AVB HAS GONE: NOW TIME TO DUMP LEVY.

So Tottenham have finally bitten half of the bullet and sacked Andre Villas-Boas. Now we just have to see the back of Daniel Levy.

 

Supporters of AVB have produced a variety of statistics that purport to show how successful he really was and how wrong it was to sack him. However, what they ignore is the simple reality of his team's appalling recent performances. They may well have had a good year last year but that was with a team put together by his predecessor and that included Gareth Bale. Having brought in a raft of new blood, AVB was simply unable to blend them into an effective side, at least when they were expected to follow his tactics. While they've won the majority of their matches this season, these have been predominantly against lower-grade opposition; whenever they've come up against a decent side, they've been beaten, culminating in the miserable showing against Liverpool last Sunday.

 

Obviously, there is now much speculation about who will be the new boss, but first up is the Capital One Cup match against West Ham.  A few weeks ago, the Hammers came to White Hart Lane and won 3-0, a match which really started the alarm bells ringing at Tottenham. Whether caretaker manager Tim Sherwood can revitalise his side for this confrontation will be the first test of his credentials and we'll soon know whether or not the problem was with AVB's approach. I can see a resounding win for the home side tonight, perhaps 3 or 4 - 1, which could be a precursor to a real revival.

 

Unfortunately, the really deep-seated problem at White Hart Lane is still there. Since Daniel Levy became Chairman in 2001, the club has seen 11 managers come and go - George Graham, Glen Hoddle, David Pleat (twice as a caretaker), Jacques Santini, Martin Jol, Clive Allen (caretaker), Juande Ramos, Harry Redknapp, Andres Villas-Boas and now Tim Sherwood. If Sherwood doesn't keep the job, it'll soon be 12. No team can perform successfully with such regular disruption and the man responsible for all of this mayhem is Levy. While there can be no doubt that some of his choices were better than others, it is also abundantly clear that several should never have been appointed; some simply fell out of favour or with him.

 

Levy is an incompetent meddler. As long as he stays, Spurs will continue to underperform, whoever the manager is.

SPURS CRASH TO WEST HAM AND GO BACK TO NORMAL.

Today's result from White Hart Lane surely bursts the Spurs' bubble.

 

After spending huge amounts of money in the summer and bringing in numerous supposedly very good players, today they lost 3-0 at home to lowly West Ham. Last year, Spurs had 2 problems; firstly they leaked goals whenever the opposition got around their rather static defence, and secondly, they had trouble finding the net themselves. This term, they appeared to have resolved the leaky defence issue but still find it almost impossible to score goals against any but the poorest opposition; today's result shows that the defence is every bit as dodgy as before.

 

Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear :-(  The premature talk of a top 4 finish and Champions' League spot now seems very, very fanciful indeed; the madness of them being title challengers can be forgotten for at least another year. They may have several better players but they still lack the penetration necessary to score more than the occasional goal against top sides. Come the January transfer window expect some more frantic activity as they search desperately for someone who can create those missing goal scoring opportunities on a regular basis. Oh, and a decent left full back, cover for Walker and a winger or 2 might be useful as well.

BALE TRANSFER SHOWS FOOTBALL HAS GONE MAD.

The conclusion of months of gossip about the possible move of Gareth Bale from Tottenham Hotspur to Real Madrid must come as a huge relief to many people. It's been clear for several weeks that Bale was on his way out of White Hart Lane, with Tottenham anticipating the sale by spending enormous amounts in the transfer market; now that Bale's gone, this outlay has been recouped and their accountants must be happy once more.

 

The real question is whether anyone who kicks a football around can be worth paying £85.3m for, and whether they can be worth paying £15.6m per year in wages. In my view, the answer is an emphatic "NO".

 

We hear and read much about greedy bankers and other business leaders who receive large salaries and bonuses, though few of these came close to the numbers now routinely bandied about in the world of football. Those who run major multinational corporations are often responsible for many thousands of employees and company budgets of many billions of pounds; whole economies may depend on their success or failure, as we discovered when banks began to fail 5 or 6 years ago. The people who have ultimate responsibility within such vast entities need to be the best and that means highly paid, but even they are not paid the staggering sums received by some sports 'stars'.

 

When it comes to sport, matters should be rather different. Those who choose to follow this largely selfish and egotistical path do very little to manage anything, create employment or enhance the world in any other tangible way; in fact, it seems that their primary purpose is to fleece the poor supporter out of as much money as possible while becoming enormously rich for doing what they themselves most enjoy, be it playing football, tennis, golf, basketball or a myriad of other essentially pointless games. They are the true parasites, not the bankers.

 

Gareth Bale is a great footballer but is he worth paying £85.3m for ? Certainly not. Is he worth paying £300,000 per week as has been reported ? Of course not, it's a ludicrous amount of money to pay someone for playing a game, no matter how good they are.

 

The world has gone mad.