By Tony Attwood
Today the Sun (a newspaper, of sorts) runs the headline that “Former Spurs star reveals the simple way Tottenham can beat Arsenal.”
The star in question is Sandro Raniere Guimarães Cordeiro, who came from Inter Milan for whom he played 43 games, then played 81 games for Tottenham across five years before heading south to QPR and served seven subsequent clubs finally registering with Harborough Town for 2004/5 during which time he played three matches. Obviously, a man of knowledge when it comes to football.
Although quite what he has been doing for the past ten years the media won’t tell me, but Wiki says that he has an interest in darts.
But clearly the Sun thinks he is a man whose opinion is worth something since they are quoting him extensively on the issue of how the Tottenhaqm team can beat Arsenal on Sunday.
But a player with such a history may lead anyone who thinks about such matters to reach the view that Henry Tomlinson, (who is described as a Freelance Sports Reporter), clearly knows something that no one else does, since the Sun runs his claims with very big headlines today and the notion that “the way to beat Mikel Arteta’s side” is to “fight” back. He then goes on to say (apparently exclusively!) via the home of an online casino, that the Tottenham defence will “fight.”
Now this might sound a bit like an inducement to break the rules of the game, and that thought is enhanced by the fact that Tomlinson goes on to say, “To fight is the only way – we have to go there and fight…. We have to fight and we have the players to do that and give it their all…. We have players that can fight. Pahlinha in the middle, van de Ven, Romero, Spence, they love to fight. We are not scared of Arsenal.”
So what is the knowledge and experience of this player who so loves fighting, yet whom I must admit I don’t recall very clearly? Well, it turns out that he played in seven games between Arsenal and the neighbours, by only finished on the winning side once. Which then suggests that maybe a) we should be encouraging Tottenham to take his advice and b) we have just discovered why he is not widely used as a pundit.
But it is, of course, rather nice of the Sun to touch on the fact that the man they give so much space to played for a club that has had real trouble in matches against Arsenal in the past five years. For of the previous ten Premier League games between the clubs, Arsenal have won eight, drawn one and lost one. And we might also like to note is that Arsenal in those games have scored 18 goals and Tottenham have scored 11, which is a fair difference.
Tottenham are having a bit of a rough ride of things at the moment, having won three of their last ten games in all competitions, with some results raising an eyebrow or two, such as draws with such powerhouses as Wolverhampton Wanderers and Bodo Glint.
The problem for them is that, including caretakers, Tottenham have had 21 managers in the 21st century, which I suspect is probably a record. (Do tell me if you find a club in the Premier League with more). This compares with Arsenal having had four.
And yes of course, one of those was Arsene Wenger, who stayed forever, but the fact is that if we just include managers who have managed Arsenal for over 10 games (which really is a modest number), three of Arsenal’s most successful managers in terms of win percentages have all been this century. Arsenal in fact, seems to have developed the knack of getting good managers.
Of course, I recall that Unai Emery was sacked this century, but his percentage win rate was over 55% – and as I have mentioned before, the big problem was his blowing most of the transfer budget on one player who turned out to be no good and eventually left on a free.
Tottenham have had managers this century who have delivered win rates of over 50% – for example, Antonio Conte (53.95%), Pochettino (54.27% and Villas Boas (55%) but somehow Tottenham never seem to be able to hold onto these managers, although I don’t know why.
True, they have never had a manager who has reached the level of Arteta – he is currently on a win percentage rate of 59.8% – better than Wenger (57.25%) and a long way better than Chapman (49.64%) or Graham (49.61%).
But that seems to be Tottenham’s problem – when they do find a manager who can deliver either a trophy or a good percentage win rate, they sack him!
Indeed Tottenham’s prime problem seems to be the inability a) to appoint managers who can deliver win rates above 50% and then, when byu chance they do, they can’t hold onto them.
It all seems rather curious to me.
