could spurs actually get relegated?!

a lot can happen in 3 weeks.

or not. spurs were in the relegation zone 3 weeks ago, and they haven't left it yet. in fact, they still don't possess a league victory this season, having only won matches against wisla krakow in the uefa cup and the aforementioned shambles that constitutes newcastle united currently in the carling cup. the team hasn't really produced a single good performance either, with the most notable the defensive effort to foil chelsea and produce their solitary point.

ramos has a plan! you think. the teases of last season, the flashes of daring and little chunks of tactical excellence that were occasionally on offer in the eventual wasteland of results, mean it is the only logical conclusion, right? but with every passing game, the hope that ramos managed to generate during the helter-skelter 2007/2008 season dissipates. the strikers were sold, but that didn't matter - ramos had a plan. in came bentley, giovani, modric. gareth bale was back, paul robinson was gone, jonathan woodgate remained; jermaine jenas had shown genuine development, whilst ledley king had reached a point in his rehabilitation where he could actually play football again. the order of the day would be a 4-2-3-1 it seemed, lending a greater robustness in defence whilst maintaining a flowing, flexible attacking style.

or so it seemed. the most disconcerting thing about the start of this season has not been the results - after all, it is still early and a good run of results could propel the team into mid-table quite easily; if spurs had gone through a 6 game period in january of 4 defeats and 2 draws people wouldn't be this hysterical. no, the most disconcerting thing must be that ramos has been thoroughly incompetent. he has picked players out of position, most notably david bentley, who was bought for £15m after excelling on the right wing for the past 2 years at ewood park and since has played everywhere but, and luka modric, who has been asked to do more defensive work than he was ever going to be capable of at this stage of his premiership career and not provided a position from which he could really influence games. ramos also can't quite decide whether he wants to play one or two up front, something that defies the personnel changes during the summer, as the two strikers best suited to playing as a pair departed and a handful of attacking midfielders entered.

and whilst the shape has frequently changed, the standard hasn't. people have been quick to point out that with such an overhaul, the team was going to need time to gel; whilst this may be true, it must also be true that if ramos had any conception of his best side then consistently playing the same first xi, or at least some approximation of it, would result in that happening quicker.

obviously, ramos isn't the only one at fault here. damian comolli singularly failed to properly manage the transfer window, selling berbatov too late and bringing in pavlyuchenko too late. he also failed to buy a third striker or a proper defensive midfielder, and also didn't manage to find buyers for the hoard of unwanted panic buys currently crowding the reserves (hossam ghaly, kevin-prince boateng, ricardo rocha etc etc etc). comolli, like arnesen before him, has bought in volume, and filled the squad with quite a lot of players that aren't good enough. the past four years has seen quite a lot of churn amongst the playing staff, and that simply cannot be a good thing.

but none of this can excuse the obviously flawed approach ramos has taken to the beginning of this season. having pursued him with such vigour last year it is difficult to see levy being too willing to get rid of him so early, but clearly this cannot continue. the sun is saying ramos has four games to save his job, and i think i would more or less agree with that, provided we're talking league games. a bad run of form in 6 league is almost forgettable, but if they weren't to pick up at least 2 wins or 3 positive results out of the next four i don't think there could be much complaining if ramos was shown the door, especially given the events of last season. even if the next 4 games were disastrous, i still wouldn't believe there would be any risk of relegation, but it would almost certainly doom the team to a bottom half finish and there can be no excuses for that.

14/1 to get relegated. let's see what those odds are like at the end in another 3 weeks.