8 men offered the managerial job including a character from Hello Hello

By Bulldog Drummond

What do the following all have in common?

• Gennaro Gattuso
• Paulo Fonseca
• Antonio Conte
• Hansi Flick*
• Mauricio Pochettino
• Erik ten Hag,
• Brendan Rodgers
• Julian Nagelsmann
• Tony Attwood

Answer: none of them want to manage Tottenham Hotspur.

Now it is true that the last name on the list hasn’t actually been invited to manage the Tiny Totts, but the feeling in the Untold offices is that it can’t be long before he has the pleasure of turning honourable club down.  (It also appears that at one stage they offered the job of Tiny Tott in Chief to a character from Hello Hello*, which seems odd, but I am sure they know what they are doing).

So that is 14 appointments who have manifested themselves in the 21st century.  Some of them of course have turned up at the same time not quite sure which one of them had the job and which was visiting for a day or two, and some of them have cheated and done the job twice.

The man in charge (not literally)	From	To
Ryan Mason	19 Apr, 2021	Present
Jose Mourinho	20 Nov, 2019	19 Apr, 2021
Mauricio Pochettino	27 May, 2014	19 Nov, 2019
Tim Sherwood	16 Dec, 2013	13 May, 2014
Andre Villas-Boas	03 Jul, 2012	16 Dec, 2013
Harry Redknapp	25 Oct, 2008	15 Jun, 2012
Juande Ramos	29 Oct, 2007	25 Oct, 2008
Clive Allen	26 Oct, 2007	29 Oct, 2007
Martin Jol	05 Nov, 2004	26 Oct, 2007
Jacques Santini	03 Jun, 2004	05 Nov, 2004
David Pleat	21 Sep, 2003	03 Jun, 2004
Glenn Hoddle	02 Apr, 2001	21 Sep, 2003
David Pleat	16 Mar, 2001	02 Apr, 2001
George Graham	01 Oct, 1998	16 Mar, 2001

Arsenal have not had quite so many

The man in charge (literally)	From	To
Mikel Arteta	23 Dec, 2019	Present
Fredrik Ljungberg	29 Nov, 2019	23 Dec, 2019
Unai Emery	23 May, 2018	29 Nov, 2019
Arsene Wenger	30 Sep, 1996	14 May, 2018

Now it is interesting to note how many prizes and pots each club has won during this century.  And because we like to be fair and reasonable we will take what Tottenham call their

Major Honours

(who possibly served alongside Herr Flick).   And if you feel I am editing or otherwise messing around you can check on this page   But seriously they do have a “major honours” section and it includes the Charity Shield.

So in the 21st century and under the heading “Major Honours” we have for Les Tots très petit

• Football League Champions:
• The FA Cup Winners:
• Football League Cup Winners: 2007/2008
• UEFA Cup Winners:
• Football League Division Two Champions:
• FA Charity Shield Winners:

And so again to avoid any accusation of bias we will take the same list of possible trophies and see what Arsenal did…

• Football League Champions: 2001/2002, 2003/2004
• The FA Cup Winners: , 2001/02, 2002/03, 2004/05, 2013/14, 2014/15, 2016/17, 2019/20
• Football League Cup Winners:
• UEFA Cup Winners:
• Football League Division Two Champions:
• FA Charity Shield Winners:  2002, 2004, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2020

So looking at this I see one trophy for Tottenham, and 15 for Arsenal.  Now I don’t normally count the FA Charity Shield (or Community Shield as it has been called for about the last 200 years) but Tottenham included that so six of those are included of us.

But now looking at this it seems there is a link.   Tottenham have had 14 managers and 1 trophy this century while Arsenal have had four managers and 15 trophies.

Which makes me think, why don’t Tottenham try the Arsenal method of not having lots of managers but instead have lots of trophies?  It seems to work for us.  Still I am sure they know what they are doing.

Sacking a manager mid-season is always a dodgy thing to do, because it means you are going to thrust someone into the job who may not be ready for the job.  That certainly happened with Freddie, and as a result we have lost him from the club, while I thought he was doing a really good job with the under 23s before the wretched “who wants to run the club?” thing started.

But I think there was something very fish-like going on at Tottenham last season, and it could well be that all these obviously highly qualified managers who pop along to the club looking for work, have discovered it too, and then decided they didn’t want to work there.

And that fishy thing is this.

Tottenham and Arsenal both cut their yellow card rates dramatically last season – Arsenal’s went down by 45% and Tottenham’s by 35%.

Now Arsenal did it by cutting their tackle rate down by 22% and the foul rate down by 18%.

But Tottenham hardly changed their tackle rate – it went down by just 4%.  And their foul rate actually went up by 4%!

So they increased their fouls, and yet the got 29 fewer yellow cards.  How did they do that?  And what does it have to do with the number of managers who turn up, have a big row with Mr Levy and then leave?

Of course I am not suggesting anything untoward went on last season.  Not at  all. Tottenham fouled more but got fewer yellow cards.  Nothing suspicious there.  Nothing to see.  Move on.

I’d just like to know how they did it.

Team	Tackles 2019/20	Tackles 2020/21	Change	Fouls 2019/20	Fouls 2020/21	Change	Yellow 2019/20	Yellow 2020/21	Change
Arsenal	584	456	-22%	421	345	-18%	86	47	-45%
TottHot	665	636	-4%	423	439	+4%	82	53	-35%

As indeed, I suspect, did

• Gennaro Gattuso,
• Paulo Fonseca
• Antonio Conte
• Hansi Flick*
• Mauricio Pochettino
• Erik ten Hag,
• Brendan Rodgers
• Julian Nagelsmann

Of course it wasn’t when they found out that they decided they didn’t want the job.  That would be ludicrous.

The proof that something is seriously wrong with football refereeing and reporting

• Results from crowdless games are different from those with crowds. Why?
• How even a serious science magazine has used fake data on football
• Someone is trying to fake football stats – and doing it rather well,
• Crowdless stadia stats reveal fallacy of PGMO claims
• Proving unconscious bias by referees
• How clubs manipulate referees through their tactics
• Referees are not 98% accurate but only 75% accurate