Spurs Banter Archive March 21 2014



 

21 Mar 2014 12:11:16
Sherwood has talked about demanding absolute control over transfers.

He is unlikely to be in charge this summer, but whoever takes his place must make the same demand.

What he doesn't need is a Director of Football looking over his shoulder and buying players without regard to his needs and priorities.

That is what undermined Ramos a few years ago and AVB this season.

For example, who signed Paulinho? £17m for a 24-year-old Brazilian international who had played every game in the Confederations Cup might have looked like good business, but did anybody ask AVB if he wanted him? All season, I have felt that he was too similar in style to play alongside Dembele but not good enough to replace him.

It is the same with Eriksen and Lamela. At 21, both were essentially players for the future. They needed time to settle in this country and get used to the pace and intensity of the Premiership. The problem is that they both like to play in the same position. It was inevitable that one would settle in first so the other one would be starved of game time. But without game time, how do you adjust to English football?

Either of them might have been worth a punt, but not both of them.

Then there was the defence. We started the season with only 7 defenders in the squad. Why?

There were growing doubts about Dawson and Kaboul, who had become injury prone and looked to be declining assets, so why sell Caulker, who was a natural replacement for them, and buy Chiriches, who is a completely different sort of player?

Meanwhile, we let Ekotto go on loan with no proven left back in the squad. Rose had played there quite a few times but was by no means established in that position and there was no natural cover at all for him. As a result, we have been alienating Naughton and Vertonghen by playing them out of position.

If AVB had driven the transfer agenda I doubt if we would have been left so short in defence, or that we would have brought in 5 new midfield players with no clearly defined roles for them to play. It doesn't really matter whether they are good players or not.

It's not enough to go out and buy the best players that are available. You have to buy the right players: the ones that will build on your strengths and add another 5% or 10% to them. But that has to be the manager's judgement call.

For me, a Director of Football is just an expensive Board member in search of something to do. A loose cannon.

Loose cannons are always dangerous.


Very true.

We have bad luck but we don't ever make any of our own luck. Every player that has joined us has had an injury lasting at least a month or more and some of them more than one. Injures have occurred at the back (along with inexperience/decline) and we've been completely short there in every way.
We didn't play to Soldado's strengths at all to begin with and he's slowly gone into a shell, popping his head out to miss the odd chance that he'd have stuck away 9 times out of 10 in the past.
Players like Chadli have been the brunt of criticism yet he's had little game time and in various positions (incidentally, he's showing signs that he could be a good player). Paulinho is so slow and deliberate, easy to read and cannot be counted on - he might get up to speed next year but again it's another passenger for the season along with all the other unrest.
A swap of managers has led from one iffy situation to another, more confusion and transition for a larger group that weren't even half way through the first round of that.
A disasterous and wasted season in many ways and the buck stops with the board. AVB wasn't the right man in my opinion but, he was a dead-man walking from day one because of his previous. Whenever things got sticky he was never going to get any benefit of the doubt from the press, rival fans or half of our fans but, if you pick him as your man then have some conviction. Baldini seems to have picked players, AVB was the scapegoat and now Tim Sherwood is supposed to pull up trees overnight?!? Players need to shoulder some blame for some very poor concentration levels but, with several months of chaos and confusion it's no wonder they're all over the shop.
Can anybody honestly say what our best XI is and how they should be playing? We all have opinions but nobody knows inside the club let alone out of it.
It's still a mess, we still need a striker (two isn't enough) and left-back, even now it's the same old same old. We have a manager in-situ who was never likely to be the long term situation so it's wasted months and will mean another new boss, another period of transition, likely team personnel changes and starting all over yet again.


Simmo

Our best eleven:

Jennings

Carr, Woodgate, King, Ziege

Mackay, Hoddle, Modric, Gascoigne,
Ginola

Klinsman

And people accuse me of living in the past!


21 Mar 2014 20:24:26
I heard on ts sorry forgot his nome now, our last dof he reckons that avb would have sanctioned all transfers and that no player gets bought with out a managers approval. He also stated that levy does has never gone and just bought a player again with out the managers approval.
I dnt know what to believe.
However I dnt value the job of a dof is he a glorified scout?
Do we need one I guess it works for some club but after 3 of then that we have had to date I can't see the advantage.

I would rather stick to the old British way of doing it let the manager choose and discuss terms and then put it to the board and at the same time persuade them to get his man


If Ian Broomfield is returning where does that leave Baldini?


21 Mar 2014 23:22:14
Camolli ^


KM

Goes to show what brilliant players we've had. No Bale for you? I'm in the Ginola camp for sure, I couldn't believe my eyes sometimes when he dropped a shoulder and somehow managed to shimmy and twist away from THREE markers all over him in the blink of an eye, unreal. Gazza and Klinsmann; a couple of the world's best. King and Woodgate, the ultimate pairing England never had, we didn't get enough of it either.


I disagree, and it is only in football where so much risk and decision making is placed on a single person. In any other capacity there is a distribution of decision making. This is important because a manager can usually do more harm than good.

It is absolutely a valuable skill for a football manager to be able to work within a team structure. The more you prove yourself the more authority you are given. Think that Ferguson was given total and ultimate control over every aspect of the club the day he walked into that job?


The director of football has a very important and singular task, and that is to ensure continuity of the club regardless of the manager. And transfer policy is going to be a part of this because it is the singular largest risk that a club takes. It goes right from setting the wage and transfer budget right to ensuring that the correct type of players are purchased. Now sure the manager should have a say in this, but he should be one of a number of people working together.

You have zero evidence that AVB did not drive the transfer agenda. All of the players purchased were AVB type players, and generally got a lot of game time under him.

Soldado; wrong type of striker for the system but AVB played him over Defoe and Adebayor (the latter decision probably leading to him leaving).

Chadli & Lamela; inverted wingers for AVB's inverted winger system.

Paulinho; Box to box player that was consistently played alongside Dembele in a midfield double pivot that AVB seemed to favour over a DPC system. He was exactly the sort of player that AVB was looking for in his brand of slow possession based football. Yes I agree he is to similar to Demebele, but that's because I think the double pivot is a pile of rubbish and DPC is better; AVB thought otherwise.

Chicheres; High line, ball playing CB perfectly of the ilk AVB wanted.

Capoue; cover for the oft injured Sandro, and meets AVB's public statement of trying to have 2 players for every position.

Eriksen; now this was probably the only signing that wasn't AVB-esque. He doesn't fit the double pivot and was not really a natural number 10 either (he is better deeper where he can create rather than bursting into the box). But he has turned out to be the best of the bunch.

So all those signings look like AVB signings. Even Sherwood, who we all know was always intended to be an interim solution, admits he was asked by Levy time after time in January if he needed to strengthen. Not told, not had a player brought in under his nose, but asked if he needed and wanted to sign anyone.

There's basically no evidence for anything you are saying, and a fair amount of evidence to refute it.


Wulf that was some rant!

Are you Levy's love child :-)

no seriously, have to totally agree with you, jut wish we would stick by a manager and give them some time and resources. Sick of the constant changes and upheaval.

LVG is a suitable candidate, but how long would he stay, 3, 4 years max. Where's the long term vision.


I always mean to keep them short and I always fail :(

Not meant to come across as aggro at all to anyone, so apologies if it did seem like that. I often feel that a lot of crap gets made up in the rags to just make some sales and then it is fed to us as fact. I believed that all of the picks were Baldini's and not AVB's and then I thought about the system AVB was playing and the players that were picked and it didn't ring true that AVB would not want them.


I agree that the danger with LVG would be that he'd move on quickly (well the real danger is that we'd move him on!). But if that gets us some stability and shape then I'm all for it. Personally I'd rather see us starting to play in a good way again even if the results didn't match and we finished outside the top 4 next season. LVG (or anyone else) would need at least a year to regroup and reform without the pressure of top 4 before then making a push in the 2nd season, like Brendan Rogers was given last year.

See, too long again :)


 

 

 

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