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Successive losses to Middlesbrough and Sunderland are never going to satisfy
an expectant board after shelling out the thick end of £50m on
reinforcements, and when Juande Ramos shrugs and says: “The time to judge me
is at the end of the season,” he is surely forgetting something. Namely, it
was in October, not in May, that Tottenham Hotspur sacked his predecessor,
Martin Jol.
Early days these may be, but all is not sweetness and light at White Hart
Lane, and not just because the dark, brooding presence of Dimitar Berbatov
has poisoned the atmosphere in the dressing room. Since winning the Carling
Cup in February, Spurs have won just three of 14 Premier League games – a
clear case of taking one step forward, two steps back.
This was supposed to be their breakthrough season, when they would finally
attain the Holy Grail that is a Champions League place. Jol had gone close
but fell tantalis-ingly short. Ramos was quickly identified as the man to
take the club on to that cliche that is beloved of sportsmen everywhere,
“the next level”.
Their Wembley triumph over Chelsea was regarded as the stepping stone to
greater glory, and a summer of hectic activity in the transfer market
fuelled the supporters’ optimism – up until July 28. That was the day the
fans’ favourite, Robbie Keane, was sold to Liverpool in a highly unpopular
deal that saw Tottenham lose a key player to one of their main rivals for a
top-four finish.
Jermain Defoe had gone six months earlier and Berbatov was agitating for a
move to Manchester United and “not in the right frame of mind” to play,
which left Ramos reliant for goals on Darren Bent, who was deemed not good
enough last season.
The cossack cavalry is coming in the foursquare shape of Spartak Moscow’s
Roman Pavlyuchenko, but will he be enough? And why so late? Spurs should
have completed recruitment in time to bed down their new-look team in
preseason friendlies, not still be scrambling to do it with no points on the
board after two depressing results. It is a fact of which Ramos, who has no
control over such things, is uncomfortably aware.
“It would have been better if it had all been a lot calmer,” he said. “The
ideal situation is to get all your squad in place early, but unfortunately
we have not been able to do that.”
Spurs favour the continental structure, whereby a sporting director, in their
case, Damien Comolli, does the buying and selling and the manager makes the
best of the personnel he is given. It is a system that Jol blamed for his
demise but one about which Ramos has no complaints. “Every club works in its
own particular fashion, and Damien has been doing his best to bring players
in as soon as possible,” he said. “I have an excellent relationship with him
and speak to him daily. It was the same story at Seville. Everyone has been
working with the right intentions, but sometimes negotiations become
complicated, and with Berbatov it has dragged on and on, which has made
things difficult.”
On the vexed subject of the bolshie Bulgar, for whom the board has been
holding out for £30m, Ramos added: “Without doubt, he has had an awful lot
to do with our start to the season. The other players are doing their best
to concentrate 100%, but their work has been affected by it. The sooner it
is sorted out, the better. It has had an unsettling effect on the club.”
The chairman, Daniel Levy, had been tempted to let Berbatov “rot in the
reserves”; Ramos hadn’t. “That is a theory that has no substance or sense,”
he said. “If he was to stay – and I have said all along that I would really
be pleased if he did – then he would be in the first team. That’s where your
best players belong.”
This afternoon’s clash with Chelsea inevitably evokes memories of Spurs’
Wembley success last season, after which the two teams played out an
edge-of-the-seat 4-4 draw at the Lane. In the Premier League, however,
Tottenham finished 39 points behind, and the arrival of Luiz Felipe Scolari
at Stamford Bridge added to the sense of imbalance.
“You are talking about two entirely different clubs,” Ramos said. “Chelsea are
built to be champions, or at least contenders, in every competition they
enter. They have the ability to sign the top-echelon stars from anywhere
around the world – the cream of the crop. They are set up to try to win
every trophy. We are in a different league in that respect and it’s a case
of two clubs going in slightly different directions.”
Can that divergent path be narrowed? “That’s our big hope and our desire,”
said Ramos.
“That’s what we’re working hard to do, and we are capable of doing it, little
by little, day by day.”
Nitty-gritty time. Since the turn of the year, Ramos has bought players to the
value of about £65m. Is his squad any stronger for the addition of David
Bentley, Jonathan Woodgate, Luka Modric, Heurelho Gomes et al, bearing in
mind the departures of Defoe, Keane, Mido, Paul Robinson, Pascal Chimbonda
and so on?
“Yes,” he answered emphatically. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.
We’re in better shape, but obviously now we’ve got to show that on the
field. At the end of the season you can evaluate whether my claim is true.”
He is unworried, or at least professes to be sanguine, about that run of three
wins in the past 14 league matches. “We can’t be talking about what happened
at the end of last season, as we’re right at the beginning of a fresh, new
one," he said.
Tottenham have not won an away Premier League match against one of the top
four – Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Man Utd – in 59 games. The last time
was at Liverpool in August 1993 beginning of a fresh, new one,” he said. “
There are explanations for the drop-off in form. We had won the Carling Cup,
so the objective of getting into Europe had already been achieved, and we
were lying 10th or 11th in the table, knowing that we could not go up far or
go down far. I think that helps to explain it.”
Nevertheless, defeat to Chelsea this afternoon could leave Spurs struggling at
the bottom of the league, which would leave their manager under the sort of
pressure that accounted for Jol.
“After so many years in football, I know all about winning and losing,” said
Ramos. “I also know the main thing to do is to concentrate on working hard
and doing my job.
“The season is very long, and the time to sum things up and make judgments is
at the end. Losing now doesn’t necessarily mean you are doing something
wrong.”
Apart from defending, Juande, but then that has never really been Tottenham’s
forte.
Chelsea v Tottenham: battle of the big spenders
CHELSEA
Summer signings Jose Bosingwa (Porto, £16.2m), Deco (Barcelona, £8m) Pending
Robinho (Real Madrid, £29m)
TOTTENHAM
Summer signings David Bentley (Blackburn, £15m), Luka Modric (Dynamo
Zagreb, £15.8m), Heurelho Gomes (PSV Eindhoven, £7.8m), Giovani dos Santos
(Barcelona, initial £4.7m), John Bostock (C Palace, initial £700,000),
Paul-Jose Mpoku (Standard Liege, undisclosed) Pending Roman
Pavlyuchenko, right (Spartak Moscow, £16m), Andrei Arshavin (Zenit St
Petersburg, £22m)
HEAD TO HEAD
Last five meetings Mar 19 2008: Tottenham 4 Chelsea 4 Prem Feb 24 2008:
Tottenham 2 Chelsea 1 Carling Cup final Jan 12 2008: Chelsea 2 Tottenham 0
Prem Apr 7 2007: Chelsea 1 Tottenham 0 Prem Mar 19 2007: Tottenham 1 Chelsea
2 FA Cup
Chelsea 4:1 Spurs are going back to be Three Point Lane again. They want to sell Berbatov for an obscene amount and buy Arshvin for peanuts. Fair enough, but that not how the real world works. Pavlyuchenko is a decent striker but no way a replacement for Keane and Berbatov as Arshavin would've been
Alex, London, UK
Matter of time, need patience BUT also another Leader in Central Defence and a real quality defensive midfielder required.
1 - 0 to Spurs today...
Colesy, Pontypridd, Wales
2- 1 Spurs trust me
Salsa, Santiago, Chile