Where Did It Go Wrong For Tottenham?

A season with so much promise, and no bite. After a summer of when will he leave we finally sold Gareth Bale for a record fee we left a transfer kitty in the hands of a well respected Director of football. We all thought we had finally signed a star striker in Soldado, who at the time was poised to sign for Liverpool. In Paulinho we bought a Brazilian that scored goals from midfield something we had lacked. Chadli on video evidence was a squad player that could score from set piece’s and Lamella was an unknown quantity that cost a record fee. The last piece of the jigsaw was Eriksen, again a player scouted by Liverpool and looked on course to sign for them until we stepped in.

A staggered start which included a 1-0 loss to Arsenal and a draw against Chelsea had Spurs looking good in the league. However fans were not convinced that AVB was getting it right tactically. The players were not clicking how he had hoped and then came the first in the Trilogy of derby games against West Ham. AVB got this wrong the team looked tired disorganized and I think this was the day that AVB started to lose even the most faithful fans. What followed in the next two months were two of the worst defeats I think many of us have seen in a long time. A six goal defeat at the hands of eventual champions and a five goal defeat to the runner ups. On the 16th December AVB was given the chop Villas-Boas left the club with the highest percentage of league wins of any manager in the club’s Premier League era.

Up stepped Tim Sherwood, a champion as a player and a well respected man at the club. Was he answer? In my opinion no, but he was a temporary solution. He installed a bit of fight back in the side, resurrected players AVB had sidelined and changed the formation. Constantly dogged by different names apparently taking his job at the end of the season it must have affected Sherwood, yet today at the end of the season Sherwood manged to deliver a sixth place finish and the Europa League.

So what next…………

For me we need to sensible how we move forward, we need to be realistic we are not going to get a manager from a top club. The only candidates we are going to be able to look at are unemployed and managers at clubs lesser than our own. I do think we need to look at De Boer, because its not just the manager its the whole philosophy of football. He was brought up on a style of football, a style that as Spurs fans we want at the lane. However this philosophy will be employed at the lowest levels at Spurs. This means we need to enter a new project, it might not have immediate results, but we as fans would need to have patience. I look at Liverpool and I was one of the people that thought Rodgers was a bad manager that had got lucky. I was wrong. It wont be easy next season but lets hope Levy looks at the bigger picture, not just the manager but the experience that comes with De Boer.