labouring the point on spurs

because i will take any and every opportunity to make it. per david hytner in yesterday's guardian, two harry quotes:

"I was impressed with the players in training. If we can show our quality we will quickly move up the table. We have a lot of good players." (28 October)

"I'm trying to make the best out of what I've got. This is the hand I've been dealt, basically. I've got nobody else. It's difficult to find people." (11 January)

what a man, what a manager.

just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...

what is the worst thing about having harry redknapp as your manager? knowing that he will waste your transfer budget on players that aren't good enough? lack of tactical nous? how about the fact he's presided over a thoroughly mediocre career record? the employment of cronies?

nope, i would say the worst thing about having harry redknapp as your manager is that you know all he cares about is harry redknapp and will do anything to escape blame and make excuses. and guess what? after yesterday's near defeat to burnley, despite being 4-1 up from the first leg, harry has yet again blamed the players!

said harry:

"We need stronger players in here because we're not mentally or physically strong enough... It's a mish-mash of players with people playing where they want to play."

wait a minute! i thought this was a talented group of players who only needed you to put your arm round them? isn't that what you said when you took over harry?

the fact is, that this group of players remains startling similar to the team that deservedly beat chelsea in last year's carling cup final. the starting line-up for that game was

Robinson, Hutton, Woodgate, King, Chimbonda, Lennon, Jenas, Zokora, Malbranque, Berbatov, Keane

and although spurs obviously now lack berbatov and keane up front, but the midfield has only improved since that point, with the additions of david bentley and luka modric, whilst vedran corluka has played better at right back since joining than alan hutton ever has, and we actually have the ability of play a proper left-back now. more to the point, even though i don't like either player, you cannot escape the fact that both jenas and zokora played well enough to negate a chelsea central midfield featuring john obi mikel, frank lampard and michael essien. ultimately ramos's failure was not being able to produce such performances with any regularity, but under redknapp the players are incapable of playing well, ever, it would seem. furthermore, when spurs finished 5th in 2006/2007, the team was essentially the same as the one that started the carling cup final, with jenas and zokora in central midfield and tom huddlestone as their back-up. so this is the messed up squad harry? these are the useless players that you can't do anything with?

of course, it is just another example of harry trying to avoid blame, which is, in fairness, the one thing he does well. the squad is never big enough or good enough, which means even the least impressive achievements - look! we stayed up! - can be heralded by him as some sort of miracle. what a truly awful man.

what in god's name is going on at manchester city?

so, kaka isn't coming. after all of the headlines and speculation, the brazilian came out in opposition to the move, finally ending any chance of him swapping milan for manchester. of course, the charming garry cook claimed ac milan had "bottled it", as if there was some institutional character flaw in having second thoughts about selling someone who may be the world's best player. the full break down of the nonsensical face-saving exercise can be found at football365, but suffice to say that there will be broad smiles on the faces of a few million football fans this afternoon.

more pressing, however, is not the player they were always unlikely to sign, but the players they will be signing. a motley collection of the overpaid, undermotivated and indisciplined, the city squad is quickly becoming an absolute shambles and the once bright reputation of their manager is under serious threat.

much has been made of the squad's struggles this year, and obviously a lot is down to a lack of balance. the team is physically slight throughout midfield and lacks the genuinely hard workers you need in order to offset the laziness of someone like robinho - in the way that manchester united need wayne rooney to often do ronaldo's running for him. to accomodate such players city need to line up in a 5 man midfield, with 2 defensive players supplementing the 3 attacking ones, yet city frequently line up with just one, vincent kompany, and the raft of new signings confuses things further.

the first thing to say about the three new arrivals at eastlands is that they are patently ridiculous. wayne bridge might almost be worth £12m - although given that he played about 74 games in 6 years at stamford bridge you might say that is generous - but to make him the highest paid full-back in the world is absolutely absurd. nigel de jong is a decent player, but one patently not worth anything near the £18m city have paid, especially when the dutchman had a clause in his contract allowing him to leave at the end of the season for £1.8m. finally, and most unbelievably, the utterly mediocre craig bellamy has been purchased for £14m - that is £14m - a mere 18 months and 7 goals since joining west ham for £7.5m. a career 1-in-3 scorer, the welshman also happens to be an utter cretin, and despite the predictable "he's the type of player you love to have in your team" guff from mark hughes (forgetting the fact he faked injuries and refused to play at newcastle, assaulted teammate john arne riise with a golf club whilst at liverpool and walked at on west ham when they refused to sell him to spurs) is a dangerous addition to a volatile squad already stuffed to the brim with a motley collection of malcontents and misanthropes. furthermore, the acquisition of bellamy appears to neatly symbolise the tactical confusion of mark hughes's reign, and casts significant doubt on the manager's abilities.

mark hughes worked miracles at blackburn on a shoestring budget, delivering 3 successive top-half finishes on the back of some canny transfer deals. in came craig bellamy for just over £3m, who enjoyed perhaps the best season of his career before departing for more than double that amount; bellamy was replaced by benni mccarthy, who scored 18 premier league goals in his first season at ewood park; then the following season roque santa cruz arrived from bayern munich, and he too enjoyed a great first season under hughes. the welshman also picked up defenders ryan nelson, christopher samba and stephen warnock for relative peanuts, and helped develop david bentley, having signed the midfielder from arsenal. but in retrospect, doubts emerge about just how good hughes was - his blackburn teams were full of technically adept players but generally played quite direct football, getting the ball into the box from wide areas as much as possible. the teams were disciplined and well drilled, physically strong and positively welcomed confrontation. but how much of that adds up to become an indicator of a manager with a future at the highest level? for the type of approach you can get away with at a small club, managing players who are generally looking to either build or rebuild reputations, is not necessarily identical to the type of approach needed to get the best out of a collection of highly-paid egotists best suited to a quick passing approach.

it is here that the signing of craig bellamy becomes a warning sign. bellamy may be many things - i'm sure you can think of a few choice words of your own - but a lone striker he is not. too short, movement too limited, not rounded enough. this suggests that hughes is intending to play with two up-front, but that would presumably leave him playing robinho and shaun wright-phillips on the flanks, with de jong and ireland (also assuming kompany moves into the back four) in the middle. not only does this exacerbate the existing problems - robinho's lack of diligence in defence leaves whichever flank he is stationed on completely exposed - it also doesn't suit the strengths of city's squad, which potentially could be playing very effective passing football, if their game is suddenly transformed into "pinging balls over the top for craig to run onto". also, and perhaps most worrying, is that hughes, with essentially limitless reaches with which to purchase, has chosen as his spearhead an overhill player he has coached before, presumably because of his familiarity with him; this does not bode well for the man's knowledge of world football, or city's scouting department.

essentially, hughes has demonstrated very little so far at manchester city to suggest he is the man for the job. tactically confused, failing to gain the trust of his squad thus far (he is facing outright mutiny from a cadre of players), and most crucially overseeing a truly appalling league record this season, he is undoubtedly facing the biggest test of his managerial career thus far. and he is relying on craig bellamy to save his reputation. what odds a new manager in place at eastlands come august?

harry redknapp should be sacked

it is a funny feeling, as a football fan, when you get a new manager. more than players, whom it is often easy to judge or build a proper familiarity with even as a neutral, managers remain difficult to really judge without proper, lengthy exposure to them. maybe i could claim to be in a position to analyse the management of the big four, but then i watch them probably just as much as i do spurs owing to their continual presence on tv. but as their impact isn't always apparent to the casual observer, managers of less high profile clubs are more of a mystery. i could not tell you, for instance, whether paul ince's tactics and general management should have resulted in his sacking; equally it is difficult for me to know if gary megson is doing anything more than his best big sam routine. portsmouth were never a side i watched much of, so i wasn't ever in a proper position to judge the performance of harry redknapp; my cumulative experience of his management left me underwhelmed, certainly, as his hit and miss transfer policy and very mixed successes could only do. i was never in favour of his appointment from the beginning, describing it as "ending the hope" of spurs fans in a hastily cobbled together blog on the subject, but today, having lived the harry redknapp experience for a few months, i can say that the regression is almost complete: rather than signalling the end of hope, it turns out arry signalled the beginning of fear.

upon his arrival at spurs, it was difficult for harry to really fail. admittedly, the squad had lost its best player - dimitar berbatov - during the transfer window, and had seen its major strength - goalscoring - turned into a relative weakness, but this remained a squad full of quality, with enough good footballers being held back by the confusion of the ramos reign. this was a squad with international players at most positions - read through the squad list and note the surprising amount - that almost certainly retained a level of talent better than 2/3rds of the league. a common sense approach, something lacking almost entirely during the ramos era, would have always kept this side up. too good to go down? yes. and before anyone thinks otherwise, this is a side quite a lot better than the shabby west ham side that went down with 43 points; i cannot think of a side this talented that has gone down, in any major league, during the last 10 years.

and predictably, redknapp enjoyed his honeymoon period, chancing a draw against arsenal, a win against liverpool and another against bolton. results quickly changed though, with flat performances against fulham and everton leading to defeats. after a brief renaissance, outplaying a poor west ham and holding man united to a draw, spurs returned to earth, losing against newcastle and drawing at home with fulham before another two defeats to west brom and wigan.

as it turns out, the latter defeat, yesterday at the jjb, was one of the worst performances i have ever seen by a tottenham side. this was a side devoid of confidence, devoid of organisation and devoid of even the most basic of skills. i caught the end of match of the day 2 last night, and had enough time to hear alan hansen describe wigan as "terrific"; they certainly were not. they were actually pretty terrible, especially in the second half, and failed to fashion the most slight of chances or even attempt a shot against the clearly injured gomes. nevertheless, spurs managed to play worse, creating nothing, consistently giving the ball away; it was both gutless and guileless. after the game, harry was quick to blame his players. "there is only so much a manager can do" he whined. yes, there is - of course. but that statement implies redknapp did all he could to provide the basis for a good performance, which is nonsense. redknapp's game plan was awful and his scapegoating of the players disgraceful.

firstly, he put spurs out in a terrible 4-4-2/3-5-2 hybrid, with ledley king playing a sort of libero role in defence, stepping out to create an extra midfielder. the midfield became a wonky, baffling diamond, with didier zokora on the right, o'hara tucking in on the left and modric in the middle. bale played as a wing-back on the left whilst corluka stayed in a more orthodox right back position. this was perhaps the worst system i have seen this season, offering no support or options when going forward (so it was impossible to keep the ball) but not even shielding the back four particularly well. given that wigan were playing a flat four, it shouldn't have been a difficult tactical match-up, but redknapp nevertheless messed up royally.

the other problem with this system is that it suited none of the players. as good a player as ledley king is, he isn't a midfielder; didier zokora is not a right winger; roman pavlyuchenko is not a second striker; jamie o'hara isn't a left winger. i have no idea what redknapp was trying to accomplish, but to his credit he managed to create a system that suited not a single player outside of the keeper and back four, which is quite something.

furthermore, his recruitment policy is ridiculous. to get the most out of our best midfield players - modric, bentley, lennon, huddlestone - we probably need to be playing some sort of 5-man midfield. spurs are a squad constituted to play passing football rather than the direct, wing-based nonsense that redknapp appears to be looking for with the downing infatuation, and the signing of jermain defoe for a frankly preposterous £15m consigns the team to constantly be in some sort of 4-4-2 (you assume defoe will be first choice up-front, and that even harry would not be stupid enough to play him as a lone striker). rather than chasing small strikers lacking genuine quality, harry would be much better off pursuing an effective defensive midfielder to screen the defence and provide modric and huddlestone with some protection; in almost every other position spurs have plenty of players and plenty of quality, yet harry continues to moan about the players and the size of the squad.

of course, he just isn't up to it. this is a man with a truly mediocre record, camouflaged by his friends in the media - harry is always good for some copy - and the fact he is english. before he left west ham, he had wasted perhaps the best crop of youth players at a club since alan hansen uttered "you never win anything with kids", dropping them perilously close to relegation. he managed to get southampton relegated, no matter who he scapegoated for that, and nearly accomplished the same at pompey until luck and the gaydamak millions intervened. of course, he spent millions more creating a mediocre team with one of the worst home scoring records in the premiership last year, frequently frittering money away when he needed to get players that didn't fit into the "wily veteran with a few more miles in the tank" mould. he then fluked an fa cup triumph when pompey only made it past the fourth round due to one of the worst refereeing performances i have ever seen. some record. yet this is the saviour? this is the man that can demand spurs rip up the management structure that levy wholeheartedly believed in?

harry is, in fact, a con artist, a fraud - a man whose reputation is built from sand, who isn't fit to stand on the spurs sideline. he will probably keep them up, just, and the claims of his superlative powers of survival will be once again lapped up by the assorted idiots and cronies within the football media; that isn't good enough. survival isn't good enough. spurs need to be pushing for europe, or at least displaying the form that would allow them to leapfrog the bare minimum of 13 sides that have less talent within their first xi in time. instead, it is survival.

how scary it is to see expectations fall so far, so fast. and how sad it is to see a manager fuel that to further his own reputation.

fergie pokes holes in chelsea's long term planning

yesterday witnessed two interesting press conferences from two high profile premier league managers. by now, everyone has probably read rafa benitez's comments on alex ferguson, and enough has probably now been typed regarding the significance of that particular breakdown - i certainly have nothing to add that won't traipse across the already well worn talking points with awful pseudo psychology, as most other media commentators will attempt. rather, i felt that alex ferguson's press conference yesterday, in which he ruminating upon the subject of chelsea's transfer policy, is far more worthy of attention.

"Chelsea changed the face of the league and we knew we had to raise the bar," he
said. "But ours was a long-term view, with younger players, and that policy has
worked. We felt we should build a team that would last for a long time. That
required a bit of patience at the time but we knew that we couldn't match
Chelsea in terms of spending power, so the sensible thing was to go that way and
identify younger players who, in the long-term, would develop into top players.

this is a rather succinct appraisal of the current malaise effecting the chelsea squad, and the failure of their management since the abramovich takeover to grasp what it takes to truly develop a long-term strategy. chelsea's recruitment policy under the russian was initially instituted to radically accelerate the team's development, paying top dollar for whomever the management felt was necessary to turn the side into genuine contenders both home and abroad. this continued into the mourinho era, with expensive imports drafted in to makeover the underachieving ranieri-led squad and adapt it the the portuguese's system. it was then transformed to include a parallel element, with youth-team players scouted and signed by frank arnesen.

as chelsea moved from mourinho to grant and then scolari, the only institutional principles the chelsea transfer policy followed was ambramovich's win at all costs mentality. this is why the squad is currently constituted the way it is, with michael ballack pointlessly recruited despite the existence of frank lampard, and deco pointlessly recruited despite the existence of frank lampard and michael ballack. it is why the club bought ashley cole for £23m despite owning wayne bridge and why they bought asier del horno for £11m despite owning wayne bridge. it is why they currently own no wingers and why, generally, the first xi is comprised of players who have reached their peak and will develop no further. the one player who bucks that trend, john obi mikel, was ironically poached from the clutches of the club they would do well to emulate, manchester united.

as ferguson points out, it is mostly the presence of him that explains the ability of united to take a more long-term approach. the longer ferguson has stayed, the more he has become truly the director of manchester united football. and that isn't meant to refer to powerless figureheads like avram grant or velimir zejec, who are meant to sit back and oversee transfer policy, but a real hands-on chief executive of the running of the first xi. ferguson has never been the most active tactician, but has consistently recognised this by appointing shrewdly within his backroom staff. this has allowed him to take real leadership, creating institutional principles and aims for the football club. manchester united play a certain way and recruit a certain way, generally buying younger players who develop and grow into the system, as opposed to buying into reputation. this was the case with many of the current xi, especially in midfield and attack; one only needs to look at the presence of ronaldo, bought because of what he could become rather than what he was, to be reminded of that. it is also no coincidence that ferguson's latest big purchases were a pair of wunkerkind serbians, with one, zoran tosic, who will slowly be blended into the first team squad at old trafford, and another, adem ljajic, who will be loaned back to partizan to continue his education before arriving in manchester within the next couple of seasons.

of course, chelsea attempted this. they bought alex and stashed him at psv; they tried the same thing with slobodan rajkovic and have invested more in scouting and development than any other club in the world. but as managers came and went, with different beliefs and opinions over the system to be played and the players to play it, there was never a consistency of purpose. and of course, with the introduction of influence-hungry frank arnesen, the systems developed almost in opposition, with mourinho lusting complete control and arnesen challenging that. no doubt that arnesen's players haven't been good enough - chelsea are currently trying and failing to offload as many as they possibly can, with even lower tier english clubs knocking them back - but there is no doubt that the project, lacking proper leadership and amidst such a dysfunctional climate, was doomed from the beginning. this parallel recruitment system merely created separate spheres of influence to be protected at all costs by men of an inherently political nature; having one man in charge of everything has allowed manchester united to use their vast resources to create an integrated recruitment policy that is intended to maintain their position at the top over a number of years, rather than merely this year.

this is a good argument in favour of a general manager - by finding someone competent enough to institute style and aims to the football club, you can create a transfer policy that consistently delivers the right players. looking at spurs now, and the make-up of the squad, is a great example of this - too many managers, all with different visions and tactics, have come and gone, lacking a unity of purpose; what this has meant is a ragtag collection of players who don't suit any one system, a strikeforce worth roughly £45m that don't complement each other. by having that long-term leadership you're more likely to consistently maintain an effective playing squad over a number of years, and when you're able to use such gigantic funding as a means to that end you're more likely to consistently maintain a squad capable of challenging for honours. and that is what chelsea, and more specifically roman ambramovich, have continually failed to grasp.

west ham & transfer related madness

the ever readable david conn appeared in the guardian today to talk about football finances, his usual area of expertise. to absolutely no one's surprise, the article - regarding the necessity of football to be realistic about the recession - focused on two of the most notorious examples around, west ham and newcastle.

newcastle, which was previously quite publicly for sale after owner mike ashley appeared to throw a tantrum after the impact of the kevin keegan debacle compounded a rather delayed realisation that it costs quite a lot of money to run a competitive football club, has recently been taken off the market, the takeover bids that "caretaker" manager joe kinnear promised in his first press conference having failed to actually materialise. despite their owner's rumoured losses during the virtual-collapse of HBOS, at least they remain solvent; west ham are faced with much bigger problems, with their owner nearing bankruptcy and only months to find a buyer. clearly, neither club proved to be the cash cow their owners anticipated, and the combination of the economic climate along with the failure of both to realise the supposed commercial potential of the clubs - admittedly due to a variety of factors - may well be a significant development in the previously fevered sell off of the premier league.

perhaps the most outrageous thing about the whole affair, the nugget of information that symbolises both the ridiculous inflation and lack of perspective that had bedevilled english football, as well as the crisis currently engulfing it, is bjorgolfur gudmundsson's valuation of his club. this is the club he bought for £85m, provided with a squad full of horrible mercenaries on ridiculous contracts and added nothing of value, yet the valuation is £250m. £250m. martin samuel wrote an excellent article in the times tearing this to pieces - google it - and i shan't bother to repeat his points. it will merely suffice to say that this is self-evidently preposterous.

obviously, no one has deigned west ham worthy of such a lavish sum. perhaps this might have something to do with the fact that west ham remain the largest asset of a man who will be declared bankrupt in the spring, whose holding company is £110m in debt and who now holds absolutely no leverage over potential buyers? surely, as kevin mccarra observed in monday's guardian unlimited podcast, for anyone with even a remote interest in buying the club the best decision would be to wait for gudmundsson to go bankrupt, or get even more desperate, and pick up west ham for a bargain? on that basis alone, it will be the surprise of the season if anyone even bids for the club before the spring.

from this parlous financial position, it would also follow that gudmundsson would want to sell as many of the company's assets as possible during what is potentially his only window in order to maximise the income. not only does this provide enough cash to keep the club afloat, it also reduces its liabilities in terms of weekly and yearly salary, making it more tempting for potential buyers, who probably don't wish to be lumbered with a bloated, overpaid squad on receipt of their new football club - especially when the country is in such a difficult economic situation.

as such, there has been much interest in the more respected members of the first team squad. craig bellamy was an early target for spurs, before they settled on jermain defoe, and it appears he may still be of interest to a few other clubs; scott parker seems to be on his way to man city; matthew upson has allegedly been subject of a bid from aston villa; calum davenport may be going to bolton; and presumably if the first three leave you would assume rob green, who has voiced his frustration at the club previously, would also ask to go.

west ham's problem is therefore not a lack of interest but a lack of intelligence. for matthew upson, an adequate if limited central defender on the verge of the england team but also on the verge of entering his thirties (he is 29) the asking price is apparently £16m. that would be sixteen millions of pounds. upson is a good player, but that is ludicrous: his talent certainly doesn't warrant that price tag, regardless of whether he is being picked for england whilst other players are injured. scott parker, meanwhile, is valued at £12m, which again beggars belief for such a limited player - man city are reported to have offered £4m plus michael johnson, who has the ability to not only be a lot better than parker but also add some much needed craft to the woeful west ham midfield - especially when he was purchased for £7m by the hammers and has done absolutely nothing since to suggest any sort of development. similarly, bellamy - who 18 months ago was worth £7.5m - has apparently nearly doubled in value despite scoring a mere 5 goals in the intervening period and turning 29 himself.

it, of course, is ludicrous. west ham have a genuinely poor side and desperately need some reinforcements. surely rather than holding out for ridiculous money they would they be better off sacrificing bellamy, parker and upson for a combined total of something in the region of £24m, plus michael johnson, and purchasing cheaper, younger players, probably outside of the premier league?

perhaps what is holding them back is the current insanity within the english transfer market. when portsmouth can successfully demand £15m for jermain defoe - and regardless of the intricacies of the fee and whether spurs are writing off other debts as part of the overall sum, he will still be purchased with a package worth that amount - having owned him for a year and paid only £9m for him, something is drastically wrong. that spurs would pay it is even more unbelievable, especially given the fact that at 26 he has played enough football, both for club and country, to demonstrate his game will probably develop little further than the "shoot so many times i'm bound to score sooner or later" principle he currently operates on. the same applies to stewart downing, thoroughly mediocre but with a left foot, being valued at £15m. this can be blamed on the idiocy of harry redknapp; perhaps most damaging is manchester city's insistence on spending £12m on a part-time footballer, 28 years old, and making him the highest paid full-back in the world. this creates a worrying illusion of fiscal health, and distorts the market to the extent that whenever manchester city are rumoured to be interested clubs seem to feel confident in raising their prices to ridiculous levels. in such a depressed economic climate, this could lead to even greater financial peril and disparity in the market.

now even ambramovich, the original sugar daddy, has radically scaled back his spending, blaming the current economic situation. the reality that many seem to be waking up to is that football is generally not a good way to make money - it often requiries quite a lot of money, and even then your options are either long-term, building the club up in order to reach a united-like level of global recognition (difficult) or limiting your outlay, operating on a sound fiscal basis, improving the state of the club and finally selling on for a tidy profit. the former is a very long-term strategy, and the attempts by ambramovich to telescope this gap shows the investment needed to make the jump in the short-term. the latter, although almost certainly less romantic, is probably the sounder path; it is the one currently trodden by randy lerner, the aston villa owner who has provided the most effective blueprint for successful ownership yet.

lerner bought villa for a small sum, £62.6m, and made a wise choice: a large, loyal fanbase, coupled with a good sized stadium meant the club would never really struggle to keep their heads above water, and a very good youth development system meant there were a few youngsters of extreme promise emerging. this was bolstered by adequate, if never outrageous, funding for the talented, proven manager to invest. not all of the investments worked out - the purchase of stilian petrov will never be justified, nicky shorey looks like he might soon be leaving, james milner will probably struggle to ever match his £12m fee and marlon harewood isn't a premiership player. but o'neill paid what now looks like big money - £8m a piece for curtis davies and nigel reo-coker, a fee rising to £10m for ashley young - but blended them wisely with a few effective veterans (bouma, before the injury, carew, friedel), the existing quality in the squad (barry, young) as well as gabriel agbonlahor to create a side that may even sneak into the champions league, at a reasonable cost. what this means for lerner is that he can walk away in the medium-term - maybe less than 5 years from now - selling the club at a very healthy profit for himself.

the biggest irony is of course that of every side in the premier league, man city were maybe the most comparable when most recently taken over - a decent fanbase, a big (if unloved) stadium, a handful of very good young players from a very good youth system, a collection of good veteran talent and a proven manager. it is almost certain that they won't tread the same path, however; it will be interesting to see if it is at the city of manchester stadium where the trend of foreign ownership, in its most common incarnation, finally ends.