego at the expense of his a club. A number of Spurs fans have told me they would prefer Mourinho, because he would win things. I wouldn’t. Firstly, there is no guarantee he would win anything; secondly, the football would almost certainly be very negative; thirdly, his stays at club seem to be short-term, and when he leaves, the club is in a worst state; and most importantly of all, no manager is bigger than the club.

One of the golden rules of Project Management is to under sell and over deliver, and the element of Redknapp’s comments regarding next season could be seen as an understandable case of down playing expectations. It could also be seen, as Daniel Taylor commented this week in the Guardian online, as a message to the Chairman that Spurs need to invest in the first-team squad, which few would argue with. But, as he has now regularly used Manchester City’s spending this season as an excuse for our terrible slump in form, it is will be perceived as a case of spin, which seems to work well with his friends in the media.

Being good at PR is not a crime. Redknapp is clearly an engaging speaker, and comes across on television as a very funny bloke. A few years ago, I stopped what I was doing for a couple of hours when I saw he and Jim Smith were the guests on Goals on Sunday, and every story was a gem. And it is no surprise football writers have their favourites, and vice-versa, with the disgusting and unfair treatment Glenn Hoddle has always received a great example.

And the headlines are often misleading; Redknapp didn’t actually say that Spurs fans had no brains yesterday, he said that people that rang into written radio phones didn’t see the games, and had no brains. While not literally true, it is hard to disagree with the sentiment, but it is a dangerous game for him to start having a go at the ill-informed sound-bite, the tool of his biggest defenders.

If anything, Redknapp’s recent comments seem to be from a man under-pressure, desperate to maintain if not his job, his reputation. It is reminiscent in its desperation for reasoning to the two times Martin Jol was under pressure, first when he blamed a slump in form in early 2007 on the absence on Jermaine Jenas and Teemu Tainio, and then later just before his departure in when he was understandably stating his case and defending his record.

But Redknapp’s problem is the way he talks about the club. Always in the third person, and at times almost with disdain. Referring to your club in the third person doesn’t have to be bad thing; Kenny Dalglish always talks about Liverpool in the third person, and is the total opposite – in fact he is so deferential, it is both a little bit boring and at times sickening to the outsider. But if you supported that club, it would be fine.

Of course, we still have Gerry Francis in our memories, who in his opening press conference said how he always wanted to be a manager at a club “…like Spurs or Arsenal”, before then going on to manage the team in a style of a negative Arsenal side, with ridiculous transfer dealings from which it took years to recover.

As Francis went on to talk about taking Tottenham to their highest ever Premier League finish, for years after he left, under the pretence that football only started a few years before he arrived, Redknapp builds up his achievements at Tottenham out of proportion. He is a good manager, and there are no stand out alternatives to him waiting in the wings at the moment, but he would do well to pipe down about being a messiah when the first-team has just had a long costly slump that would have cost many other managers their job, and more crucially may have damaged the progress of the club in building on set of top quality players.

There is a feeling of a wasted opportunity at the moment, and Redknapp no doubt feels that, as do the players as well. And the fact expectation is high, is partly due to the good football we have played since he arrived as manager, as well as the genuine quality players we have.

It is worth noting most of those quality players are ones he inherited, plus a couple that were signed for him; we can though assume he authourised them, even if it meant getting Jamie to check with Ruud Guillit first, as we know happened in one of the cases. And it is what happens in the summer that is key now, keeping our top-class players, strengthening with real quality in the right areas, and just as importantly, having something in place so we are in a stable position for any handover, when Redknapp moves on, which he surely will at some point during the next 14 months.

Redknapp is good a PR, but he is not a master, because if he was he would bear in mind that his messages needs to communicate with all his audiences. He does it effectively with the press and the pundits, and those who just dip in and out (like the people that listen to, work for and phone-in to talk show, ironically). But he is not great at communicating with those of us who do see every game, and whose love for the club is not transient.

We study the detail, we see the bigger picture, and we have longer memories. Redknapp is right to talk about the great football this season, and when we look back on it in years to come it will be remembered for the win at the San Siro, winning at Arsenal, the trip to Madrid, and the great European nights at WHL. But ultimately his job is to work for a Club for which is just a small part of, and he would do well to remember that.
   
MG

My e-book on Tottenham Hotspur's return to the European Cup after 49 seasons is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

 

I Know It’s Over

With three games to go it is perhaps too early to write an end of season obituary for Tottenham’s season. And while there is still the possibility we could finish in one of four different league positions (I am sure I am not the only one who thinks 7th could now be a possibility), a third consecutive Saturday of disappointment yesterday surely means our season is now effectively over.

If the season started like a thrilling rollercoaster - with a breathtaking but goalless performance at home to Manchester City, a return to the European Cup with the horror show of the first-half an hour in Berne, an excellent win at Stoke away, and then qualification for the group stages of the Champions League all in the first eleven days – it is ending like a very slow slide through the mud.

The twelve months from 14th April 2010 have been full of some great highs as a Spurs fan, some of the very best in the last quarter of a centaury in fact. And there were a quite few of them as well, as we put both Arsenal and Chelsea to the sword in the space of four days, qualified for the European Cup on a memorable evening in Manchester, outclassed Internazionale on one of the great nights at the Lane, won at the Emirates from two goals down, beat Milan in the San Siro, and took over 10,000 fans to Madrid.

But it is the knowledge that we have so painfully under-achieved this season in the League that is such a big disappointment at the moment, and one that can’t be ignored. In the unlikely event we now play to our potential, and win our last three games, and Man City were to fail to win both their last two games, we may still scrape fourth, but finishing above Manchester City and Liverpool this season should have been routine, and we should have instead, as Harry Redknapp was still saying in January, been challenging for the title.

We lost momentum in February, but January where was where it all started to go wrong because crucially we didn’t strengthen our squad. The areas where we lacking were fairly obvious even at that point – leaders, full-backs that could defend, and of course, a goalscorer.

In just our fifth game of the season our failings were crystallized in a one-goal home defeat to Wigan. We failed to put away a team despite being dominant in possession, and let in a crucial soft goal. And we have continued to concede soft goals, and they have been costly. Four times in big cup games away from home we have let in early soft goals (Young Boys, Inter, Fulham and Real Madrid) that have resulted in some form of capitulation. And it is now more likely then not, we will let in a soft goal to a team in the bottom half of the table.

Yet, come the end of January, a squad who rightly had title pretensions still only had one left-back, with no strengthening of the defence, and no leaders or a top quality finisher brought in. Pienaar was the only real addition to the first-team squad, a good bit of business by the Board for £3m in today’s market, but not enough on its own.

The squad that looked reasonably strong on paper at the start of the season wasn’t as strong in practice, as already prior to Christmas Redknapp appeared to have no faith in, or fell out with, several players including Kranjcar, Keane, Bentley, Dos Santos, O’Hara and Hutton respectively.

While some of those players may not be good enough now for where Spurs should currently be, his treatment of Dos Santos, one who surely has the potential to be a match winner at the highest level, was particularly bizarre. Named as one FIFA’s top three young players at the World Cup, apart from three brief substitute appearances when we were chasing games, his only half of football for the first team was against Arsenal in the League Cup where we had little possession while he had no service from the three defensive midfielders played behind him.

Last season one of Redknapp’s better qualities seemed to be pragmatism, picking players he didn’t like at crucial times, because it was the right thing to do, notably bringing in Pavlyuchenko and Bentley to effect, and finally giving Bale a run of games. But for all the plaudits he receives for his man-management style in the media, Redknapp does seem to lose a lot of players along the way. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and as the Manager it is right that he should be in charge and pick who he believes best taking both a short and mid-term view, but it is worrying how readily he is to criticise his players in public. And of course there is also a question about his judgment; as we know Bale was one of many he didn’t fancy, and there is the impression the best two signings made since he was manager – Rafael Van Der Vaart and Sandro – were not his signings.

With Javier Hernandez of Manchester United, Van Der Vaart has been the signing of the season. Of course, had our Board signed Hernandez in the summer, the likelihood is he would be out on loan somewhere in Europe now, having played 45 minutes of football in the League Cup without being given the ball once, plus maybe the odd five minutes here and there as a sub. But with Van Der Vaart, even Redknapp couldn’t ignore him, despite playing him out of position a few times.

Van Der Vaart has made a massive difference to the team, particularly prior to Christmas, and was the extra ingredient that gave both the players and the manager the belief that we could challenge for the title. And that is where Redknapp does deserve credit, for having that ambition, and instilling that belief in the players; a belief that has been exemplified by scoring a number of decisive late goals, the sure sign of a side with a winning mentality.

That belief was perhaps best shown through in the home game against Liverpool, when we were a goal down, and had missed yet another penalty. Modric, our player of the season, picked up the ball, and ran with a determination that led directly to an equaliser. And, as so often, Aaron Lennon made a late telling contribution, scoring a great winner.

That we have missed five penalties this season is another issue, but just as important, is that we have gone on to win all of those five games where we missed those penalties. And there is little doubt that at that stage, after Liverpool, the more experienced players in the team like Modric, Van Der Vaart, Gomes and Gallas believed we were challenging for the title.

And they weren’t the only ones. When Man Utd came in January, Sir Alex Ferguson thought Spurs were genuine challengers and he played for a 0-0 draw. Post-season statistics will now show how easy it actually was to get a draw it the league this season at White Hart Lane, but again Redknapp deserves credit for going for it in that game, finishing the game with two strikers, two wingers and Modric and Van Der Vaart in midfield.

With the exception of the cup defeat at Craven Cottage, the next few weeks were fruitful as well, a spell culminating in one of the great Tottenham Hotspur team performances of all-time, deservedly beating Italian league leaders Milan in the San Siro. Right from the first minute, when Van Der Vaart sparkled, we looked at it, and it was one of those nights when every single player played well, and we played to potential, even without Bale and not being able to play Modric and Van Der Vaart on the pitch at the same time. An unforgettable night and a reminder that nights like that make all the bad times worth it.

One week later though, and somehow despite creating several great opportunities, we lost at Blackpool, and we have never regained momentum since. Conversely, despite the squad being under strength, the domestic Cup exits didn’t help, as we had to wait two weeks for the next game after Blackpool, and only played three games in total in March.

Going back to that League Cup exit, Redknapp not only played his hand to hand too early by revealing he was going to play a weakened side, he also totally misjudged the importance of any North London Derby, as well as getting his team selection wrong. Bentley, who is not exactly blessed with pace, was on the left-hand side of a front three, rather than in a central trio who were struggling to keep possession or create, while Kranjcar was left on the bench until we were 4-1 down in extra time.

And the use of the squad since has also been questionable as we have hit our long-drawn out slump; Rafael Van Der Vaart has been fantastic this season, and is vital to us in big matches: having played up until the World Cup Final, not having had a proper pre-season and then playing two internationals in a week for Holland at the end of March, it may have been an idea to give him a break on 2 April away at Wigan ahead of the club’s biggest game in 49 years three days later in Madrid, rather than playing him out of position, while leaving Pienaar and Kranjcar on the bench.

If Ferguson, Wenger or Mourinho had been in charge of Spurs in the same situation, it is unimaginable that Van Der Vaart wouldn’t have been rested ahead of that Real Madrid game, and whether we go on to finish fourth or seventh this season, it is the knowledge we have not made the most of what we have had that is the big disappointment. We have under achieved this season with the players we have at the club, the unused resources when we should have strengthened, and our position and place in February in a League that was there for the taking.

Whatever Redknapp says about the money Man City spent, of all the players they have bought since the end of last season, only Kolorov would probably definitely be a starter for Spurs, while Yaya Toure adds experience and leadership which we lack, and we would probably have signed Dzeko if possible, although he has made little difference to City. We should be comfortably ahead of City in the League, and both the players and manager know it.

It was no surprise Everton beat them yesterday, and had we won our last four games, including winning at Eastlands on Tuesday, there was the distinct possibility City would fail to beat Bolton on the last day, with the pressure on. We can go away and perform well in big matches, which we showed at City last year, and of course at the San Siro and Arsenal this season, and we played our best half of football since Milan at Stamford Bridge last week.

Modric, Sandro and Van Der Vaart in particular looked brilliant as a central trio last week, not only as good as any in the country, but surely one of the best in Europe. With a win yesterday, wins against City and Liverpool were then on the cards, but the late kiss-of-life Everton gave us yesterday was not enough to revive us into a late run of form.

It is unlikely Redknapp will be the Manager beyond next season, and as with replacing Martin Jol and Juande Ramos before him, the Chairman is likely to already have alternatives in mind, as he should as the Club’s custodian.

It is not long ago we were in a good position as a club, and quickly regressed. After winning the League Cup largely with a side that finished in the top five two years running, we then made too many changes to the first team, with eight of the players who won the League Cup not being there the following season. And we suffered for that, as it took new players time to settle and get used to the weight of expectation that grows heavier at WHL when things aren’t going well.

The transfer business in the summer that preceded that season 08/09 was mixed, Modric of course the great signing, Pavlychenko understandable as Berbatov and Keane both left, while the signing of Bentley for £15 million, with Lennon apparently being offered as a makeweight, absolutely ridiculous. And in the early games of that season it was only Lennon, who had his first full pre-season behind him yet mainly being used from the bench, the one player who didn’t hide, and offered some hope.

The lessons from that two-year period are clear. We sold players that were key to our success, starting with Carrick, and then made too many wholesale changes, effectively giving us another season of transition when we should have been building on success. We are a much better team now than we were under Martin Jol. Where Jol had a tendency to be negative, particularly with substations, we are now more progressive, still playing passing football, but with the attitude we have the ability to win every game. (For all Redknapp’s faults, it is hard to believe he would have not gone for it against Sevilla for example, after equalizing, or that he would have taken Berbatov off when 3-1 up at Chelsea).

The recent poor run of form may overshadow the many strengths we have, and whether the manager decides to jump ship in the summer or not, the priority is keeping the nucleus of top quality players we have – namely Modric, Van Der Vaart, Bale, Lennon, Sandro and Dawson – and strengthening in the areas that are apparent.

With or without European football, now is the time for the Board to hold their nerve, build on what we have by investing in the first-team, and make sure we are challenging for the title next season.

Audere-est-Facere.

My e-book on Tottenham Hotspur's return to the European Cup after 49 seasons is available from Amazon and Smashwords.

Simple Twist of Fate

Sport, and Football in particular, seem to have a remarkable capacity to deliver redemption, fairytales, heartbreak and coincidences that would seem far-fetched if they were scripted as fiction. From players scoring against old clubs to great athletes finally fulfilling their potential at their once in a lifetime home Olympic Games, sport continues to have multiple storylines.

Very early last season, around September 2009, I said to a few people in all seriousness I could see Spurs winning the European Cup at Wembley in May 2011, 50 years on since we became the first team to the Double there in the twentieth century. That just wasn’t based on some blind romantic notion, or the superstition of the year ending in ‘1’; in my eyes we already had the making of a very good team who played progressive football with attacking intent, and which had an attitude to go on a good run, be comfortable on the European stage and was starting to show a winning mentality.

But of course I also felt it would be a fitting anniversary fifty years on from the all conquering ’61 team (which went on to be the first British team to win a European trophy), while also being a redemptive return after we were hard done by against Benfica in the semi-finals, the last time we were in the competition. As Jimmy Greaves, who played in that European Cup Semi-Final for Spurs, used to say: Football is a funny old game.

After criminally conceding an early goal and then going down to ten-men in the Bernabeu, the quarter-finals may now be as far as we get this season. But I immediately thought there was another story of footballing fate that non-Spurs fans may want to write.

In a bar in Madrid in the early hours of Wednesday morning, long enough after the game that the conversation moved back to the result, I said to five “football friends” I usually go to games with, what I thought in the stadium at the time – a neutral may see Adebayor’s goals as justice against a clubs who’s fans have given him racist abuse for three years. And unusually amongst an argumentative group, as everyone contemplated what I said, they all just nodded their head, and there was no dissent. Everyone agreed, because that is how football often works. And we all agree that the Adebayor song is wrong.

None of us sing that song. I never have. Some of them did the first time we all heard it together, a few days have we hammered Arsenal 5-1, and were walking towards the away end at Old Trafford for the FA Cup Fourth Round in 2008, fuelled by the prospect of at least one trip to Wembley and a lot of beer. I said then I thought it was racist, and despite what the CPS say (not exactly the first time they have called it wrong), and the ambiguity of ‘Kick It Out’s comments since the game in Madrid, I still think it is. And I know a number of other Spurs fans, in addition to the five mentioned, who shake their head in shame every time they hear it.

It is not hard to figure out how the song started – it was adapted from the song Arsenal fans were singing about their then hero in that 2008 semi-final second leg (I don’t remember them singing at all at their own ground in the first leg, and it was about the only thing they sang in the second-leg - at half-time, when Adebayor was warming up). They were singing about giving him the ball to score, and someone adapted it to his dad washing an elephant, and his mother being a whore. (You’ve got to wonder how the mind of someone like that works).

But it is easy to see how the song then quickly took off – it scans well and basically tore apart the only song Arsenal fans used to sing at the time. The point about it scanning well is not flippant - after Adebayor scored for Man City against Arsenal last season, running the length of the field to celebrate in front of the gooners on the day he also retaliated against Van Persie - the words for a while afterwards by Spurs fans were changed to “He stood on a rapist/And then slid when he scored”. While still not the most pleasant song in the world, the main target of abuse remained Arsenal, rather than Adebayor because of his race.

It is hard to imagine the song would have been sung by so many if Adebayor wasn’t an Arsenal player to start with. It is revisionism to say Adebayor gets so much abuse because he has a dislikeable reputation, as his main misdemeanour when it started was whom he played for.

But the first adaptation has hung around and contrary to tweets I have read since Madrid, it was sung by more than a small “minority” in the official allocation of 3,602 in the away end at the Bernabeu on Tuesday night. To be fair there were probably around 15,000 Spurs fans in the stadium, so in that sense it was the minority. (And the ones who do the actions to the song are definitely in the minority, thankfully).

Racism isn’t a problem at Spurs – there are racist Spurs fans, just as there are racist fans at other clubs, but the majority of people that sing that song are not racist; because the song is not overtly racist, most of them probably don’t even recognise it as such. But ignorance, just as saying other clubs are far worse (which is true), doesn’t make it acceptable.

Which is why it is a good thing Adebayor himself has finally raised it. And the problem is not a Tottenham problem. It is a problem in a society in which non-racist personal abuse is acceptable. We live in a time where Chris Moyles, Jeremy Clarkson and Jimmy Carr are pillars of light-entertainment, and The Sun is being read by on average 7.7 million people (Media Week, March 2011). So it’s not surprising the varying boundaries between criticism, banter, bullying and personal abuse become blurred to some.

It is embarrassing for Spurs that Adebayor has the higher moral ground, but he has it comfortably in this case. Tottenham have a great record in attracting both English ethnic minority fans and players, and those from oversees, going back many, many decades.

The Adebayor song is an aberration that will now hopefully soon come to an end. Unfortunately considering some of our players like to take their nap when defending set-pieces, it was always tempting fate.

MG

My e-book on Tottenham Hotspur's return to the European Cup after 49 seasons is available on Amazon and Smashwords.