Playing the Blame Game

Article by e-Spurs Correspondent Michael Halepas

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The Head Coach

For all the rhetoric, for all the promising, positive ripples to emanate from WHL since Tim Sherwood took a seat in the Head Coach’s chair at the training ground – nothing much of note has come of the first quarter of his time in charge.

There are no grudges held against Tim in these parts – over the long term he has shown himself to be a loyal, passionate and committed employee of the club. To praise him from up on high however would not be fair to the other managerial/head coach casualties of the recent past.

Without having been privy to the conversations in Daniel Levy’s office, we can at least deduce that Tim Sherwood has held himself out as possessing the attributes required to compete with the best teams in the Premier League and yet the club is one league game into the month of March and the excuses are already flowing.

One of the more common reasons cited by flailing managers is being forced to work with players that aren’t their own. It’s one of the excuses that Tim has latched on to as well in recent weeks as to why he will fail to guide THFC into the Champions League this season. The counter argument perhaps is that a good workman never blames his tools.

Tim Sherwood would insist that he has the relevant qualities required of a top manager. Whatever our opinions are of Tim it’s surely only fair to ask whether he has shown these characteristics in the time he had had, with the players at his disposal.

3 points scraped against relative minnows and Tim is predictably buoyant in the post match interviews. Confident and assertive he answers media questions all the while being happy to tell all those willing to listen just why he would make such a good manager.

Conversely, be outdone by any of the mid-ranking to title chasing sides and his after match conferences are more subdued - Tim wishing to highlight why a defeat has nothing to do with his own shortcomings and everything to do with everyone else.

Tim, as with any other manager must live and die by his decisions and the results that they bring. He may have had only a short period time at the helm but only Tim gets to pick a starting XI at present and only Tim and the coaches selected by him have the job of preparing and motivating the playing staff. Agreed, the players should also be able to part motivate themselves.

Can we say that Tim has impressed so far?

Versus so many of the big boys Tim’s Spurs have come up well short. The idea of challenging toe to toe with these teams for 90 minutes is but a distant memory.

At the Emirates in the FA Cup, Spurs were nowhere near Arsenal. Playing Soldado and Adebayor upfront as well as sticking with Dembele and Bentaleb as two centre midfielders outnumbered against Arsenal’s midfield was suicidal. So it proved.

Against Man City at home we were always going to be in line for a thrashing once Danny Rose saw red but Tim chose to start that game with Bentaleb in the middle. Of all the players at Tim’s disposal who can play at centre midfield, in a game against two of the better hustlers – Y. Toure and Fernandinho – Tim opted for Nabil. Now, very few of us ever know what truly happens on the training ground and in the changing room but Nabil was out of his depth against City in that game. When Capoue trotted on to the field late in the 2nd half – you were left wondering what difference it would have made having him in the starting XI for that game. There are games in which Capoue’s physicality and experience might have been preferred but in which he hasn’t featured. There is always the possibility that his attitude stinks and that the manager doesn’t trust him.

Something that featured in that game as well as others was Adebayor’s tendency to drift away from the line he is leading as lone striker and to take too many touches of the ball in deep or wide positions. Tim may be credited with getting the smile back on Adebayor’s face and the goals back into his game but at what cost? If Adebayor is only content to give ‘his’ all when managers kiss his feet, is he the player we want around the club?

The Chairman

Daniel Levy is the man who gets away with a lot at Spurs despite being the person who should shoulder significantly more of the blame for the abject showing this season.

Look at the differing seasons Spurs and Liverpool have had so far. One of those sides held on resolutely to their world class talent, the other team decided to cash in on theirs.

Daniel Levy is a Spurs fan, or so we’re told but that shouldn’t admonish him from due criticism. He may be credited with the signings of players such as Bale and Modric but you’d expect some cherries in with the plums – he’s been Spurs chairman for 13 years after all.

We may have won a League Cup in 2008 but why should that be good enough. His successes at Spurs are quantified by the bank manager rather than trophies in cabinets. Levy took over as chairman of the club in February 2001 - that as Arsene Wenger will testify is time enough to stamp an imprint on to a club.

Over the 20th century THFC was one of England’s biggest football clubs. We’re constantly being fed the line that Spurs is a top club going for glory every season. In those 13 years that Daniel Levy has had as chairman of the club, we’ve won one trophy – the League Cup – admittedly the least sought after trophy for top flight clubs. We’ve made the final of that competition another two times and we’ve qualified for Champions League once.

In all that time we’ve never made it to an FA Cup final and we’ve finished in the top 4 only twice.

Such failings are enough in Levy’s mind to justify the sacking of 7 managers in that time – Tim Sherwood on track to be the 8th sometime this summer. Surely the man who puts such delicate cargo in the hands of these managers in the first place bears some responsibility for their respective tragedies.

Daniel Levy has enjoyed something none of those managers has gotten anywhere near to – he’s had the opportunity to mould the club as much as the team with the benefit of all of those transfer windows over 13 years.

The satisfaction he feels at seeing the coffers swell after selling players for a profit must take a back seat at some point. I’m not advocating a Leeds United type fiasco by any means but whereas the shareholders reap the rewards in terms of dividend payout it’s the true fans who count the cost of repeated poor transfer policies.

Just as Tim Sherwood will stand or fall – probably the latter – by his decisions there needs to be more accountability in the more senior offices at the club.

In Levy’s defence, you could say that had players like Soldado and Lamela been firing on all cylinders this season our league position might well have been higher but the decision to sign the latter – our most expensive signing ever at £30m is Levy’s doing. He placed faith in Franco Baldini – which increasingly is coming to look like a mistake and justified transferring that much money into AS Roma’s bank account for a player who thus far appears to be a flop.

That has had an impact on us this season. We’re obviously willing and able to splash £30m on a forward – there are many, many professional footballers who could’ve had more of an impact for that kind of money.

If the reason is that insufficient scouting was done on him before we signed the player – is that not Levy’s fault? Has Levy allowed Baldini to pull the wool over his eyes?

Even looking at Soldado, £26m is not a bargain price for a striker who would’ve cost the club £14-£16m only six months earlier. The decision to sign Soldado in the summer rather than in the winter window is another one of Levy’s decisions. We know how badly we missed an extra 10 or so goals last season and common sense would suggest that there is more pressure felt by Soldado being the subject of a £26m rather than a £16m deal.

Looking at the Steven Caulker transfer - how we could do with him in place of Michael Dawson right now. Dawson who going into this season already on the decline physically was the more obvious choice to be moved on to pastures new. Instead, an offer of £8m was deemed too good to refuse for an up and coming England defender. Again, money rules.

With the benefit of hindsight, the defender with England caps well behind him was the preferred transfer out of the club instead of the young man with England caps ahead of him.

Whatever mistakes Levy has made in the last year, the bigger, more punishing error of Levy’s tenure has been the over reliance placed on Adebayor and Defoe over a slightly longer period. Those two individuals have conspired to miss so many sitters in the last couple of years that it’s been painful to watch at times.

Time and time again, Daniel Levy pulls the strings when it comes to the important signings – the transfers of the players who will make or break our season. Too many times, Daniel Levy has made the wrong choice and the fans are the ones suffering for it.

Here’s to better decision making in the future.

COYS!

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