topspurs editorial 14th April

yiddo

from http://www.topspurs.com/jmdview.htm

14th April 2008 – Like the love that we spoke of forever on St Hotspur Day

It’s hard to believe its 17 years since that great lunchtime game, and the fare dished up by the 5th best squad and the best paid manager in the league in the second period made it seem even further away. Just as against Newcastle, Spurs were ordinary at best in a first half which produced a 1-0 lead (or 44 mins if you are being pedantic against the Geordies), and then shocking effort in both skill and application in a second period which was an embarrassment if you still believe it will be any different next season and a disgrace if you think every Spurs game is important and swallow the guff about wanting to be better than some mid-table also ran

Again there were a couple of special ‘random’ substitutions which left Spurs with three strikers on the pitch but no viable width in the attacking half of the pitch after losing Lennon and Malbranque – if this is not good enough to create a chance for Spurs let alone rescue a game against end of season nothing to play for Boro, how is this sort of thing gonna work when the real stuff starts again in August? Looking back at the League cup final, although taking off Chimbo who was having a good game and then Malbranque who similarly was playing well before being played out of position and then subbed, worked because Spurs won, its increasingly likely that Spurs won despite rather than because of these counter intuitive decisions.

Apparently Spurs played ok in the first half but I can’t remember many decent chances created to show for it and it only looked semi decent in respect of the second period which was dire and must have appalled the obsessed with winning Ramos. Although apparently not if the following comments are anything to go by:

Ramos: "We always want to produce the best performance possible but you have to understand the situation the team is in. We are in the middle of the table, the points aren't excessively important - we can't reach the top part of the table and we don't seem to be in danger. It is not easy to get the maximum motivation when the team is in this situation."

That is the talk of a pub team manager or a manager from the 70s. Even allowing for the language thing, are those really the comments of a modern sports manager? Esp. one who is obsessed with winning? Jol was meant to be too lax with Spurs and while the football was n’t always as fluid, I can’t remember a game where Spurs were not winning at home which did not feature a sustained assault on the oppo goal to retrieve the situation at some stage in the second half. Not just under Jol but any Spurs manager and now we’ve had this twice in two home games under the latest messiah

Speaking from experience, Huddlestone looked like he was playing with a hangover. Very few comments about how Ramos had turned him around via fatfighters after that display. Jenas was another who was apparently transformed from a talented but erratic midfielder into a top (stand aside stevie g) international by the magical Ramos effect. If it was wishful thinking then, after another typical decent but not great effort from Jenas where that fantastic run after the Keane flick in the first half was surrounded misplaced passes, dead balls not beating the first man and always lots of effort – where is the difference between Jenas 2005, Jenas 2006, Jenas 2007 & Jenas 2008?

‘Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose’ as Delboy may have put it for both Jenas and Spurs. Je veux croire

In keeping with the theme of the St Hotspur day semi final, Spurs were known as a one man team (although that failed to include England’s second highest goalscorer Lineker and legendary club captain Mabbutt amongst others) and that one man rushed back from an operation to not only last more than an hour but have a devastating impact on the game. Football has changed but you’d need to be sharing a pipe with Lewis Carroll to imagine our current ‘one man’ doing anything akin to this unless his interest was paramount. Poyet signalled one of the first official signs of discontent with Berbatov in the MOTD interview which may perhaps be part of the agenda to sell him on at a massive profit in the summer but also may just be a genuine frustration about not being able to harness his skill for the benefit of the team as a whole.

If Ramos does n’t care, and the players once a happy squad under Jol are not putting themselves out for each other, why should we the customers bother? I don’t suppose Levy will be there dolling out the refunds recognising the early end to the season, although I suppose its also bad timing for him as well as he’ll need to twist minds backwards to the Wembley cup win when announcing what will be the usual above inflation price rises for next season with the familiar refrain, we need more of your money so Spurs can be better.

Really? Will more new players with names like ethethetheth pethethethethe & Sminki-pinki from a chanel 9 news summary (but hopefully without Boutros Boutros-Ghali) be any better than Spurs currently have? Do Spurs want another opening day game with 5 debutants and the first three months of the season written off while they bed in (or not as proved to be the case this year). I thought it was about building something no going round in groundhog circles.
Ramos has got these players to outplay Chelsea in a major final, and the squad has two 5th place finishes in the bag so for all this weak finish to the season they are no duds and Ramos is not acting in the best interest of Spurs and outside his remit if he just wants to junk these players on – which is all we seem to get from him rather than how he is making a difference with his coaching and motivation. Sure Spurs have lost Carrick and its obvious that we’ve seen the best of poor old Ledley, two mainstays of the recent success and there is always room at Spurs for good and better players but I can’t get away from the idea that, wonderful cup final win apart Spurs have regressed over the last 12 months starting with some bad summer signings, through the messed up league season to the seeming falling away of the team spirit

Despite Levy’s words last week, Ramos job is to get this squad into 4th place next season. Anything else will not have been an improvement on Jol’s performance. The Wembley win and the two previous league finishes demonstrate he has enough talent, and as such his job was and is to bring consistency and improvement. Anything else such as wholesale changes is just a major contradiction of the final performance and Spurs operating policy for most of the decade and very risky for the club should he fail.

galinka

Pretty fair comment as to making wholesale changes - doubt if the current top 4 will have 5 new signings in their 11 come August.