EPL Talk » Daniel Levy

What A Difference A Year Makes At White Hart Lane

Paul Bestall — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:01:34 +0000

With the season starting slightly earlier this year due to the World Cup, most teams in the Premiership have played 8 league games already. Last season, the 8th round of matches was played two weeks later, on the weekend of October 18th/19th. By the end of it, Tottenham were staring up at every other team in the league with a lowly 2 points. A 2-1 loss against Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium had left Spurs trailing Newcastle by 4 points and Stoke and Fulham by 5.

A club in disarray, the fans in despair, the players lacking leadership on or off the pitch, things were not looking good. Not since 1988* had Tottenham propped up the table, ironically on Halloween. That season was to shadow a remarkable turn around in events at White Hart Lane as the week continued to get worse as Udinese beat Spurs on the Thursday 2-0 with a implosion in the last 15 minutes. Juande Ramos cut a depressed figure on the touchline in Udine, a man completely at a loss to explain what was happening or it seemed able to arrest the decline.

Daniel Levy’s reign as chairman had seen plenty of ups and downs during the course of the 7 years that had led to this point. Ramos was supposed to be the marquee managerial signing to move Spurs onwards from the work of the underrated and under appreciated Martin Jol. It was fast becoming a disaster of epic proportions as the club lurched from crisis to crisis. After 5 managers in that time, Levy was under enormous pressure to finally deliver, yet here they were, bottom of the league, winless, shapeless and facing relegation.

After the defeat in Italy, Ramos made the usual “We can play our way out of trouble” statements, but they rang hollow in the ears of the Spurs fans. Other than a well deserved point at Stamford Bridge, there had been nothing to cling to in the way of optimism. No-one else could see where the win was going to come from, the team looked beyond help. On Saturday, October 25th as the fans prepared for another inevitable defeat the next day against Bolton, things couldn’t get much worse.

As Match of the Day finished, I flicked over to Sky Sports News, just to see if perhaps anything at all had happened. As the image flicked on, the newsfeed at the bottom of the screen suddenly went in to to overdrive. “Tottenham have sacked Juande Ramos, Gus Poyet and Daniel Comolli with immediate effect…..Harry Redknapp has been confirmed as the new manager of Spurs …. Discussion with Redknapp next on Sky Sports News.” Then the adverts kicked in. Damn it!

I’d had a drink, who wouldn’t when you’re team was bottom of the league and playing like Worksop Town. I rewound the pictures and watched it again. Yep, still said the same. I shot to the PC, went on the BBC football site. It was the top story, Breaking News. The I checked the Guardian, yep, same there. It was true. I ran to the bedroom and woke my better half up, she told me to stop winding her up. I insisted it was true, and probably to simply placate me, she got up and went downstairs with me to see for herself.

Chelsea fans don’t believe a lot, though living with a Spurs fan means you get used to false dawns on a seasonal basis. Sitting down, SSN burst in to life once more, BOOOOOOOOOM went the special effects, WHOOOOOOOOOOSH went the graphics and then it was confirmed by the presenters clearly excited that people would actually be watching for once late on a Saturday night. Redknapp was indeed the new manager of Spurs. I let out a hearty cheer! My other half wasn’t impressed at all, ” Oh no, I’ve always really liked Harry. What has he done that for!” Time for another drink I decided, my despair transformed in minutes to optimism! Ah the joy’s of football eh!

As managerial announcements go, for me, its quite possibly one of the oddest I’ve ever come across, late on a Saturday night, less than 24 hours before a team is due to play a match. I bet every newspaper editor was cursing Levy throughout the United Kingdom. Yet, in the 38 League games Redknapp has managed Spurs in now, his record reads Played 38, Won 19, Drawn 8 Lost 11.With this season’s excellent start, Redknapp has assured that for the first time in 4 seasons, Spurs are not playing catch up after a slow start. 16 points from 8 games is Tottenham’s best ever start to a Premiership season.

No Spurs fan thinks that we’ll win the League, or finish in the top 4, but after the year of hell that was the Ramos era, it’s a whole lot better. The oddity of Ramos’ tenure, Spurs won the League Cup, their first trophy in 9 seasons and a 5-1 victory against Arsenal, yet it will always be viewed as a dreadful year. Two shots of sunlight do not make a summer, but at least Harry’s got Spurs fans smiling again.

There is still plenty of work to do at Tottenham, the centre half issue needs resolving due the injuries King and Woodgate now have. The midfield have to learn to be able to play without Modric against big teams and not let Palacios do all the running, Keane needs to keep performing as he did against Burnley and Hull City. Defoe needs keep running and not get downhearted and the players outside the first 11 need to knuckle down and try and force themselves into Redknapps plans rather than whining to the media. Then maybe a top six place wouldn’t be out of the question, anything else would be a bonus.

*Spurs became the first team to be bottom of the First Division on Halloween in 1988 and not be relegated, actually finishing 6th as Gascoigne and Waddle combined to drag them up the table. The following season saw Spurs finish 3rd with Lineker joining the team as Waddle went to Marseille.

Darren Bent’s Rant Goes A-Twitter

Ethan Armstrong — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:57:00 +0000

When I first heard of Twitter, I thought it was a dirty verb, like: “Get Twittered!” or “Go Twitter yourself!” (And maybe there’s still potential for that.) Turns out it’s a social networking website. And it has undeniably become the Next Big Net Thing.

In addition to allowing friends to keep up with each other’s day-to-day goings-on, all kinds of organizations from restaurants to sporting clubs to Ashton Kutcher are learning to use its free marketing potential to promote themselves. EPL Talk’s own The Gaffer uses it to keep folks current with our site’s updates.

But alongside the benefits, there’s plenty of room for error as well. Controversy arose this week when Tottenham Hotspur’s Darren Bent used Twitter to vent his frustration over stalled transfer talks. He reportedly posted the following items on his Twitter account:

“Why can’t anything be simple? It’s so frustrating hanging around doing jack s**t. Seriously getting p***ed off now.”

“Do I want to go to Hull City, no. Do I want to go to Stoke, no.”

“Do I want to go to Sunderland, yes. So stop f*****g around, Levy.”

There was speculation it wasn’t really Bent’s account (I was hoping it would prove to be Steve Bruce’s), but today Bent owned up to his posts when he apologized on Tottenham’s official site:

“I appreciate that transfers are seldom straightforward and are often complex. However, after a long period of waiting following my withdrawal from the plane to China, I had become incredibly frustrated by the time these things take and I posted inappropriate comments on my Twitter site.

“I allowed my emotions to get in the way of my better judgement. I regret my actions and did not intend to offend Daniel Levy or anyone with the nature or the content of my posting.”

Bent’s retraction aside, does this mean Twitter will play a bigger role in our football media terrain? Will we see players and managers using Twitter to wind each other up? Complain about refereeing decisions? Flush out transfer speculation? Will we be reading articles every week about professional football Tweets?

The possibilities are endless…

A_Zaki: I was completely onside. Linesman was drunk. Time to sulk.

RafaBeni: Getting nervous. Bought Xabi case of Rioja in case he’s on fence.

Fergie99: TiVo’ed Rafa’s latest press conference. Hoping for rant pt 2.

BexInLA: Took Landon bowling to ease tension. Kicked his arse. Oops.

City_Hughes: Players in place. Time to shop for chemistry.

J_Barton: Anybody know a good lawyer?

In 1998, when I started going to the University of New Hampshire, AOL Instant Messenger was the big rage. We were bent over our computers all hours of the day, keeping up with old friends from home and getting to know new ones at school. I remember many the awkward moments and endless misunderstandings that come too easily with such brief, faceless, voiceless interaction. We learned some big lessons. Like: sarcasm is hard to convey over the internet. And: always talk about the big issues in person. Eventually, we succumbed to communicating using the away message function (the message one left when away from Instant Messanger: at the library… at the dining hall… surfing for porn…) in an attempt to avoid the real-time electronic faux pas. These “status updates” became the template for today’s Tweets.

Later, this desire for online social networking gave birth to sites like Friendster, MySpace and Facebook. Each one seemed to catch on for a while before getting knocked off the perch by the next. But Twitter seems to reach all the way back to Instant Messenger and amplify that concept to a mass scale.

Bent’s comments might have once been some quiet griping to personal friends. No story there. But today it gets broadcast the world over. Anyone who’s paying attention gets wind of his complaints. And it ends up on all the media sites as the controversy du jour.

As we demand more and more information in shorter and shorter bursts, it’s easy to get caught in the stream. The lesson those in the public arena need to learn—similar to what we students learned at University long ago—is despite the ease of transmission, you need to watch your words. Now more than ever. The world is potentially listening.

Oh, by the way… keep an eye my upcoming can’t-live-without-it social networking site: TweetMySpaceBookster.com™. It’s going to be huge. Coming soon to a laptop near you.

Tottenham Hotspur Face New Kit Backlash

Paul Bestall — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:20:52 +0000

The build up had been going on for weeks, with the first teasers of the new kit advertised on the hoardings surrounding the pitch during Spurs’ final home League game against Manchester City. “Glory Comes In Three Colours” read the tagline, and Spurs fans collectively shrugged at the thought of having another 3 kits for the fourth season in a row. Since the Puma deal started in the 2005-2006 season, Spurs have had 13 new outfield player kits and 8 goalkeeper kits, plus 2 Carling Cup Final limited editions.

Being a Spurs fan is not cheap, even in these heady times of the Premiership. Whilst theirs plenty of money floating around, it still isn’t driving down the cost of supporting Tottenham in particular. Yet, being a fan, you kind of get used to the expense over the years. You don’t fully accept it, but you can’t help supporting the team you love can you? When it’s an emotional attachment, all common sense goes out of the window.

Yet, I couldn’t help but feel really disappointed with the new kits, especially the home shirt in the leaked images that were floating around the internet. It just didn’t look right and I was hoping it would be the same as the awful mock up’s of the England kit that were flying about only to be disproved when the real thing was released. Some fans had certainly been vocal in their hostility to it, whilst others refused to believe the images were real.

So with a large fanfare, and microsite publicising the release of the new kits, Tottenham could relax in the knowledge that the fans would be fine with whatever they were served up. They were wrong though. Within minutes of the kits finally being revealed to the fans, text messages, facebook profiles and twitter accounts began to show the real feelings of the fans. In general, they hated the new home kit.

A petition was quickly set up, yidsagainstyellow and as of today, it’s reached almost 2,700 signatures. So I rang the club to ask them what they feel about this response. Suffice to say, they’ve ignored it and tried to sell the kit to me! I advised them that unless they’d give it away, I wasn’t interested but they still wanted £45.00 so I passed. Ah well.

I must admit I’m a little bit staggered by the response, if I’m honest. Whilst I hate it, due to the yellow stripes and dabs on it, I didn’t expect anyone else to dislike as much. In fact, I’m quite shocked just how many people do hate it but I think it shows just how much fan interaction has come on through the internet. From the formation of F.C. United, to the purchase of Ebbsfleet by members of myfootballclub.com to the Spirit of Shankly group, fans can now interact without having to meet face to face.

If anything, I really dislike the fact that football clubs decide on new kits without consulting the fans. Whether football clubs like it or not, it is an important barometer of the clubs status to see shirts being worn other than on a match day. If you have the audacity of Tottenham in regards to kit releases, 13 in 4 season of the Puma deal and an incredible 35 different home, away, third and limited edition shirts in 12 seasons, the club HAS to take the fans opinions in account. Why aren’t they asked what they like? After all, they’re the ones who will be wearing it!

Will the club listen? It does seem as if a ground swell of support is building, which includes boycotting all three of the kits unless the home strip is changed, though hopefully we’ll not see a repeat of the Athletico Madrid fans, who firebombed the club shop because Nike changed the stripes to halves. I suppose it’s all down to money, but it would be nice if Tottenham’s chairman, Daniel Levy, actually came out, admit they’ve got this very wrong and try and rectify it. Just change the yellow trim to blue and hey presto! Nice kit.

Pre-Order The New Tottenham Home Kit Today

Pre-order the new home Tottenham Hotspur shirt or kit today so you’ll be the first to get it. UK residents can order here through Kitbag, while US residents can order here, through Kitbag USA.

What Would You Do If You Were In Charge At Tottenham?

The Gaffer — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:48:07 +0000

Tottenham Hotspur’s downfall this season is befuddling.

On paper this summer, the team seemed stacked with a wealth of talent. But by the way the team has played so far this season, something is seriously lacking. It’s the desire to win.

Watching Spurs play, they look like a team of losers. Not by the results they achieve, but by the lack of passion and commitment they show.

The question has to be asked, could anyone do better than Juande Ramos? It’s puzzling why the team is playing so poorly with so much talent on the pitch. I’ve mentioned before on this blog that they’re missing a leader. But it’s much more than that. There seems to be something happening behind the scenes that is causing them to lose their edge, or they simply don’t understand or agree with Ramos’s tactics.

I’d like to pose the question to you: What would you do if you were in charge at Tottenham? Imagine yourself as owner Daniel Levy. Would you get rid of Juande Ramos? Why or why not? And what other changes would you make?

Share your feedback below. I’ve got some ideas of what I would change, but I’d like to give you guys the opportunity first.