October 20, 2008

Spurs Down and Out ?

The world no more makes sense to the Tottenham Hotspur fans. If they were granted just one wish by a genie right now they would wish to wake up from a nightmare that they had been sleeping through over the last few months. Unfortunately for them the man who was touted to be their genie, Juande Ramos, is failing to deliver after promising a lot.

Tottenham has been perennially tagged as ‘Pretenders’ or ‘Fools Gold’ and Ramos and his ambitious Chief executive at the club vowed to finally throw those tags in the bins. Ramos showed the right intent when he came to the club as he immediately snatched up a defender that the club was missing so much. Woodgate suddenly got rid of the demons inside him and he was no more a regular visitor to the team physio. He started brightly, scored a goal in the Carling Cup which they won and played like a general for the second half of last season. Probably Woodgate promised a bit too much that Ramos blissfully and totally wrongly ignored the lack of quality defensive cover in the team. Ledley King when fit is an excellent and inspirational defender but one gets to see him as sporadically as one gets to see the sun in northern part of England.

If defense has always been their undermining their attack this season too falls way short of the quality that they have had for quite a few years. Ramos’ transfer activity will once again under the microscope and not without a reason. Ramos went for young bright talents in Bentley, Dos Santos, Corluka and Modric when he could have done with a couple of experienced players more so considering the departure of their two most talismanic players Berbatov and Keane.

Daniel Levy will really have to put his hand up for Spurs’ dismal start to their season. It is actually baffling to even think how he hung onto Berbatov until the last day of the season trying to increase his sale value rather than selling him and giving Ramos some time to find his replacements. It is always an excellent strategy to change the way your team plays after a season as Sir Alex will have you know but sometimes it is always safe and prudent to go for like-for-like replacements. Ramos brought in a couple of wingers and he has Darrent Bent and Pavlyuchenko leading their line and if you watch a s Spurs game this season it is quite astonishing to see the number of crosses that they are putting into the box now. To be fair to Ramos Bent and Pavlyuchenko have neither the skill or finesse to play one touch football as their predecessors but you buy replacements according to the way you want to play the game not always play the game according to the players you have. Ramos had the whole summer to plan and be prepared for the departure of his strike force and he failed to strengthen that area in particular. One gets a feeling that Tottenham’s board members have failed to learn from their mistakes. They have failed to fill the mid-field void left by Carrick ever since his departure to Man Utd and now they seem to be treading on a similar path. Ramos will have to come up with a solution , a quick solution or else ass the table suggests right now Tottenham’s fans would be cheering their club in another league.

These transfers below sum up the transfer activity of Tottenham this season:

IN:

Vedran Corluka; from Manchester City; £8.5m

Roman Pavlyuchenko; from Spartak Moscowl; £14m

Cesar Sanchez; from Real Zaragoza

David Bentley; from Blackburn Rovers; £17m

Giovani Dos Santos; from Barcelona; £4.7million fee rising to £8.6million depending on appearances

Luka Modric; from Dinamo Zagreb; £8.75(subject to granting of a work permit)

John Bostock; from Crystal Palace; £700,000

Heurelho Gomes; from PSV; £7.8m

Paul-Jose Mpoku; from Standard Liege

OUT:

Dimitar Berbatov; to Manchester United £30m

Lee Young-Pyo; to Borussia Dortmund

Anthony Gardner; to Hull; £2.5m

Younes Kaboul; to Portsmouth

Steed Malbranque; to Sunderland

Robbie Keane; to Liverpool; £20.3m

Pascal Chimbonda; to Sunderland

Paul Robinson; to Blackburn; £3.5million

Teemu Tainio; to Sunderland

Tommy Forecast; to Southampton

Radek Cerny; to QPR; free

Joe Martin; to Blackpool.

 

 

4 comments:

Aman said...

I cant stop smiling seeing them at bottom of the table. I wonder if asked, what message Martin Jol will send to Ramos at this time?

After keane-berba left, who expected them to float to top? That was the best striker partnership in EPL according to me.

Has ramos been taking english lessons lately? I guess will help him share the grief with his team :)

Anonymous said...

It's really astonishing how stupid they have been in the transfer market... how can you buy a striker who can't play with ur other striker?

ramos has shown he's a tactical genius throughout his career... spurs can now only hope for a miracle if they are to even better last year's position!

-Ilango

RedViv said...

Actually , criticism of Ramos not picking up the language is a fair one i believe. I watched the post match interview , the one against stoke, he did speak in english but still it appeared as if he was reluctant to speak in English. It makes a massive difference when a manager is not speaking the language that majority of his players speak.

DuffuTalks said...

Rednapp will certainly help spurs

he is th best english manager available

how abt merry go round for defoe, kaboul
and sunderland players