Martin Jol

The purpose of this blog is to review games I have been to this season and try to give a balanced view of them (though this aim sometimes gets obscured in the heat of the moment). I will break this, however, to talk about Martin Jol's exit from Spurs.

Never has a managers' departure (or sacking) smacked of such ungratefulness. Spurs supporters I know are torn between support for Jol and despair at their league position, but the fickleness of even this fenced view is massively unreasonable. For those of you with short memories Spurs were hardly uprooting saplings when Jol took over. A couple of league cup runs had not satisfied their support who were used to better (why does that sound so familiar?) but unlike us they hadn't made any headlines in the league for about fifteen years. The discontented support probably hadn't recovered from the shock of losing their captain, youth product and all-round hero to their fiercest rivals. But this defection from Sol Campbell was an illustration and bi-product of their total mediocrity.

After three games of this season, though, Martin Jol suddenly wasn't good enough for those North London behemoths of world football. After the Everton home reverse I listened to fan after spoiled fan spit their disillusioned views down the phoned at Alan Green and laughed at the suggestion of sacking Jol. But not enough of their fans laughed with me and suddenly the band-wagon developed some momentum. And then Daniel Levy started to show his conniving side.

After this sorry episode the definition of 'levying' should be changed to mean 'back-stabbing your most honourable ally in a vain, fantastical attempt at some ill-concieved ambition'. To court other managers as he blatantly and unapologetically did backed his manager into an impossible position. All it needed was for Levy to publicly ridicule the sentiment that Jol should go and try to unite everyone behind him again. Instead he put him on trial and the prosecuting evidence understandably mounted.

Spurs' results have undoubtedly been poor but I think the unnecessary pressure put on the squad and management have been the key factor in this. For a temperamental team with an embryonic defence playing every week with the knowledge your managers job rests on every kick was clearly a damaging factor. I think most of the football world and most supporters of the game sympathise with the Dutchman, but now Levy and those impatient fans deserve a bumpy return to earth.

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