The Lesser of Two Evils

As Spurs fans, we’re used to being happy when a manager leaves – invariably because they’ve made a mess of it. We find reassurance in the change, comfort in the instability, pleasure in the knowledge that whatever’s gone wrong has now been stricken from the record books because the culprit’s been removed. A bit like Real Madrid, but without the success.

Poor appointment has followed poor appointment, failure has followed failure. Even the good appointments have gone wrong – Venables moving upstairs, Hoddle losing the players, Jol harshly punished for a poor start – as if failure were written into the club’s DNA with a permanent marker. It was a job that no one seemed to be able to crack. But with Harry, the feeling’s a bit different. Lest we forget (and it has been a while since he reminded us) that we were in dire straits when he took the job. We were a mess, a laughing stock, a ship that lost its best sailors and then started to sink, with the Spanish captain deploying his deckhands in a variety of daft positions to try and keep us afloat.

So maybe Harry’s not the only Spurs manager to have inherited a decent group of players. Maybe he’s not the only Spurs manager to have added to that group of players at great expense. Whether or not you believe a monkey could have got us into the top four with a squad like ours, the fact is that Harry managed it where others failed. Other managers have had a good squad of players but failed to extract the best from them on a regular basis, or never managed to address the weaknesses that prevented us fulfilling our potential. Gerry Francis having Klinsmann and Sheringham up front but Austin and Nethercott in defence springs to mind.

But even then, even after Harry dragged us from dogfight to dreamland, even after the wondrous football of last season, it comes as something of a relief that he’s gone. Not because he failed – granted, we should have ended up better than the 4th place we did achieve – but not because he failed. It comes us a relief because his departure might just have saved us from even more instability. The lesser of two evils.

With the team’s fortunes plummeting as the England job speculation reached a crescendo of ‘cry God for Harry, England and Saint George,’ something had to happen. He had to go one way or the other, whether it was to England or not. We were resigned to losing him and he did nothing to quell those fears. Not only wouldn’t he distance himself from the job, but he even said he’d have taken it had it been offered. He claimed it wasn’t the speculation that affected the team. But he also said speculation would affect the team if we didn’t secure his future quickly – a future that he wasn’t exactly quick to commit to us when the England job was available.

Levy couldn’t risk another capitulation, couldn’t risk offering more than a short-term contract to a man who’s now 65, couldn’t risk the team being destabilised once again by a manager who’s always done what’s suited him. In the end, he had to do what suited us. It was either that or another cruel summer of rumours and speculation, of the squad being uncertain of our future, of possible new signings being hesitant about joining, of Levy being reluctant to release further funds to someone who might just do a runner when something better comes along. At the end of the day, Harry did a good job and we’re all grateful for that. It’s just a shame that the job he did had to be a secondary consideration.