It’s been interesting at Spurs
this last week. Twenty four hours after an ultimately unfulfilling season
concluded, White hart lane was again filled up as supporters turned out to
celebrate the career of the peerless Ledley King with a testimonial match
featuring some past favourites like David Ginola, Teddy Sheringham, Edgar
Davids, Paul Stalteri (really!) current stars like Emmanuel Adebayor, Christian
Eriksen and Sandro as well as some players of the future. At the centre of it
all was King, still only 33 but cruelly forced to retire from the game at just
31. Watching highlights of King at his pomp, it feels almost tragically unjust
that injuries curtailed his career so early. How much would a fit Ledley King
be worth now? Coming through the youth ranks and a Spurs man to the end, he
emerged at just the right time to give Spurs fans hope after the gut wrenching
defection of a certain S Campbell. In a
premier league era that had Rio Ferdinand, Jamie Carragher, Campbell and John
Terry as its’ finest defenders, Ledley King was a class above. Many strikers list King as the toughest
defender they faced. It seems almost ridiculous that for the last four years of his career, he hardly
trained and yet his performance level never dropped. Ledley King is the standard by which all
future Spurs defenders will be judged. A packed house left Ledley King in no
doubt about the affection with which he is held. With the match proceeds going
to charitable causes, it was a great night all round. Thanks for the memories King.
As Spurs fans sang, “He’s only got one knee, he’s better than John
Terry, oh Ledley…..”
Spurs chairman Daniel Levy was
conspicuous by his absence from King’s testimonial. The following day, we
realised why. He had been sharpening the executioners axe and Tim Sherwood was
predictably relieved of his duties as Spurs Manager. I mentioned when Sherwood
was appointed in November that as a protégé of media darling and former boss,
Harry Redknapp, he would get a far easier ride from the media than his
predecessor, Andre Villas Boas received. Sure enough, the media has been
wailing about the injustice of it all. How Sherwood has the best win percentage
of any Spurs manager in the premier league era. How he was refreshingly honest
and so on. Many pundits, still upset that their pal, Harry Redknapp was sacked
by Levy two years ago have attacked Levy as some trigger happy executioner who
knows nothing about football and hasn’t given managers a chance. I beg to
differ. Daniel Levy has moved Spurs forward beyond all recognition since taking
over from the Alan Sugar thirteen years ago. In fact I blame every manager that
has ever been sacked rather than Daniel Levy.
Tim Sherwood has a lot to say for
himself and like his mentor, he is always good for quote. However, he has never
managed before and this opportunity has come too soon for him, given where
Spurs need to be. For someone who has played for Spurs and been on the coaching
staff since 2008, he did not seem to grasp that the most important task of any
Spurs manager is to establish an attractive playing identity. Much has been
made of the number of signings made last summer and how with the exception of Christian
Eriksen, had not really delivered on their potential. But by openly questioning
most of them and writing some off as rapidly as he did, he alienated himself.
Daniel Levy’s identikit manager is a coach who can improve players on the
training ground and be tactically astute during matches. Sherwood’s selections,
formations and theatrics on the touchline did not give the impression he could
be that and for a man with no managerial achievements, he talked far too much.
In the circumstances, he did a decent job and he deserves great credit for
getting a lot out of Emmanuel Adebayor as well as giving youngsters Nabil Bentaleb
and Harry Kane game time, perhaps too much game time in the case of Bentaleb.
Having
lost out on Louis Van Gaal to Manchester United, it is now between, Frank De
Boer of Ajax and Mauricio Pochettino of Southampton. My sense is that Rafa
Benitez is not as available as we are led to believe and Carlo Ancellotti’s
future may hang on winning the Champions League for Real Madrid this weekend.
Ideally, I would prefer Ancellotti, just because of his mightily impressive CV.
Failing that, I would prefer Frank De Boer, who is making an impression and
whose, footballing education and philosophy is tailor made for Spurs. I have
sung the praises of Pochettino before and my feeling is that he has great
potential. A concern will be that he has not managed a club with the expectation
of Spurs, however if he is as ambitious as I feel he is, he will overcome that
easily. Over to you Mr Levy. Choose well
and may the Spurs be with you.
Saturday was interesting. The FA
Cup final was on and the one team I could not bear to see playing in one much
less winning the damn thing were the favourites. So when Hull City, featuring
former Spurs player, Tom Huddlestone and Spurs loanee Jake Livermore raced into a two-nil
lead, the thought of Arsenal fans trooping dejectedly home empty handed and
mentally scared was quite uplifting. However, the team who defeated Spurs on
the way to the final had just enough left to take the game away from Hull. So in
addition to beating us to the 4th Champions League spot, they also
had the new FA Cup to rub in Spurs faces. The sight of their fans cavorting with
shameless joy through North London grated to be honest. However, in the midst
of that scowl was some relief. You see if Hull had won the FA Cup, Spurs would
have been classified as England’s third entrant behind Everton and Hull to the Europa league and would have had to play an extra qualifying round. The significance of
this is that that qualifier is scheduled for the 31st of July. Two weeks
after the world cup and with little time for a proper pre-season. Due to Hull’s
loss, Spurs will enter the Europa league at the last qualifying stage with matches scheduled for late August. This gives Spurs the benefit of having an uninterrupted pre-season and starting the premier league in the best shape possible (although due to the world cup, every club will have some disruption) and could
pay dividends later on in what is sure to be another intense season. So the gooners had inadvertently given Spurs a
helping hand for next season. Nice.
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