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Chaos at Spurs

Sunday, 26th August 2007

There's an excellent piece today by Kevin Mitchell on the incompetence of the owners of Spurs. It's an object lesson in how to ruin a potentially wonderful revival and undermine talent. The handling of Michael Carrick is, I learn from the piece, mind bogglingly stupid:

It was Commoli who told Levy that the club could dispense with Carrick because he believed Zokora was a better player. Carrick was happy at Spurs in April 2006, when he went to talk to Levy about a new contract, with two years left on his existing one and his World Cup inclusion imminent. He had been Tottenham's best player and was central to Jol's plans.

How negotiations unfolded, then collapsed, provides a fascinating insight into the running of the club. Carrick was on £25,000 a week and started talks by asking for £40,000, expecting to negotiate. He was laughed out of the room and told to re-sign on Spurs' terms, or be sold.

Carrick, who wanted to stay, felt unwanted. He then discovered Sir Alex Ferguson was interested in him. At that season's Premier League annual meeting, David Gill of Manchester United put in a £10million bid and Levy dismissed it. The club denied at the time there had been an approach and have always insisted that Carrick was sold because he wanted to leave. He did, in the end - but only because he was so disenchanted at the way he had been treated. Before he went, Levy made a lame and late increased offer of £50,000 a week. It was a prize piece of botched dealing.

Meanwhile, Levy had negotiated a new contract with Jol, who was unaware of the Carrick situation. The manager was livid when he found out he had committed himself to the club and simultaneously lost his main midfielder to such a formidable rival. When he was lumbered with Commoli's choice of replacement, Zokora, he was even less impressed.

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simonh

August 26th, 2007 11:49am

Spurs' attitude to Jol is truly extraordinary. He's taken a mediocre, underperforming club to two fifth places - a considerable achievment in the current league - and now they are trying to undermine him because, apparently, 'they don't believe he's got what it takes to get them to fourth'. So what happens if you get, say, Ramos in? All Jol's work is thrown away as the new manager builds his own team at great expense. So a season of rebuilding, a season of consolidation and then, in 2010 or so, maybe, if you're lucky, Spurs are ready to start challenging for, let's say, ....fifth place?