Spurs: Viva La Revolución

After an extremely bloody coup within the walls of White Hart Lane this week I am left feeling like a veritable cauldron of bubbling excitement. My natural optimism has even allowed me to gloss over another late collapse on Sunday, safe in the knowledge that it will be the last time this season we concede in injury time! I feel like the clouds have parted, the sun has come out and filled me with the belief that our season will not only be saved but that the Spurs cleaning team should immediately order a large vat of silver polish - I think we're gonna need it - huzzah!!!

Jol has gone and regular readers will know how happy that makes me! I won't bore you with the classic "nothing against him personally" and other Jol bashing caveats - the fact is we swapped an average to decent coach with no track record to speak of, for one of the hottest managers in world football right now. Simply put Ramos is better than Jol, and although the board royally screwed the latter, they must be commended for acquiring the services of the former.

Some people would have you believe that getting a new manager means another 2 years of "transition" - but why should it? We still have enough outstanding players at the club for the Spaniard to craft something exciting out of, we still have 3 cup competitions to battle for, not to mention the fact that 2 or 3 wins in the league will start to make the table look a whole lot rosier. It didn't take him too long to work his magic at Seville now did it? Before December breaks we have Blackpool in the League cup, Tel Aviv and Aalborg in the UEFA and Boro, Wigan and West Ham in the Prem - if Ramos is looking to make an immediate impact then he could not picked a better set of fixtures to start with!

The new man is already stamping his mark on the team with a double session on his first day. It appears that he shares Hoassam Ghaly's bewilderment at the lack of running done in training and, like the genius he may well be, has figured that lack of running + late goals conceded = poor fitness. Now if he could only give Kaboul a slap every time he crosses the halfway line we might start holding a lead to the final whistle...

I personally can't wait to see his take on our midfield. Will Malbranque get to play a more central role? Will Lennon be coached into finding an end product? Will we see Jenas regularly bursting through into attacking positions (for that is when he is at his best), or will Routledge finally get a chance to show us why we bothered upsetting Palace all those seasons ago?

Now Jol has gone Spurs will soon cease to be the plaything of the lazy Journo - but they're not quite done yet. Some have predictably predicted that Senor Ramos will be on the first plane back to Spain come January in order to convince half the Seville team to back their bags and move to London. What utter twaddle!!

At 30 years of age does Kanoute really fit the Tottenham buying policy - oh yes, and it would seem as though we already have 4 quality strikers. Will the Tottenham board really sanction £20m to buy Alves when we already have a more than capable right back in the form of Chimbonda and there are glaring holes elsewhere in the team? Granted Seville keeper Andres Palop could be a target, but correct me if I'm wrong - I thought that the power brokers at Seville were a tad upset with us right now, can you see them allowing their top players to leave straight after reluctantly losing their manager? I don't think so somehow, particularly if they are still in the Champions League.

If he really does have £40m to spend then he should do us all a favour and go and spend half on a left winger and the other half on a defensive midfielder. I rather suspect that this is exactly what he is going to do - well, at least I hope it is. It is true that world class players are rarely traded in January, so manage your expectations and wait for next summer.

Tottenham have at last ended a saga that went on far too long and, thank the heavens, have pulled a rabbit from the hat. Yes I would have been just as happy to see us take a punt on Klinnsman, but I am even happier that we avoided the likes of Redknapp, McClaren or other uninspiring dross like Hughes (or even Megson!). In what has been a genuine upgrade we have potentially recruited the best manager in our recent history and I am even feeling bouyant enough to predict 6 wins in a row!

Soon I may even start to remain confident when the clock turns 70 minutes, but I'm not rushing into that one...

Will Tottenham Ever Play Like Arsenal?

You are probably going to hate this article, but then the truth hurts. It hurts extra bad when every Monday morning - or in this weeks case Tuesday - you have to go into work and shoulder the humiliation of another pathetic Spurs performance. It hurts extra extra bad when every Monday morning - or in this case Monday and Wednesday - you have to go into work and face your gooner mates after yet another sublime performance from Wengers "kids".

Hate the Scum as I do, there comes a time in a man's life when, like the England Rugby team and Lewis Hamilton, you have to be magnanimous in defeat. As I watched them 7-0 up and showboating in the Champions League I realised that time had come. But before I over do it, let me pull this article back from the brink and evaluate for a moment a few of the glaring differences between woeful Spurs and an Arsenal team that on current form are quite possibly the best team in the world right now.

First and foremost I genuinely do not believe that player for player the 11 that turn out for Arsenal are significantly better footballers that Tottenham's first XI. Madness you may think - but I am convinced that the secret behind Arsenal's success is not down to them having accumulated a collection of future world footballers of the year, but is firmly rooted in their tactics, their discipline, their training and their vision.

The single greatest difference between Tottenham and Arsenal right now is the coaching. Tottenham often pump the ball long straight into the opposition, almost as if without looking and definitely without thinking. Arsenal players have been coached not only to run into areas where they have an abundance of space, but more importantly to seek out these players with an accurate pass when on the ball.

Tottenham are guilty all to often of passing themselves into a dead end - or even more frustrating, to point blank ignore any man in white brave enough to have dashed off into 15 or 20 yards of space. They insist on forcing the ball down crowded channels rather than spreading the play to less congested areas. Where are our raking, play switching, cross field passes that the top teams always seem to find when things get too tight? Where are our lightning fast counter attacks that see us 3 against 2? When are Spurs going to string together more that 5 or 6 passes in the opposition half before being crowded out of possession?

Make no bones about it, our players are good enough to do it. The problem is that they have nobody showing them how. I don't pretend that they are going to win us the title, but with a substantial and sustained improvement in coaching I do believe we have a squad that can challenge the top 4 and win the odd bit of silverware - and that will do for now.

Wenger has been brainwashing his current crop with his brand of total football for long before their moment of maturity against Slavia Prague last night. "Give Jol more time!" cry his backers, but do you honestly believe that if Jol were to get another 10 years in charge that we'd ever see performances like that? Not in a fricking eternity...

Of course Jol is not helping himself with his dubious team selections - 4 central midfielders on the pitch and Berbs and Lennon on the bench against the Barcodes (he was saving them for Blackpool perhaps?) but there is a growing feeling that the problem is rooted more in diabolical coaching than questionable team selection. Two recent remarks - one from Ghaly about the lack of running during training sessions, and another from Jol suggesting that they practice corners twice a week - only add weight to this theory. Twice a week!!!! Is it any wonder that we gifted them free headers at our near post at least 4 times on Monday. These are not new shortcomings, the writing has been on the wall for over a year now and Jol has flattered to deceive due to the occasional masterclass from the likes of our mardy Bulgarian.

The solution is simple. Jol and Houghton must go, and take with them Hans Segars who has single handedly coached the best keeper in the country into a fumbling wreck in the space of 2 years, the defensive coach is who is responsible for turning 2 established internationals and two regular U21 starlets into a defensive shambles rather than a defensive unit, the midfield coach who has left us with a system that neither links with our forwards or supports our defence, and every other member of the backroom staff who is incapable of understanding the concepts of modern top flight football.

Tottenham have turned more corners and had more transitional periods in the last 10 years than I care to think about and I don't want another one any more than you do, but that's no reason to stick with the wrong man. Martin Jol has delivered us 2 years of European football, and for that we should be grateful, but let's not forget the unprecedented amount of money that has been spent on the squad to achieve it.

The hallmark of Jol's reign has been luck - both good and bad. He was lucky Santini buggered off, he was unlucky not to get us into the Champions League, he was lucky to get us into a qualification spot last year and he has been both lucky and unlucky with last minute goals. What we need is consistency, not luck and for me that means that after weeks, nay months, of swinging one way and the other, my Jolometer has finally come to rest firmly in the OUT position.

I suggest a one way train ticket to Bolton would be best for everyone...

The Yid Army Delivers.

At 4-1 down at home against the Villa who was staring at a TV mumbling profanities and thinking "same old Tottenham"? Yes, I admit it - I was. The Jolometer had firmly swung into the Jol Out zone based entirely on the fact that he had picked Tainio, and the things I was saying about Robinson don't bear repeating. The poor bloke who Setanta alleged had seen enough and was shown leaving on 59 minutes must feel a right twat today - unless of course he only popped out for a piss that is, we never did find that out.

However, when Chimbonda fired home from Defoe's superb rebound the mood of the fans went from one extreme to the other. I don't know about you but I felt a real surge of optimism. I could sense it in all the other Spurs fans in my local boozer and I could hear it coming direct from The Lane every time we got the ball. It's a shameless cliche, but last night I truly believe that the 12th man was the direct cause of us rescuing a point.

At 4-2 and then again at 4-3 the volume and the encouragement seemed to be immense. That urgency clearly rubbed off on and inspired the players - and perhaps even the manager who at last made two substitutions that even at the time I could not find fault with.

And so finally Tottenham Hotspur, usually the recipient of the cruel last minute goal, actually became the inflicter of that special kind of misery and Kaboul - a young man on the road to legendary status - celebrated like we'd just won the Champions League. Along with the rest of us I strongly suspect.

Of course a few cracks have been painted over. Both Zokora and Lennon are sadly lacking in that essential commodity that Gareth Bale seems to have in abundance - "end product". Robbo sucks diesel, Jol's initial team selection proved woeful and our defensive coaches still seem to be practicing corners only twice a week.

But hey - let's stop all the whinging and the disunity for a moment and enjoy what was an absolutely cracking game of footie. Let's savour the drama, congratulate the 30,000 people that made the difference, and remind ourselves that it's nights like that when we're glad we don't support Chelsea.