LEVY'S CONSTANT COCK-UPS
Spurs chief changes his mind from Juande to the next
AS Sol Campbell knows, Spurs fans love a good insult. It's their speciality.
Well, here's one that is neither racist nor homophobic but could not be more cutting or more hurtful.
You are worse than Newcastle. Official.
Let's see if the morons can make up a clever little ditty about that one.
The behaviour of their fans down at Fratton Park was all Tottenham needed in the wake of their laughable transfer dealings and their pitiful start to the season.
And now they are vigorously having to deny claims that Mark Hughes was being lined up as a successor to Juande Ramos.
Which got me reminiscing a bit.
So it was off to YouTube and an interview posted with Daniel Levy at the end of August 2007 - a couple of days after Spurs officials were caught nibbling tapas and Juande's ear in a Spanish restaurant while Martin Jol was still manager.
"At no point has anyone been offered Martin's job."
Dizzying
Fine. I remember discounting Ramos' claim at the same time that he had been made a 'dizzying offer'.
"Martin has my 100 per cent support."
Two months later and the big Dutchman was down the road.
"Martin and I feel we have a squad capable of challenging for a top four position."
Levy felt it so much, he has allowed that squad to be decimated.
So forgive me if I don't embrace a Tottenham denial like an old friend.
Terry Venables surprised a few people this week when he spoke almost lovingly of Levy.
(Come on, only the really cynical might see a hidden agenda there.)
Mess
But Levy is the man who must take ultimate responsibility for the mess at White Hart Lane.
Whenever he took it, Levy's decision to replace Jol with Ramos has been catastrophic. Over in Germany, to no one's surprise, Jol is making hundreds of thousands of Hamburgers very happy.
Ramos' main contribution to Spurs has been to ban hamburgers.
Levy thought he was getting a coaching doyen - instead he got a dietician.
The Carling Cup? Four games won. Blackpool, Manchester City, Arsenal reserves and a Chelsea side that never turned up.
Ramos has a dismal 25 per cent win record. But at least the players are skinny.
Ah, but it's Damien Comolli's fault.
Well, firstly, Comolli was a Levy appointment and, secondly, if Ramos was stupid enough to allow the buying and selling of players to rest solely in the hands of a law graduate, then he was not the man for the job in the first place.
And Comolli can hardly be held responsible for the bizarre tactics and team selections that have characterised Tottenham's lamentable start to the season.
Venables also said that the club's dreams had been undermined by the defection of Dimitar Berbatov.
Chicken
But every man and his cockerel in North London knew that Berbatov wanted out almost a year before he finally headed to Old Trafford.
And yet Levy still took the money for Jermain Defoe and Robbie Keane while playing a pointless game of chicken with United that undermined virtually every transfer pursuit of their own this summer.
Ramos - like English food - has found the Premier League doesn't suit his taste and Comolli's credibility has long since vanished.
But the buck stops with one man . . . the man who was 100 per cent behind his coach a year ago and is 100 per cent behind his coach today.
That they are two different coaches tells you all you need to know.
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MIND YOUR LANGUAGE, JOE
JOE KINNEAR suggested on Thursday that one of the problems in the Newcastle dressing room might be the number of languages spoken.
Without a hint of irony, I assume.
As far as Joe is concerned, there is clearly only one language people understand - a language that family newspapers such as this one have to represent with a blizzard of asterisks.
His, er, frank exchange of views with colleagues of mine up in the North-East was entertaining stuff.
If he has a problem with individuals then he was well within his rights to confront them. But Kinnear is missing the point. It's not the person himself who is being ridiculed... it's his appointment.
It's the fact that Mike Ashley, too scared to go to St James' Park, has parachuted in a bloke who has not managed in the top flight for the best part of 10 years.
It's not about you Joe. Most of these journalists are not old enough to know if you are a good, bad or indifferent manager.
It's about the fact that your presence there - and your spectacular foul-mouthed introduction to the media - just about puts the finishing touch to a farce unrivalled in Premier League history.
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GERRARD IS KOP BEDROCK
A RECENT radio show was previewing the Merseyside derby and much of the chat centred on the respective struggles of Everton and Liverpool to find new homes.
Those struggles will go on.
But a few days later, Steven Gerrard scored his 100th goal for the Kop and that should serve as a reminder to all that great football clubs are not built with bricks and mortar - but with great players.
Great players who become monuments to the club. Such as Bobby Moore to West Ham, such as Jackie Milburn to Newcastle, such as - in their more understated ways - Gary Neville and Paul Scholes to Manchester United.
In the days when contracts are pointless, teams are hawked around the world's markets and naked greed dominates, this player is becoming an endangered species.
Liverpool are privileged to have one in Gerrard.
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WHY MOYES SHOULD SIGN NOW
ONE of the headlines that greeted Everton's removal from the UEFA Cup suggested that David Moyes will not walk away from Goodison Park.
Too right he won't. Walk away to where exactly?
By his own admission, the delay in signing a new contract at Goodison has had an all-round unsettling effect.
And Moyes must also take his share of the blame for a summer's transfer business that was hardly a roaring success.
Throw in a fairly abject display in the Merseyside derby against Liverpool - not so much in effort but in ambition - and Moyes would be best served by taking the pen out of his inside pocket pretty damn quickly.
Any further prevarication and the Everton fans might just forget that Moyes still remains the best man to lead the club into the future.
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STU MUST BE JOKING, PEARCE
STUART PEARCE seems to have gone from being a token English voice on the FA coaching staff to something of a big noise.
And should the Under- 21s scrape through to the European Championship finals next summer, he wants to use Theo Walcott. I trust Fabio Capello - in English, Italian or even Joe Kinnear-speak - will tell him what he can do with such a nonsensical plan.
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