Duncan Castles is a man in a hurry to publish our manager’s death certificate. The only problem being, is that the patient is up and about and looking remarkably well.
Neil Ashton concocted a piece on the imminent arrival of Luis Enrique to The Lane, on the 27th of November. It took 3 days for Luis Enrique to denounce the suggestion as fiction.
The same period of time it took Castles publish a blog on the back of the Ashton piece Castles poured cold water on the Enrique link – the AS Roma Celta Vigo boss is hardly puling up trees – but chose to close the piece with the line…
Might as well bring back good old Harry Redknapp. Every Tottenham player loved him, you know…
Then on the 2rd of this month, Castles wrote a piece for ONE World Sports revealing that it was Hoddle, not Enrique, who was the man that was being lined up:
According to sources, Villas-Boas is aware that Tottenham’s hierarchy has been discussing his succession but remains “extremely calm” about his position. The relationship between Levy and the Portuguese coach is said to have been difficult from his appointment in the summer of 2012.
Proposing Hoddle is, in itself a interesting one. It was, some of you might recall, Hoddle who was first out the traps when AVB was appointed. He told ESPN, on the day of the announcement:
I did not think that is the way Spurs would go. It’s more than a slight risk because of the way things didn’t work out at Chelsea. I thought it might have been better for him to go and reinvent himself elsewhere before he had another crack at English football.’
Back to Castles and clearly, the back to back wins at Fulham and Sunderland weren’t deemed sufficient obstacles to the piece getting recycled. This time, on Goal, but with added “facts.”
…he would already have been sacked by Levy had his contract not included a prohibitive penalty clause.
Here Castles assumes that either the board are stupid or that his readers are. My guess is that neither are. There isn’t a top flight manager in the world who doesn’t have a contingency for dismissal in his contract.
As if to substantiate the dilemma, we are then told that:
… the scale of the pay-off, which commits Tottenham to ensuring that Villas-Boas earns an annual salary of at least €3 million (£2.5m) net until the summer of 2014, will have reduced by the end of the season.
Er… if AVB signed a 3 year deal in July of 2012, doesn’t that mean he could walk, at no expense to anyone in July 2014, anyhow? And if he’s being kept on until the end of the season – because it’s prohibitively expensive to fire and compensate him… oh I’m confused.
Ah, but wait. The flaw in Castle’s hokum has an inbuilt solution! The plan is, that André will simply resign. Eh? Castles wants you to know that the truth is actually less obvious. Less obvious, but more sinister.
…long-standing discord between Villas-Boas and Levy was exacerbated by disagreement over the reinvestment of Gareth Bale’s record €100m (£83.8m) transfer fee. Integrating new players into the team has proved problematic.
It’s funny, but before the City debacle, there was no mention of any discord, long standing or otherwise.
It is also thought that Levy would have been happy for Villas-Boas take up a lucrative offer to coach Paris Saint-Germain last summer, with Tottenham entitled to £12m compensation from the French champions.
This is another queer one, as this would have surely been about the time that everyone was pictured Hi-5ing in the Bahamas. So let’s recap.
THFC wanted rid of AVB before they spent £1oom.
THFC definitely wanted rid of AVB after they spent the £100m.
And now the club is 3 points off a Champions League spot and (until we play the Arse anyway) still in 3 competitions, they really truly madly deeply want to get rid of AVB.
The excellent MyFootballFacts.com has an up to date THFC managerial win percentage table. It may be worth 3 or 4 seconds of your invaluable time.
Far be it from me to suggest that there is an agenda against André, but today’s Daily Mail is running with a picture of this week’s Man Utd boss, gleefully holding up a Man Utd shirt, accompanying an article with 10 suggested transfer targets to to rescue “under fire” Moyes.
Manchester United, custodians of a dynasty of achievement, are currently 9th in the table, displaying no obvious signs that they deserve to be much higher.
According to the BBC commentary of the Newcastle game, nobody could remember the last time Man Utd fans were streaming out of Old Trafford before the final whistle.
But let us not worry ourselves about them. We must focus on how we get rid of this indolent rogue and his Mickey Mouse win ratio.
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