Bizarro World

The timeline, so distorted and confusing. But then nothing is simplistic with Spurs.

At around 5pm Ladbrokes stopped taking bets on Ramos being the next manager, apparently most of the money coming from Fleet Street. The game kicked off without this making the headlines, but the story managed to leak out during the game. Perfect timing. Initially we were led to believe Jol tendered his resignation. Cue ‘how can he quit then manage the team for the evening?’ questions. As the game progressed, he remained glued to his seat. Looking sad, despondent and generally a beaten man. That went hand in hand with the Spurs performance. No shape no dominance. 1-2 score-line, only our second ever home defeat in Europe.

The 'rumours' continued. Ramos in with Poyet as his number two. Next week? In the summer? No one knows yet. But if we have to wait until the sun is back in the London sky, then welcome to the hellmouth.

An hour or so after the final whistle Spurs release a statement telling us that they asked Jol and Hughton to ‘step down’ after the game. Curious as it looked like this might have been agreed earlier on in the day. Especially reading Jol’s body language during the match. All in all, exactly the kind of inept (there’s that word again) handling we have come to detest from Levy and his board of directors. What a mess.

No hair, we don't care

However, I’m not going to start slating him or Kemsley. Not yet. I prefer to just say, thank you. Thank you to the first manager in an age that the fans loved and adored. Thank you for two 5th place finishes. Thank you for the hope and pride you gave the home faithful. Thank you for the progression.

Yes, it turned to shit in the end, and fuck knows how you even managed to stay on considering the bastards stabbed you in the back months ago – but you did and you will not be forgotten.

Thank you Martin Jol. And all the best for the future.

You took Spurs as far as you could. Lets hope that this is not as far as the club can actually go. Because if Ramos fails then we've hit a bottleneck.....which means we may as well let go of the dream and support West Ham.

Man of the People

Don’t worry. This isn’t what it looks like. If you’re thinking that Kemsley is attempting to get his ‘I’m a true fan’ message across as PR to help a potential takeover bid, then sleep easy. He wore the shirt for £100k, because that’s how much money it takes for someone to be seen in one.

Jol given boot

Apparently he is not included in the new Spurs Monopoly board game which would suggest the obvious. What is far more worrying is Chris Hughton’s inclusion. Although to be fair, he was a decent player for us and there is no valid reason for Jol to be included in a game. Why anyone would even bother purchasing this unoriginal attempt by the club to gain more merchandise revenue is beyond me.

I can already see how the game will pan out.

Your boss has been revealed in the media as a backstabber and is attempting to replace you as manager. Collect £4M.

Misery

Not sure where to begin.

Jol was interviewed yesterday (shown in SSN), and he stated various things that were contradictions. Like how we (Spurs) spend more time practising/training set-pieces than any other Prem club. Firstly, how would he know what other clubs do in training? And secondly, OMFG! We spend time practising set-pieces? And yet we hardly ever score from them and ALWAYS concede from them. This is like Jack the Ripper telling everyone he’s actually a great conversationalist.

Martin looked huggered. Completely defeated, his fate blatantly obvious to all. We all know he wont walk (money money money) and we know Levy has no options with who to bring in. So, the cancer continues to spread from top to bottom, from board level to first team and through to the stands where hope has disintegrated into a puddle of shit.

Is he or is he not friends with Berbatov? Who know’s. Everyone’s read about how he apparently asked Berbs 3 times to get up and warm-up. But then Berbatov has looked and acted like a stroppy bastard since pre-season so I wouldn’t blame him. Jol explained the benching down to 'saving him for Thursday'. I wonder if Defoe feels privileged to have been left at home, all in the name of the UEFA Cup.

The confusion continues to drown the memories of what it felt like to be on the up. Once more, I refer you back to the Newcastle game (yes, I have now seen it). Tactically astute is our manager and as for our players, they know exactly what their responsibility on the field should be.

Tainio: "I was surprised I was put on pitch, as I had only trained once after an injury. I went on to play on the wing - which wing it was, was a bit unclear. I think I was told to change positions four times during the match."

It’s Total Football all over again.

The Omnipresent that is Jenas continues to do what he does so well. Nothing. But to simply lay blame on his incompetence (unable to pass or hold onto the ball), to be fair, most of the team were guilty of the same inept display. Again. May as well start copy and pasting previous blog entries to save time ranting about the same thing every week. Then again, it’s therapeutic to laugh at my own misery. Helps to elevate the tragedy of the situation.

So who is exactly responsible for this mess? As manager you expect Martin to oversee and get the fundamentals right:

- Shape
- Passion
- Belief
- Fight

But there’s so much one man can do, because out on the pitch the players are producing nothing more than a Keystone classic whether home or away. Has he really become a bad manager over night? Of course not. Looking at our prima donnas you’d think they were playing to enable those relegation clauses, post haste. All is wrong and God only knows what the psychological shot in the head this will have on the club. Again, amazing how quick you can go from being ‘nearly top 4’ to utter gush. Proving that we were never nearly top 4 in the first place (blame the fans and the media on that one).

Yes we have talented players. But we have no true balance. No true leader. Key positions are weak. And talking of 'no true leader', Jol loves pointing out the fact that we have a leadership issue, but again not his fault that we spent £16M on a striker we don’t need at this current point in time. Talented players – no direction. And the same olde trend is set to be followed. We cant handle or live up to the hype.

Modern day footballers don’t tend to bust a gut for a manager on his way out. And the boards general incompetence with on the field management and football (rather than merchandising) is dragging us down. It always has. The two 5th place finishes flattered to deceive.

We sacked Graham before a semi-final. We gave Hoddle millions to spend when it would seem Levy and his pals always looked to set get rid of him in the 2004 season and did so 6 games in. Then there was Arnesen who’s advice was ignored and Levy drafted in Inspector Clouseau and his magical mystery tour bus. Nine games later he’s gone and Jol is promoted. That’s some shrewd re-structuring there, very slick. No wonder we are hot on the trails of Arsenal. Apparently that’s the reason we have a Director of Football structure at the club. We can replace a coach without upsetting the karma around WHL – and yet it seems to do the exact opposite. To further compound the fact that Levy doesn’t have a fucking clue, him and the board (including Kemsley who apparently has wanted Jol out for an age) knee-jerk after 2 league games resulting in the Ramos fiasco and this rendering our season dead.

Fact. Jol has over-achieved. The fans got a tad too excitable. The board got too Billy big-boots.

It’s summed up perfectly by this:

Levy has enjoyed popularity over the past few years because he has put up the money - but the buying policy is now under serious doubt - many people claim that Levy wanted the young English talent like Jenas and Bent - and Comolli is bringing in player after player who are not the finished article. Running a club is not just about spending money - people tipped us to break the top 4 just because we had finished 5th and then spent £40m. But look at how Allardyce and Eriksson spent their money and look at the way we spent ours.

When Levy announced we would have a DoF structure I thought who the hell is he to decide that he knows better than the boards of Man U, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea where the manager was all powerful - but we stuck with it and by chance ended up with a good coach. But with this structure there is too much potential for conflict and I fear that as long as Levy buries his head in the sand (or refuses to fuck off) we will slip back to being the also rans of the Prem League once more.

Nothing more to add.

Manager Odds

Evens: J Ramos

4-1 J Mourinho

13-2 M Lippi

13-2 F Capello

8-1 J Klinsmann

9-1 D Deschamps

10-1 L Van Gaal

10-1 G Houllier

12-1 bar

What, no Harry Redknapp? And who the heck is 'bar'? We don't need another Gross thank you very much.

3 points from 12th

I sat myself in front of the box, fired up Sky+ and watched an episode of 'Brotherhood'. FX is showing season one. It's pretty good and kinda fills the hole left by the departure of The Sopranos. Talking of which, I wonder how long Jol has?

Apparently (not seen or heard anything of tonight's 3-1 defeat up at the Toon, just read some forum comments after the final whistle) we were inept again. No spirit, spark or style. All lost at sea, a pale shadow of the previous two years that had as playing with grit and determination and never say die attitude.

Newcastle found it all too easy in the first half and our comeback was as limp-wristed as the vast array of poor tackles Jenas attempts. I'm near certain he suffers from ballphobia. Tottenham apparently showed the world once more that the same old problems are still there. So glad I opted for my Sky Planner and not a Internet stream of the game.

Cerny in goal, not at fault for any of them apparently. Dawson helping the black and white cause with roller-skate defending. Shows we don't need Robbo's help in goal to concede with relative ease.

3rd from bottom, its all a bit farcical and once more its time to say what we say every week when Spurs lose.......Martin Jol's position at the club is untenable.

But who's available to come into the job? At the moment, it would seem nobody is. So Levy looks set to see out the season with Jol at the helm. Why would someone take a shit on a wedding cake and then still demand everyone takes a bite?

You might ask what right I have to bitch without having seen the game, but lets face, you've seen one Spurs performance......you've seen them all.

Then again, a text message from a mate who was at the game states we were marginally better in tonights 3-1 defeat than we usually are up there. So that's an improvement from the norm. But that doesn't help quantify the current state of affairs.

Back with a whimper

I would dearly love to say that I’ve been on various information gathering blackops missions to the Levy Mansion and the Spurs training ground. That's simply not been the case. And apart from being handcuffed to the bed posts and spanked there's not much to report on. And no you can't see the pictures of me and the £300 per hour escort girls who are dressed up as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Willow. If you're wondering, I was Giles.

With regards to football (and football only) International break has left me drained and bored. Zero inspiration or drive to achieve anything in the crusade. Regardless, I was actually feeling quite good when I got up this morning until I was reminded that Spurs are on the box tonight. This means I’ll be losing out on 2 hours of playing Football Manager 2008 – the only place where Tottenham ever win anything (I’m currently 2nd with 20 games gone).

Talking about the International break, what about The England, hey? Just like watching Spurs play except Spurs are more entertaining in defeat. And although I don’t want to slate Robinson too much (the defending prior to the shot and after his ‘save’ was pathetic) it has to be stated – why on earth is he still playing first team football?

My head isn't photoshopped

At no point has he shown any improvement. No matter what he says in interviews to help boost his own confidence and no matter the support from McClaren and Jol – it’s not working in his favour. It’s like both managers expect his form to change abruptly for the better. But on current form he is simply not good enough to start games for club and country, and yet there he is. Between the posts. But apparently he has a calf injury so will miss tonight's game at Newcastle. That’s one way to drop him from the team. Invent an injury. Unless he really did hurt himself, more than likely his jaw, eating a calf.

Elsewhere Kemsley has left the building. Apparently he won’t be attempting a takeover bid of the club and has fucked off to America. That’s one down, one to go. We live in hope, right?

Chimbonda continues to act like a typical mercenary. This time (in an interview) discussing a failed transfer to Chelsea when an agreement wasn’t found between us and the scum. Fantastic opportunity he called it. Personally, anything that will make Chelsea even weaker is good in my books. This season, he can’t defend to save his life and his forward play is piss poor. But we are stuck with him for a little bit longer. How long till January?

Something else that made me laugh is the textbook preview for tonight’s clash up at St James Park in The Sun, displaying a photo of Berbatov with a Newcastle shirt and various other pictures from his younger teenage days telling us how he worshipped Alan Shearer and apparently slept with his Toon army shirt. Though Shearer didn’t join Newcastle till 1996, so bit late in the day for him to go to bed wearing a black and white striped football jersey. Maybe there was a shortage of pyjamas in Bulgaria that year. Regardless, nice to see a rehash of a story that was printed several months back. Running out of newsworthy stories are we chaps? Time to get a new group of monkeys and typewriters.

Anyway. I’m sure my inspiration will return after this evenings defeat. Oh the glory of supporting the lilywhites. Never a dull moment. Very few good ones.

I'm still alive

With Kemsley quitting, Levy getting richer and Chimbonda talking bollocks I have plenty to write about. Stay tuned. Should be back online and active again in the next day or so. w00t.

Stick it on Ebay

Whispers in the City that there's an instruction for one lucky person to go find buyers for the club. According to the rumour whores Levy will sell up for around £400M. This all follows the media's report that Kemsley (the one who doesn't rate Jol) wants to launch his own bid for the club. Lovely. That would probably mean the arrival of Harry Redknapp and me setting myself on fire.

Pilgrimage

UEFA Cup group G
Anderlecht
Tottenham
Getafe
Hapoel Tel-Aviv
Aalborg

From spurs.co.uk:

"We will open our UEFA Cup Group Stage campaign with a home fixture against Getafe on Thursday October 25.

This will be followed by a trip to Tel Aviv to take on Hapoel on Thursday November 8 before Match day three brings the visit of Aalborg to the Lane on Thursday November 29.

Our participation in the Group Stage concludes when we travel to Belgium for the encounter with Anderlecht on either Wednesday December 5 or Thursday December 6."

So a trip to the promised land for the Tottenham massive. Though I can already envisage our defenders wandering in the wilderness for a good 40 years before finding the stadium. The dizzy motherfuckers.

Its a wonderful life

I wont dwell on the 1-1 draw out in Cyprus and the confusion over who the pub team was. And to quote Martin Jol:

“I still consider this game a clean sheet, if you see the goal there was a handball. They had two goalkeepers on the pitch.”

Yes, that’s correct. We actually won the game and Robinson didn’t concede. Turning everything into a joke is the best form of defence. The Spurs back four don’t have to fret too much about that. They’re all stand-up comedians in their own right.

And as for the forwards, whether its first on the team sheet, Robbie Keane or always on the bench Jermain Defoe – they all back the manager. Can’t remember which of the two stated the following gem:

“Everyone is behind the manager. Everyone,” he said. “People realise what the manager has done for this football club. It has been amazing. Since he came to the club he has done a great job, so why would anyone want to change this?"

Yes. Why would they? Levy? Any return trips to Spain? Unconfirmed reports suggesting Ramos has been sacked (though they remain unsubstantiated at this current time, even with Seville’s 5 games defeated on the spin). From the looks of it, Ramos is very much suited for taking the hot seat from Jol – who may well look towards Ajax for an escape route.

And in the mean time, Spurs sit 4th from bottom, though just 3 points from 11th place. And 8 points from 5th. It’s not exactly a mountain to climb on paper. But placing stats to one side, on form, it’s not something that equally looks possible. Though you can always shine the sun on it. 6 games unbeaten. A point at Anfield. But when the same old textbook fuck-ups occur (come on, I knew at the 70th minute mark that Liverpool would score in injury time – everyone did) you have to ask when will they learn? When will lady luck squat down over our face and give us a golden shower instead of the same old scat every given Saturday or Sunday?

"Get down from there! We need to save the cheerleader"

Nothing has really changed. Jol still looks like a man who knows he is on his way out. Spurs still lack any kind of true swagger or arrogance. Yes, spirit we have, but that’s not enough. You want to believe the players respect Martin – and they do appear to have some (if little) self-respect but it doesn’t appear to be enough on both counts. And some of our tactics have been just a tad desperate at times. Pinball football and, yes, Wimbledon tactics. Let the quote do the talking:

"It was mentioned to me that our goals on Sunday were out of the old Wimbledon manual and, I have to admit, it is something I literally called for at half-time. The important thing at the time was for us to win our battles and get behind the back four so I said ‘let’s use the Wimbledon style occasionally!

I like to have a build up, but on Sunday we were overplaying around our back four and in the middle of the park and we needed to get the ball to the strikers for them to use their quality. I think it is fair to say they did just that"

Tactical genius? Why not. When the players are incapable of playing neat and tidy and concise balls, then desperate times call for desperate measures. And lets not pretend we haven’t played the hoof ball for an age. It’s the only think Robinson is good at. But still, lets please look to play it on the deck. Its nauseating all this up in the air stuff.

And a little more concentration and some basic schoolboy level knowledge of defending would have had us holding out for all three points against Liverpool. And that simple basic achievement of victory would have taken us to 13th. Unlucky for some, but a sure-fire catapult to that wonderful world of self-belief.

We could go rock bottom when we play Newcastle. I’m sure that will jerk Levy into doing something rather obvious. No matter. 5th is out of reach unless Spurs turn back the clock to 2 years ago and begin to dominate games or have a little of that tenacious lucky streak that saw us turn games around countless of times.

Until then, we can wonder if Robinson will ever be dropped or if Berbatov will regain that lost Henryesque ego that allowed others to feed off him resulting in larfs and larks on the terraces, rather than the abject distaste of misery.

1 win all season, 4th from bottom

Says it all.

When I defeat this horrid chest infection I will round-up the past week or so with the usual inane ramblings of a man who wished he was a teenager in 1961. Not just for the football, but the birds back then wore exceptionally high mini-skirts.