Daniel Levy: I blame Berbatov

3 November 08 by Bill

Tottenham made their worst ever Premier League start this season and find themselves in 18th place having taken just 9 points from 11 games. Had it not been for a recent Harry Redknapp revival who knows how bad the rot may have set in? Just three games ago, Spurs were rock bottom of the table with a pathetic 2 points from their opening 8 games and were drifting further and further from safety.

Since Daniel Levy dispensed of manager Juande Ramos, we could easily assume he lays the blame squarely at the Spaniards door right? Wrong. Levy blames the recently departed Dimitar Berbatov for unsettling the dressing room and undermining Ramos, which effectively lost him his job. Levy said:

‘I don’t think Berbatov treated this club with the respect that we honestly deserved. We put him on the map. I think he’s an outstanding player, but he signed a long-term contract with this club and I think he should have stayed. I had so many conversations with him. He kept saying it was about his ambition to play for Manchester United. It wasn’t a money issue. We offered him a new contract and he wasn’t even interested in discussing it.

‘The reality is, in modern football, the players have all the power. It’s not just relevant to Tottenham: if players anywhere decide as a group they are not going to play well and they want to get someone sacked then, that’s what can happen. But I don’t believe our squad made a concerted effort [to remove Ramos].’

You have to question the stability of Spurs when a single disgruntled player can bring a club to its knees. One player wants to leave and the club collapses from top to bottom. Spurs had a similarly bad start to last campaign and Levy’s response then was to dispose of his manager; last time it was Martin Jol getting the axe. Let’s blame Berba for that too; it’s obviously not Levy’s fault.

And therein lays the problem. Levy cannot accept responsibility for his actions. In his seven years at the helm of Tottenham, the club have seen no less than seven managers (including caretakers); none of which have performed to the impossibly high standards imposed by Levy. Jol even guided the club to consecutive 5th place finishes before he was sacked; a position Levy and Tottenham can only dream about this term.

To blame Berbatov for Spur’s appalling start is bordering on ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong, the way he went about pushing through his transfer wasn’t perfect, but any club (especially a Premier League club) is bigger than it’s staff and the success or lack of it cannot ever lie on the shoulders of one player.