Slipperduke
The Camden Cad
Gary Megson must have been furious when he woke up on Sunday morning and saw the backpages. The Bolton Wanderers manager had all week to look forward to a trip to White Hart Lane and then they go and boot out the floundering manager less than 24 hours before kick-off. The swift arrival of Harry Redknapp to a team with no confidence meant that you didn't need to be a fortune-teller to see where the three points were going this weekend. Megson may as well have stayed in bed.
Redknapp will turn Tottenham around, of that there is little doubt. He is a good judge of talent, an excellent motivator of men and a specialist when it comes to eccentric, ageing or struggling stars, and there are plenty of those at White Hart Lane. He has also been shrewd enough to limit expectations, pledging only to save Spurs from the drop, nothing more. Tottenham will stay in the Premier League, I'm sure of that. I'd just like to know how long Daniel Levy will stay at Tottenham.
After reading his impassioned statement to supporters on Tottenham's website, you might think that none of this is Levy's fault at all. Everything is prefaced with a 'we', a subtle little semantic trick that implies shared responsibility.
"The ultimate failure...of our dealings in this summer's transfer window," writes Levy, "was not about the departure of two good strikers, or because we have operated a structure that happens to have had a sporting director and a head coach...Quite simply, we failed because we were not as decisive or as successful in identifying or replacing the two strikers as early as we should have been."
Uh-huh. And why were...erm...'we' so indecisive and unsuccessful, Daniel? Was it possibly because the managerial structure that 'you' decided upon had led to two opposing factions with contradictory ideas of what constituted a good striker? Was it that 'you' hired a Director of Football who was either so incompetent or so uncommunicative that he spent millions of pounds on a new striker that 'your' manager said couldn't play alongside the existing one?
How many times does Levy have to get it wrong before he goes? He was wrong to change the structure of the club, he was wrong to hire Damien Comolli, he was wrong, oh so wrong, to sack Martin Jol and now, it has been confirmed that he was wrong to poach Juande Ramos from Sevilla.
I shudder to think about how much money must have been spent in the last 48 hours on severance payments. Ramos was one of highest-paid managers in the league, Gus Poyet wouldn't have left Leeds without a big wage and Comolli can't have come cheap either. This is before we take into account the large compensation package to Portsmouth for Redknapp's services, Redknapp's new contract and the mountain-sized sack of cash that Redknapp will demand in order to rebuild the squad in the next transfer window. When Tottenham's army of season ticket holders handed over their money in the summer, I rather doubt that this was how they intended it to be spent.
If anyone, in any industry, had such a poor record in senior recruitment, they'd be out on their ear in no time. Levy's record with the axe shows that he clearly believes in personal accountability for corporate failings, but why doesn't it apply to him?
Redknapp will turn Tottenham around, of that there is little doubt. He is a good judge of talent, an excellent motivator of men and a specialist when it comes to eccentric, ageing or struggling stars, and there are plenty of those at White Hart Lane. He has also been shrewd enough to limit expectations, pledging only to save Spurs from the drop, nothing more. Tottenham will stay in the Premier League, I'm sure of that. I'd just like to know how long Daniel Levy will stay at Tottenham.
After reading his impassioned statement to supporters on Tottenham's website, you might think that none of this is Levy's fault at all. Everything is prefaced with a 'we', a subtle little semantic trick that implies shared responsibility.
"The ultimate failure...of our dealings in this summer's transfer window," writes Levy, "was not about the departure of two good strikers, or because we have operated a structure that happens to have had a sporting director and a head coach...Quite simply, we failed because we were not as decisive or as successful in identifying or replacing the two strikers as early as we should have been."
Uh-huh. And why were...erm...'we' so indecisive and unsuccessful, Daniel? Was it possibly because the managerial structure that 'you' decided upon had led to two opposing factions with contradictory ideas of what constituted a good striker? Was it that 'you' hired a Director of Football who was either so incompetent or so uncommunicative that he spent millions of pounds on a new striker that 'your' manager said couldn't play alongside the existing one?
How many times does Levy have to get it wrong before he goes? He was wrong to change the structure of the club, he was wrong to hire Damien Comolli, he was wrong, oh so wrong, to sack Martin Jol and now, it has been confirmed that he was wrong to poach Juande Ramos from Sevilla.
I shudder to think about how much money must have been spent in the last 48 hours on severance payments. Ramos was one of highest-paid managers in the league, Gus Poyet wouldn't have left Leeds without a big wage and Comolli can't have come cheap either. This is before we take into account the large compensation package to Portsmouth for Redknapp's services, Redknapp's new contract and the mountain-sized sack of cash that Redknapp will demand in order to rebuild the squad in the next transfer window. When Tottenham's army of season ticket holders handed over their money in the summer, I rather doubt that this was how they intended it to be spent.
If anyone, in any industry, had such a poor record in senior recruitment, they'd be out on their ear in no time. Levy's record with the axe shows that he clearly believes in personal accountability for corporate failings, but why doesn't it apply to him?
