I don’t want Sherwood anywhere near our club ever again. He’s a talentless blagger who just talks utter bollocks. Even his youth “stance” was more about furthering his own career (and damaging someone else’s) more than actually developing kids. Otherwise why treat Bentaleb like he did, why do what he did at Villa. If he cared so much, why not be arsed to get his coaching badges and actually help develop them?
You know how I feel about Pochettinho and how unimpressed I am with facets of his management (and not just his integration of youth - but that in particular) but having someone like Sherwood is even worse. Just creates a stink and if anything makes the head coach less likely to integrate, as we saw with AVB.
A much better system for me is to have a proper DOF above the “head coach” who dictates a stronger recruitment/integration policy and when you have a player like Onomah, KWP, Edwards you don’t allow the club to spend 80m plus wages on flawed players like Sissoko, Aurier and Moura until you’ve properly road tested (and by that I don’t mean started every week, I just mean fair and reasonable game time) the very talented kids you already have.
To balance that off, and be fair to that head coach, you then also have to be realistic about the criteria of his employment, and as long as his general ethos is still being adhered to and the brand of football still “good” (whatever that may mean) then you don’t go sacking him for finishing 5th, 6th or 7th etc occasionally.
What we are getting now (as
Wallander
says) is a “manager” who feels an obligation to pick players he’s requested the club to spend vast sums of money on, to justify his judgement and role as “de facto head of recruitment” to the detriment of the team. It’s not good for him, the team or ultimately the medium/long term of the club who instead of developing another valuable asset, are accruing ones that are depreciating rapidly.
If I had to describe Sherwood I could easily use phrases such as him being completely self-serving, a lying toe rag who is narcissistic and clearly politics like hell to get what he wants, which to be fair to him is often what the squad needed.
However I've worked with a lot of people some of whom I liked, others I didn't. Some clearly did good work to the benefit of the organisation and some did not. Unfortunately some people I liked personally were not good at their job whilst others were excellent. Of the people I didn't like, some were very goof at their jobs. Life's like that.
If you look at our last few managers from a youth point of view
Harry Redknapp
- Identified the youth group at about aged 18 with the likes of Mason coming through as the best Spurs had had for years
- Gave Andros Townsend a debut in domestic cup rewarded with MoTM and goal.
- Clearly identified EL as a competition difficult to win due to lots of matches, with many of the matches against beatable opposition, and decided it was tailor made to test out youth.
- Lots of EL debuts, sometimes 5 youngsters in a match. Debuts included Mason, Kane, Parrott and more invaluable minutes to likes of Townsend
- Sadly when we got CL, almost stopped playing youth rather than looking at League Cup to play youth.
- Did also loan out players to develop them, Rose being a good example
AVB
- Why play youth when you can buy the likes of Hulk for a fortune with even bigger wages. I jest but you know what I mean.
- Don't think he was very good at either developing players who had been bought and pretty much avoided playing youngsters where possible, stifling a group who had got to be 'first team ready' under HR
Ironically wasn't personally that good at buying players - several he clearly wanted who had played for him at Porto snubbed him.
Sherwood
- Promoted from a youth coaching background was always seen as likely to reverse the AVB trend, and play youth
- Brought in Bentaleb, a surprise even to youth watchers, at an early stage
- Tried playing Adebayor and Soldado to try to get them to score, recognised Soldado was never going to do that so brought in Kane for his PL starting debut who scored 3 goals in 6 or 7 starts.
- Gave Veljkovic 3 or 4 appearances off the bench.
- So in about 4 months brought in 3 players from youth into the first team
- Identified a 'cancerous' group of players who were not trying, not around in a TW to do anything about it
Pochettino
- Came in saying 'clean slate' to all existing players giving Adebayor and Kaboul in particular the possibility of becoming top players if they put in the effort.
- After a disappointing start the 'young turks' headed by Mason and Kane called out a number of senior players for not putting in the effort.
- Poch backed the youngsters and used Kane, Mason, Bentaleb and Townsend extensively, before selling 3 of them about a season later for circa £50m in aggregate.
- Poch has really only brought Winks through from youth to senior team in 3 or 4 seasons, and relied for much of the first team on players he inherited (Lloris, Vertonghen, Rose, Walker - until sold - Dembele, Eriksen, Kane, Lamela) rather than players he's bought in. So player acquisition into the first team has not been that great from whatever source. So whether Poch likes it or not a change to recruitment is required - if we don't change Poch will leave and the next manager will not have the benefit of good youngsters who previous managers developed for him. And that will be a big problem
So my comment is that Sherwood, whilst not likeable, has been very effective in bringing good youngsters through into the first team. Its never been a pre-requisite that all the youngsters brought through stay within the first team - some do not continue to develop and need to be sold. But that in itself is a success as we've generated multiple millions which can then be invested into bought players.
Problem with Poch is that some players who were good enough were not given a route to the first team and have walked - in effect for 'free', maybe a few hundred thousand. Best example being Milos Veljkovic who left but now plays regularly for Werder Bremen and was with Serbia WC squad - I'd guess worth £30m - £50m. Part of his discontent was Poch bringing in Wimmer which blocked his possibilities of playing as CB - and Wimmer of course was not a success, left for £16m and was not playing regularly at Stoke.
The lack of a path to the first team has already resulted in a number of youngsters turning down pro contracts to go elsewhere. So its not a time for urgent action as we now have a very talented youth group who if we don't develop will go elsewhere - and frankly if they stand no chance at Spurs they should leave ! KWP I think could leave this summer if he doesn't play much - he should have been playing more for the last 3 seasons, and this will be his fourth, but he's probably had more E u21 games than at Spurs.
So Spurs do need a shake up to get some of the best of the youth on a route to the first team.
A shake up isn't evolution, so its by its nature bound to be disruptive. So Sherwood, who with all his faults is good at selecting good youngsters to move forward is a candidate
At random, someone like Mark Warburton might be a candidate, but its got to be someone determined to fix the problem. And that as I say doesn't necessarily mean someone likeable
