Same time next year?

Jol sacked late on the 25th October.
Ramos sacked late on the 25th October.

Spooky, no?

DML: Editorial - The circus is always in town

We've tried just about everything. The anti-Christ (Graham), ex-legend (Hoddle), international manager (Santini), low-key in-house appointment (Jol) and the continental (Ramos). And they have all failed because the one constant survived every single appointment: The Director of Football. A suggestion made once upon a time by David Pleat, and then implemented by Daniel Levy.

Pleat, Arnesen, Comolli. And now finally......nothing. No more is the DoF. Levy has embraced the truth and the demands of the fans and has rid the club of this clandestine position which has no doubt directly or indirectly affected every manager who has attempted to work under it. Apart from one purple patch where Frank and Martin got on famously.

So Damien Comolli and his offbeat signings are no more. Levy did say DC would be accountable for Ramos. And that's the gist of the trouble White Hart Lane is in. I wont go into any detail about Levy's letter to the fan at this precise moment as that needs to be a blog post of it's own. But what I will need to touch upon here is the fact that Levy is apparently hiring people for the football side of the business and entrusting them. Which basically means, Levy allowed both Comolli and Kemsley to influence him and sanction the tapping up of Juande Ramos. Accountability is passed onto the DoF, protecting his chairman status at all times. As we've seen, Ramos has flopped - so Comolli gets the sack. And Teflon Levy survives another day.

"I'm buying a yacht with my severance pay.....how about you?"

Comolli and the eternal trouble-maker Kemsley believed that Jol had ran out of steam and couldn't take us any further. So basically, Levy is a bit of a jellyfish here. Deciding that if he's forking out 200K (or whatever) per year for DC, then DC gets to decide what's going on. Which means the DoF has an agenda that supersedes the one the chairman might think he has. What the DoF wants the DoF gets.

And that right there is the problem that drags Spurs back so often. Our over-ambitious streak. The fans, you can forgive for getting excited and aspiring to want Champions League and other Glory moments. And regardless of the laughter and abuse that's usually aimed at us from West Ham fans, who are disinterested in their own little club, Spurs have had players in the past few seasons that if (I hate that word)....if they had remained then we could have been contenders. But such is life in the two-tier Premiership that if you're bloody decent (Carrick, Keane, Berbatov) then why stay at Spurs when you can sign for a Top 4 club? It's pretty much impossible to build to challenge the Top 4. So self-preservation is the all important priority, or at least should be. In our case, it should have been about preserving 5th spot.

What Comolli and Kemsley did was assume that we were very close to cracking that Top 4. And Levy (I don't care how daft he wants to play this) also believed this to be the case.

Of course, we weren't. Probably still the best club for 5th, but miles off 4th. But the DoF meant that in-between the Chairman and the manager this entity created unnecessary confusion when it came to transfer targets and (as Levy has informed us) the Berbatov saga. Jol wanted him out straight away. Yet the player didn't leave until the summer just gone.

Media Watch

That word undermined is used often by myself and other fans and some of the hacks in the press. But it's the perfect word for the situation. With Ramos in, the belief is that we had a world-class manager. But what did Jol do wrong exactly? Yeah sure, there was always that element of choking in the big big games. But who knows, that might have been ironed out had he been left to get on with another season, uninterrupted by politics. We were all guilty of believing that Jol being sacked was 'for the good of the club'. Hindsight is deeply ironic.

We'll never know, but the point here - and it's an important one especially with recent events - is with 15 years of musical chairs and no consistency, why the rush to break the into the Top 4 after just two consistent seasons (2 x 5th spots)? We have no God given right. We all know the Top 4 is beyond most clubs reach. Every other club below 5th spot just gets on with it. With us, we should have been content with Jol and given him at least 2 more seasons. Because the past 15 seasons have not been much to write about, so what difference would it make waiting for another two years?

But what's done is done. In came Ramos. And off he goes now. For a cool £26M (£11M for signing him, £15M for sacking him). No doubt, the most costly flop in our recent history. But at least we can remember the Carling Cup with fond memories.

And in comes the media whore that is Harry Redknapp. A manager with little integrity. Sorry 'arry, but it's true. His Pompey/Soton merry-go round will tell you all you need to know. Levy claims that he's had conversations with Harry in the past, suggesting that 'he almost got here' before. Shudder.

Yeah, he saved Pompey from almost certain relegation. But couldn't save Soton and also relegated West Ham. What exactly is so great about his CV? Have we now lowered our ambitions? Have we accepted a place alongside the likes of Blackburn and co?

Well firstly, scrap ambitions and comparisons, because that's what has got us into this mess in the first place - believing the hype.

We are now behind the likes of Villa and City. As they develop and progress, our work has to begin again. Maybe not quite from ground zero, but we are limping at the minute. Although in modern day football 5th - 8th spot tends to shift about every season so all we need to do is regain a bit of pride and form. And no matter the progression you make (that goes for Villa and City at the minute) - you still need to depend on one of the Top 4 having an off season if you. Which is rare. And even if it does happen, you might find hotel food conspire against you. So we are not that far behind if you go on recent Prem records.

The simple fact of the matter is - at present - we are bottom. The players were not playing for Ramos. Levy had to do something drastic. Sacking Ramos and co was the first part. Appointing Redknapp was the second. Because for the moment, the only thing that's important is remaining in the Prem.

Spurs, battered and bloody tells the clubs around him 'I could have been a contender'

Survival. That's it. That should be the mission statement for this season. And having tried every type of manager, we've now gone for the 'not really done anything, loves his money a bit, Sky and the tabloids love him a lot' type of appointment.

We've stopped acting like the 'big club' and just taken stock of our current predicament.

So, am I happy? Nope, unsurprisingly, I'm not.

Levy, for all his little boy lost innocence, is knee-deep in damage limitation and blame deflection. The players, having performed today well enough to claim 3 points are questionable commitment wise if you look at some of our prior performances (although, I'm happy to agree that Ramos wasn't helping himself with selection and tactics). New manager usually gets a reaction from the players, but I still can't get rid of this feeling that Spurs will never push on until they get rid of the vanity at the club. £15M+ for Bentleys hair is proving to be a hard pill to swallow.

Harry himself paid money for Kaboul and does select players out of position. Sometimes has three DM's in his team and still gets bullied by the opposition and generally isn't the most astute tactically. So, I would guess, it's down to his man-management to get things going again.

It's worked one game in. And come Jan, we might see the return of Defoe and one or two other players - including some very un-Tottenham like signings that might have some of us question wtf is going on (BRING BACK THE DOF!!!!!1111) but that's what we want isn't it? Players we NEED - and not superfluous signings. So, there is a positive, one hopes in his appointment. Although getting rid of the DoF and letting Jol sign his own players would have worked fine too.

So, is Harry an interim manager for the club? I hope so. Am I know being a hypocrite for suggesting we are too big for Harry? Call me that if you want. What I'm saying is, Harry isn't a great manager and has limits which will become apparent in a couple of seasons. But this all serves a purpose. A recovery period, washing off any remaining residue of the DoF era. It's the consequence, not of Comolli but of Levy. The buck does stop with him, and this I feel is the final sorry chapter of mis-management. He's admitted it hasn't worked, so he has gained a final encore. And this is it. Harry will take us so far, and then Levy (if he's still around) will no doubt appoint someone knew. Maybe a promotion for whoever his number two is? We'll see how it all pans out. No point dwelling on this at the minute. If Levy suggests that Harry is the one to reclaim GLORY - then Daniel will be leaving us in the very close future.

If (there's that magic word again) Harry performs a miracle and is still knocking around with us in 4 years time then Levy will be deemed a genius and I'll have to eat a hat (preferably made of bagel).

In the mean time, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt (that's Harry). And do what any fan would do: Support the team with all my heart......and cry uncontrollably when it goes tits up. Again.

Newsflash

The clocks go back tonight. I need that extra hour to recover from the breaking news.

Ramos. Sacked.
Poyet. Sacked.
Comolli. Sacked.

The chairman deciding that the manager has indeed lost the dressing room, so why wait any longer? Just get rid of the deadwood the night before a massive Prem game and about £15M in compensation (£5M to Pompey, the rest to Ramos and co).

Club announcement

The Club can announce that Damien Comolli, Sporting Director, Juande Ramos, Head Coach and First Team Coaches, Marcos Alvarez and Gus Poyet, have left the Club, with immediate effect. We wish them well.

Clive Allen, Development Squad Coach, and Alex Inglethorpe, Youth Team Manager, will take charge for Sunday's League match against Bolton.

An announcement will be made on First Team coaching staff in due course.

Comolli gone. Wow. There go about 45% of my future blog rants. Does this mean the DoF is dead? End of an error....era. Sack. Comolli wanted Jol out and Ramos in. And it's resulted with Redknapp at our club. And the chairman still sits pretty at the helm.

Apparently (the above statement is now out of date) HR is picking the team for Sunday and he's also giving the team talk. Is Defoe playing?

All that effort to push Jol out and bring Ramos in, to end up with Harry Redknapp. That's Harry 'I left Pompey for Southampton, who I failed to save from relegation' Redknapp.

So here we are again. Another new manager. I wonder if our esteemed chairman will leave this one alone.

Hoddle was sacked because of Pleats involvement in transfers.
Santini was sacked because again, the players being bought were not to the managers liking.
Jol takes over and even with two 5th place finishes, Levy sees fit to side with Comolli and tap up Ramos.
And as for Juande, he is undermined by both chairman and DoF in the transfer market. But arguably, the Prem proved to be a move to far for him.
So back to Levy we go, the one true consistent in this embarrassing merry-go-round.

Never a boring second at Spurs. And never a great moment either.

COYS.

Cough.

More scary stats

Thanks to Mudshark over at GG for this. Click here to see the thread and a whole bundle of disapproving numbers that will give you night terrors on top of all the nightmares.

• We haven't won a home league game since beating Portsmouth 2-0 on 22 March 2008 (0 wins in 8 at the Lane).

• We've only won one other game since then, 1-0 at Reading on 3 May 2008 (1 win in 15 home and away).

• We currently have a scoring shortfall of 1.28 goals/game relative to last season overall under Ramos.

• Players who were at the club last season are contributing roughly the same number of goals per game as they were last season (though slightly down on the equivalent figure for last season post-LCF).

• New acquisitions have so far contributed nothing to making up this shortfall.

• Goals against per game are slightly up on last season overall, but better than last season post-LCF.

• The sharp decline in form seems to have begun with the 4-1 reverse at home to Newcastle on 30 March 2008.

• Since beating Portsmouth in March, we have gained 9 points from a possible 45 (0.6 per game).

• This would translate to a total of 23 points over a 38-game season (if rounded up).

• January is a long way off.

Juande is now on Facebook

....they keep on coming.

The Blame Game

Wenger is all guns blazing, supporting his old chum Comolli claiming DC is nothing more than a scape-goat for the Spurs boo-boys. Really? Not his fault? So who's fault is it? Because if you take note of various other newspaper articles and interviews it seems the blame doesn't sit with anyone at the Lane.

Sugar stuck up for Levy.
Ballague stuck up for Ramos.
Wenger for Comolli.

Friends looking after friends can be dismissed based on factual evidence.

Comolli has failed to address the main squad issues relating to the DM position, no left-winger, two right-wingers, no strikers. He didn't support Martin Jol and our squad is no stronger than it was a year/two years/three years ago. Is he a director of football or a mediator between chairman and manager?

Levy has sanctioned the deals that have taken place and is probably responsible for the ones that got away. His whoring for extra cash on the Berbatov deal is textbook.

Ramos, whether effected by the terrible twosome or not, has struggled to get to grips with the domestic game.

You don't get bottom of the league from bad luck. You get there because you deserve to be there.

Wenger should mind his own business and concentrate on giddiness and superlatives for his super team of super super kids.

Leave the commentary to the people who own the dramatics.

Another round of musical chairs?

Quick look at the weeks tabloid pish

Mabbutt, Roberts and Ginola have all been giving their two-cents in recent days. Bilic has been linked. Others have been quietly whispering the name of Big Sam (shudder). Klinsmann (not setting the world alight at Munich, for the second time) is the other potential target, if....if Ramos was to go. And then there's the stories (mostly forum based) that Ramos is trying to get himself sacked to return to Spain with plenty of change in his pocket.

Amongst all the usual tripe, the highbrow Guardian dedicated a whole page of Spurs jokes (mostly made up of one that are regurgitated each year for whatever unexpected club finds itself in trouble) and opposing fans continue to point and laugh. I'd suggest someone at the club prints off that page from the Guardian and posts it on the dressing room wall on match-days. Knowing our lot, in the midst of Bentley star-jumping and Zokora listening to hip-hop, they'll probably all laugh at the jokes.

Ledley King

Doesn't play much, innit? If he plays on Thursday in the UEFA Cup and is rested on Sunday, then Ramos is still dizzy from counting the money we've given him, which explains his inept team selection and tactics.

For clarity:

Priority - Premiership survival
Everything else - Irrelevant

DML: Editorial

Stating the bloody obvious

I blame Robbie Keane who relegated Coventry and Leeds with each of his departures from both clubs. I blame the Director of Football system that has seen manager after manager undermined. I blame the tabloids, broadsheets, Gillette Soccer Saturday, radio presenters, Sky pundits who all predicted Spurs would finish 5th. I blame Ramos for not elevating the team after the Carling Cup. I blame, fuck it, everyone and everything. The way the wind blows. The raindrops that fall from the sky. My alarm going off on a Monday morning. ITV comedy. Hagar the Horrible. It's all fallen into place perfectly, conspiring to anchor us to the bottom of the Premiership. After years of laughing at West Ham's yo-yoing between the top flight and the league just below it, how the ironic jeers and laughter will hurt when they aim their giddy abuse at us.

What makes it even sweeter for them and even more horrific for us is that there is no Tevez in the Spurs side. And thus far, lady luck has also been non-existent. We can only hope for a goal that never was and a resulting three points, much like the Hammers got up at Blackburn to give us a glint of hope. But at the moment, such a joyful moment seems a million miles away in a far far away land where Spurs fans are dressed like arch angels singing Glory Glory from a hymn sheet, whilst the team swagger around the WHL pitch scoring goals for fun.

'Stick me in centre-mid'

Wigan was the 'must win match'. We drew it. Then it was Hull. We lost. And then it was Stoke. And we lost again. In that other alternative reality where Bentley is decent, Berbatov was sold at the beginning of the summer and a replacement bought a couple of weeks later along with a defensive midfielder and a tricky creative forward - we are sitting in the top 5 smiling, upbeat and confident. At least somewhere in the multi-verse, there are Spurs fans proud and loud.

In our shaky moments in the past, we've had poor starts but nothing this spectacularly bad. We haven't just started poorly, we've started catastrophically poorly. But anyone who looked beyond the thrashing of Roma in pre-season and Darren Bents prolific friendly form and reminded themselves of the utter lack of cohesion since the Carling Cup final would have seen a team in steady melt-down. Our form has been good enough to take us down all year long. In fact, since our two 5th place finishes, our form has all but gone - other than in patches and some 'big'. The Carling Cup run appears to be nothing more than a blip that blinded us from what was actually going on with Premiership form.

This season sees us at 8 games. Out of a possible 24 points, we've notched up 2. Chelsea are the only 'decent' team we've played. Our fixture list was meant to be quite easy until we played Arsenal (A), Liverpool (H) and Man City (A). All these games coming up after next Sundays mega-game at the Lane against Bolton.

Nothing at the moment suggests we have what it takes to drag ourselves out of the bottom three. From one game to the next, whether it be Poyet saying our performance is unacceptable or Ramos via Poyet saying our performance is unacceptable or Darren Bent (club spokesman) saying our performance is unacceptable - nothing changes come the next game. Apart from the soundbites.

Spurs, with one upfront, facing the might of the Prem league fixture list

Hull, Wigan, WBA, Stoke etc, all have a bit of fight and spirit. Hull are excelling at the moment. Stoke are awful and will probably go down with us, but they still beat us and grabbed all three points. So it's not a given that all the promoted teams will go down, like most other seasons. Not only have we decided this is the season we will struggle epically, but this is also the season that every other team around is strong, determined and 'together'. Shit hitting fan - is an understatement. We are in the deepest possible trouble we've ever been in, since the 70's at least.

I've been critical of the players, and still am. I don't quite see the required urgency and guts and full-blooded 'die for the shirt' siege mentality that's required. Do the players and management think its ok because 'we are Spurs' and 'teams like us never go down' so 'things will change soon'? What happened with being the kings of your own destiny? Then again, maybe the players are not at fault. Playing at 200% might be out of their reach due to the fact that the team is so painfully mish-mashed and out of sorts.

Any club in the Prem would struggle if:

- They have no leader on the pitch

- They lost both of their main forwards who created and scored most of the goals in previous seasons

- Have no defensive midfielder

- Have no midfield that chase down the opposition players/ball

- Play a right-winger on the left-wing

- Have no true left-winger

- Have one main striker who thus far has failed to settle due to playing a bit part since being signed a season ago

- Sold their other striker who is on top form for his new club because he was not required (argue until you're blue in the face, but Defoe rightly would not sign a new contract because we couldn't promise him first team football)

- Spurs believed foolishly that Berbatov would not leave and didn't stop to think that Keane might be subject to a move away, even though we have a 'we don't sell our important players' policy

- Bought a player who has already played 5 months of a season, looks unfit and needs time to settle

- Bought a midfielder who needs time to settle and stick him in a midfield who are not on the same wave length than him

- Sell 3 'decent' squad players who would give competition and options for first team selection

Spurs systematically went about unweaving the tapestry of progression by trying to replace missing jigsaw pieces with termites. It's such a perfect dismantlement of the squad with superfluous replacements drafted in left, right and centre that someone would think it was done on purpose because surely you can't get it this wrong? Agent Comolli and Levy have masterminded one of the greatest clusterfucks of all time. This summer, make no mistake about it, was a unmitigated disaster. Far too much emphasis on the business side of the club, chasing down every last million from Utd for Berbatov.

Levy getting caught up in transfer dealing politics and hypocrisy. Comolli panic buying. And the club generally carrying on like the whole of last season (Jol undermined/sacked, Ramos in, no change in league form) had not happened. On the subject of Martin Jol, he was never destined to succeed because of the exaggerated impatient ambitions of the chairman, Kemsley and Comolli. The Trinity decided that replacing Jol with Ramos would take us to the next level. Error of judgement? Did Jol deserve another season and therefore the FULL backing of Comolli and co? They obviously felt he had to be replaced, and why not with a manager of Ramos quality? And yet look how things have turned out. Hindsight; can't put a price on it.

So why did everyone think we would do well this season? Did they think because Ramos could start fresh, from the opening game of the season that suddenly all things would fall into place? The very fact that the chairman and DoF failed to see the massive cracks in the foundations proves they're just as disillusioned as the most excitable Barcelona shirt wearing Spurs fans.

A look into the future: Levy fires Comolli

Look at the team, the squad we have at the moment. It's basic maths. Last year we conceded a hell of a lot of goals, mainly due to having a poor midfield that supported no-one defensively. Thanks to Berbatov and Keane we scored a shed-load too. Take those two away, improve the defence a little, and we have a team that doesn't concede as many but can't score goals. A team that can't score, by virtue of not being offensive enough will pile on the pressure for the defence - who are still not supported by the slow, sideways playing midfield. It's a formula for failure. Epic epic failure.

To compound matters ever more, we hoof the ball up to Bent. Hoof it. No style, no system. For 20/30 minutes or so against Stoke we played the ball around quite well and created chances. But it was still lacklustre. Inept. It's like an 9 inch dick, limp and flaccid, in the Playboy mansion. Viagra left at home. Utterly fucking useless.

Ramos, 10 wins in 36 (stats might be off, but just browse the BBC if you want to cry into your keyboard) has tragically shown us very little. He maybe strict. He might have sorted out the diet, got us fit. But like many clubs who get themselves into a low-confidence situation, sometimes no amount of tinkering can get you out. So you need to let go of the manager. As drastic as it may seem, as much as you might wish for some consistency for once - a completely new man at the helm might wake the players up. Yes, the same players who can't quite perform one week might do brilliantly the next for a new manager. Then again, it might take a bit of time (much like it took Jol when he took over from Santini). So if we do get rid of Ramos, will the next man in be able to afford 5 more games without a win? Well? So do we get rid of Ramos? Teams stay up or go down based on decisions like this.

The bigger question is whether the current crop of misfits have it in them at all. King, 'our leader', is nothing more than a part-time player. He will never be 100% fit. And the club knew this last year, and probably the year before. We should have looked to bring in a genuine replacement. We haven't. Woodgate is beginning to suffer because of the dross playing around him. Bale, with zero Prem wins under his belt, looks average since returning from his injury. Did he recently sign an extension to his contract? No Man Utd move for you on this form Gareth. I hope the injury he has recovered from hasn't taken away his mojo. As for Zokora. He's an athlete, but not a footballer.

Doncaster away. 'ave it.

And Jenas? Since he was a teenager he's been told he's a class player. He'll be something special. But he has never shown belief in the hype surrounding him. He has the qualities, physically, but mentality shows very little to suggest he will ever be anywhere near world-class. He struggles to be anything near top 8 class most weeks. Having him as vice-captain tells you everything you need to know about our predicament and status.

Bentley has been non-existent. Played out of position, he should still roll his sleeves up and give it a go regardless. But then is David a 'roll the sleeves up' type of player? Lennon has been the one bright spark (even if that spark consists of running really really fast). Gio is a luxury who is a little out of his depth and considering the form of his team mates, it's asking a lot of the youngster to carry the weight of expectation in his shoulders. Frazier Campbell on loan is the icing on the cake. And you know it is. A Utd kid as one of our main three strikers. Classic.

And back to Levy and Comolli. Judge me, he said (Daniel), on the players that are sold. That was his response a while back relating to a statement about Spurs being a selling club. Which we quite blatantly are. But if you do have to sell, then bloody well replace the outgoing players with incoming quality.

Levy, Kemsley and DC went after Ramos, for the big step up in class (citing a 'world class' manager was required now rather than later). Whatever was happening behind the scenes (Jol/Berbatov/Comolli etc) the club - the people in charge - have mismanaged us to the brink of the Championship. Did we really have the right to move on from Jol so quickly?

Now Levy is pondering on the severance fee he will have to dish out to Ramos if he is forced to sack him. And if he does that, he'll have to sack Comolli (as Levy has told us all Ramos is Comolli's choice). Not that ridding the club of DC will do anything drastic to our on the pitch performances. With no more patsys left, Levy - accountable for all decisions - will then logically need to scrap the DoF position and draft in a chief scout to help the newly appointed 'manager'. And who would be the saviour? Would anyone want the job considering the chairman is such a destructive force?

Now I know what some would say. Levy and his financial skills and astute business sense was the reason we challenged for 4th place in 'that season' and that it's down to him we have been looking to make a move to a bigger stadium (or expand WHL). Remember even Jol gave him some credit at the end of one season, with the crowd (not me) responding with a chorus of support. But considering the support this club has and money made from tickets/merchandising etc, it's what you would expect from the chairman. It's the other decisions and the way we do our business, football wise, which he must be judged on. Unless you are willing to blame completely (and its a blame game we are all involved in) Ramos for the position we are in.

Levy dragged the Berbatov saga to the very death for an extra £6M or so. Was it worth it Daniel? How many millions will be lost for finishing in the depths of the Prem table? How much more would be lost with relegation? Shareholders happy? Don't be avoiding that phone call from Joe Lewis.

Bouncebackability

I joked a while back that us going down was the only way to rid the club of Levy and all the delusions of grandeur that this club is guilty of. I suggested the club needed the most cruel of baptisms so we could be reborn, and take nothing for granted as a consequence. But who, hand on heart, would want to see their club relegated? Aside from the fact that most of the players who got you relegated would be sold, you'd have to deal with every day life outside the top flight (at least we won't have to listening to Andy Gray commentating on our games).

And if preparations are spot on you could do a Leeds or a Man City, rather than bounce back first time. Last time ('77) we did bounce back first time. And signed two Argentinians and went on to plenty of Cup glory and beautiful football. But times have changed. This is the modern game, that is made up of the Sky 4 and the rest of the Premiership battling out for 5th and 6th. The top 4 are so far ahead of everyone, and with billionaires grabbing up other clubs faster than you can say 'credit crunch', we will be so far away from what we aspire to, it will hurt more than castration to think one summer of discontent has buried us 6 feet under.

Going down is simply not acceptable. Other fans would say the same about their club. Stoke, Hull and WBA fans would hope that other clubs struggle and they somehow survive. Or perform like a dream and pick up Prem-place saving points nice and early (Hull). We've spent millions. We've had the backing of pundits and fans. But we deserve nothing if we don't play like we care and believe we belong. Too big to go down? You have to play big to stay up, and we are nothing more than small time at the minute.

Woodgate has come out in support of Ramos. Citing 'togetherness' and making bold statements such as 'I think we will stay up' and 'There's no doubt about it, everyone thinks we should and I think we will'. Ramos on the other hand prefers to be far more honest (pessimistic) telling us 'I am worried about the situation. At the moment it is terrible'. 'No shit Sherlock moment' right there for you. With the Bolton game taking on the 'Biggest Game in our History' tag, a Levy mass/demo protest is planned for Sunday. A demo? How come I didn't think of this? Now call it extreme if you like, but I propose we hit Levy hard, and we hit him fast, with a major, and I mean major, leaflet campaign.

In the ground, support the team. Outside, protest to your hearts content.

Someone should have a quiet yet stern word in the ears of the management and players because they don't quite grasp the reality of the situation. At the time of writing Newcastle are beating City 2-1, which means we are 5 points adrift of 19th spot.

Rock'n'roll. City just equalised. 4 points off 19th spot.

Forget the spirit of Harry Hotspur. We need the magic of Harry Houdini....

Stoke 2 Spurs 1

You ok for more statistics? Of course you are.

Spurs (back in the 1913 season) played 13 games and lost 10, drawing 3 before finally winning a game against Newcastle on November 23rd. We managed a 17th place finish that season with the manager Peter McWilliam keeping his job until 1926 and through the Great War - winning one FA Cup and finishing 2nd in 1922. Our current run of 6 losses and two draws is the second worst start in our history. Post WW1 in 1928, 1935 and 1977 we were relegated, all times with better starts.

Arguably, you could take a positive out of all this. The fact that we have to go all the way back to the year the Titanic sank tells us that performance wise, we haven't done too shabby for the best part of a century of seasons. But this year, we have truly excelled. Everything that is wrong with the club and team has finally broken through the superficial mask that was hiding the wretched truth.

The DoF system. Levy's greed. Over-rated players and expectations. Arrogance from the chairman to assume we were close to breaking the Top 4. Comolli and his obsession for signing the wrong players. No leadership. Apart from the blip of wins in pre-season, our form has been beyond dismal. It's been Derbyesque since the Carling Cup final. But let's avoid going over old ground, because all the fuck-ups and mistakes have been highlighted a million times already.

Lost in translation

How do we get out of this mess? Considering we are in a position where we have to start thinking about reaching 40 points to possibly give us a chance of surviving (how surreal is that hey?) the fact is, retaining Ramos might see us slip even further behind (based on how little things change from game to game). Once the gap is 10 points or so, then if you think the players are struggling now, watch them give less than 1% when the light at the end of the tunnel is faint. They're all be too busy thinking about what team to jump ship too. Modric, Bale, Hutton, Woodgate etc....bye bye.

So the only thing left to do is to either have Ramos walk or sacked and hope someone is crazy enough to take the helm. That one clichéd footballing knee-jerk is needed now more than ever, as dirty as it makes me feel saying it. The board will probably wait. Not for the UEFA Cup game, but next Sunday's home match against Bolton. If Levy has already decided to wait, then this game will either be the one that saves Ramos job for another week or the one that condemns him.

The positive out of this never-ending negativity is that if Ramos goes, so will Comolli. Levy is accountable for the mess but is untouchable until we get to the point of no return. He'll sell up and fuck off. But at what price (in both sense of the word)?

I wonder what the mood will be like on the team coach as it drives them back to London? Can you imagine Ramos and Poyet and the players all having it out, laying their footballing souls bare? Or do you reckon they're all be chilling, listening to their ipods and chatting on their mobiles? No leadership. Not a single whiff of it. Obvious to me, you and everyone else but not so obvious to the millionaires with their feet up on their way back to their plush cribs.

'Bottom with just 2 points? I'll get you out of there in a jiffy'

Spurs fans are already talking about discounted season tickets (yeah right) and who would stay and go 'when' we go down. Some drama queens are even beginning to wonder if we will make it out of there at the first attempt. Dizzy heights, how I miss 12th place.

I might join in with the dramatics if we don't get three points against Bolton and then I can truly look forward to QPR and Palace (replacing Arsenal and Chelsea).....that's if they don't both come up, giving us a wave and a wink as we pass them by, downwards into the hellish Championship.

I'll end on the whole 'luck' thing. We don't have much of it. Apart from the Bent goal which should have been ruled offside. And the penalty that hit the woodwork a few times (although it was not of any true consequence). But when you lose Corluka to an injury that sees him taken to hospital and replaced by Dawson who then gets sent off..........you have to shrug and face facts that luck doesn't come anywhere near something that has contracted (the equivalent of footballing) leprosy. Everything is falling apart. And trying to cello-tape it together just wont work.

tabloid round-up

Headlines from today's rags.

Tottenham are set to fire sporting director Damien Comolli, who has angered manager Juande Ramos with his transfer dealings. (The Sun)

Well, if you think back to the Ramos appointment Levy did say that Comolli wanted him at the club as he is the perfect 'coach' to work in a DoF structure thus allowing Levy a bullet-proof patsy if things don't go well. Sacking him would help appease all the disgruntlment, although people are stupid. Fact is, if Comolli is a failure who has been allowed to spend so much money, should the person who appointed him not be made accountable?

Probablity Factor: 8/10

But Ramos has been given a personal assurance by Spurs chairman Daniel Levy that he will be given time to turn the club around. (Daily Mirror)

Ramos was told not to worry about his future by Levy immediately after Spurs' defeat by Hull City on Sunday. (Daily Star)

Dear God, not the dreaded 'vote of confidence'? Wondering how much of this is just speculation. Nobody knows, unless Levy is directly quoted as confirming he said this. Can't imagine the chairman rushing down to the dressing rooms to tell the coach not to fret.

Probability Factor: 3/10

There is boardroom unrest at Tottenham about the role Levy has played in the club's worst start to the season since 1912 after he gave the green light to Dimitar Berbatov's £30m deadline-day move to Manchester United. (Daily Mail)

This is just shit journalism.

Tottenham's first-team coach Gus Poyet is the man most likely to replace Ramos if the Spaniard does leave White Hart Lane. (Daily Mirror)

Really? Anything to do with him being the current number 2 at Spurs? Honestly, the deduction skills of the Daily Mirror astonish me. I was half expecting Spurs to invite Mitchell Thomas to take over as care-taker. Gutted.

Probabilty Factor: 11/10

Spurs' £15m winger David Bentley is furious with Ramos because he feels his manager's rotation policy is the reason he has been left out of Fabio Capello's latest England squad. (Daily Express)

More lazy journalism. Bentley should be furious with himself and his own form, being the reason he is not in the England squad. Yeah, I know, Ramos has played him out of position - not ideal, but regardless he hasn't shown anything to warrant a first team place in his natural right-wing position.

Rotation, rotation, rotation...

So Ramos is defending his rotation policy, which currently involved changing the team around practically every game. If you were not worried about the Hull game, then take this into account:

"I cannot understand why I am always being asked about this. We are playing in three competitions - the league, the Carling Cup and the Uefa Cup - and it is necessary to change some players.

"It is impossible to play the same team in every game.

"Now we have a game against Hull in just three days and I will have to make some changes again. Ledley King will need a rest and I may also have to leave out Jonathan Woodgate as well.

"The Premier League is different and we need to improve on where we are in the table, but I hope for the best against Hull at White Hart Lane. I want the best performance from the team.

"Little by little, match to match, we need to improve."

Riiiight. Woodgate and King 'rested' for Sunday? King, on form, should just be dropped. He looks Dawsonesque at the moment. Time to retire the Rolls Royce? We can't go on like this, and Ledley probably knows he can't either.

As for rotation, you can do so, but play the strongest line-up for the games that matter the most: The Premiership. The team has to stay settled, otherwise this 'little by little' improvement we seek will not happen. We haven't improved, at all in recent weeks. And none of this inspires confidence.

Can only hope this is just some pre-match propaganda - and both play.