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The Hoddle Era 2001-2003

Dicko

Dicko

Edgar Davids
After the rumours of Hoddle returning on an interim basis and Lineker championing his return to management I wanted to get peoples assessment of his spell as Manager.

I can remember starting both seasons being optimstic each year only to end up mid-table.

I also have a good memory of stuffing Chelsea in the cup for what felt like the first time in ages.

I remember the return of Sheringham, thinking Poyet would provide goals, having high hopes for Dean Richards, also thinking Jamie Redknapp would be good for us (lol)

To be honest, even though it's only been 10 years, it feels like a lifetime ago...

How do you remember his spell?
 
I went to every round of that league cup run and when we smashed Chelsea 5-1 it really felt like we were on the cusp of something great. Sadly it was not to last.

If I am honest the good things were probably overshadowed by the bad, you inevitably remember the things that happened towards the end of the reign when the wheels started to fall off.

Of course even with Glenn being a Spurs legend he was still fair game for the message board posters. Endless jibes about his "headscratching" comments... lol
 
wildly optimistic to start with, signings didn't work out though (mostly), some high points early on and some good runs but tailed off badly and we got a few hidings near the end

I felt he didn't give some players a fair chance either, particularly Rebrov
 
WhoopWhoop said:
We had **** players.
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I agree... We have a much stronger team and squad now and I think Glenn would be the right choice at this moment in time.

He has been accused of being arrogant in the past ( but I can forgive him that as he is the best Spurs player I have seen in 46 years of watching us play) but we all learn from our mistakes and he is now 10 years older.

At 43 he joined in at training and still looked superb and apparently got frustrated that other players couldn't match him. He's now 56 and looks like he has put on some weight so if he sticks to the coaching and the important man management issues I think he could do well.

I agree with almost everything he says about us on TV (although he speaks too positively about Defoe when he has only scored 1 league goal in 2013) and he would offer us a bit of relative stability in these turbulent times. Having said that I would initially appoint him on a contract until the end of the season and give him money to buy Benteke and a left back in January.

COYS......please.
 
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Really wanted him to succeed and was sure he would. Didn't agree with getting rid of Gooner George at the time we did but the chance to get Hoddle overshadowed that.

Flattered to deceive for the most part under him. 3-0 up v United at half time playing fabulous football only to capitulate. 5-1 v Chelsea only to lose in the final to a Souness managed Blackburn. By the time the end was coming it was clear something wasn't right. Our run to finish his last season was pretty dire IIRC. The 4-0 defeat to Southampton in the Cup was particularly dreadful. The start to the following season (1 win from 6 wasn't it?) was also fairly poor.

It was a great shame. Would have been wonderful for Glenn to lead our revival. For some irrational reason, I love the idea of him coming back. The heart says yes. But when I think about it logically, his poor man management, his general wackyness, his time out of the game...it could never work. Could it?
 
I'd love Hoddle to be a success as a manager, but everything he did with us, the team he advocated on Sky Sports and the fact that he's a mental all point towards very likely failure.
 
Again, very optimistic to begin with. That summer in 2001 when we bought Ziege, Sheringham, Poyet and Richards was fantastic. After previous pre seasons of buying dross like Tramazzani, it actually seemed as though we were buying players who despite their age, could give us a real improvement. I don't think it would have much difference to how long he lasted but in general it is disappointing that he didn't manage to win the League Cup in terms of his managerial history.

I liked his style with the 3-5-2 tbh and always have. I think in the end the main things that did for him were being unable to attract proper quality players at a time in their careers when they were on their way up and his man management was just zero. I was friendly with a family who were very close to Chris Hughton and he had after much pressing, revealed that some players really couldn't take to Hoddle during training because despite his age, he was still the best player on the training pitch and was very happy to make that point clear both vocally and in how he played. I know that he didn't get on very well with some of the senior players in his final full season in 2002/03, especially Sheringham.

I also feel like Galeforce, that he didn't utilise Rebrov or give him anywhere near the fair crack of a whip. People like to jump on a bandwagon and **** particular players off like Armstrong and Rebrov but both of those players get a really bad press from Spurs fans that is actually quite short sighted.

Rebrov was quality, you could see in certain things he did that he was just way ahead in his thinking and touch by comparison to a lot of the Spurs squad at that time. I remember on his debut, he curled a first time effort onto the bar against Ipswich Town from 25 yards with the outside of his right foot. We didn't have anyone who did stuff like that back in 2000 (having sold Ginola) and it was a delight to see. His goal in Jan 2001 against Saudi Sportswashing Machine when we won 4-2, again beautiful outside of the foot effort that showed he had bundles of technical ability but as soon as Hoddle came in and bought Sheringham, he was bombed out. 14 goals in 2000-01 is not to be sniffed at when one of your regular midfielders and supply lines is Stephen Clemence.

At the end and by that I actually mean the last third of 2002/03 and the first 6 games of 2003/04, we were just woeful. We struggled to draw 1-1 with Fulham at home in the February and then lost badly at West Ham without much fight before finishing off the season with a 5-1 defeat to Boro and 0-4 whacking at home to Blackburn. Start of 03/04 was just woeful, those defeats at home to Southampton and Fulham were so weak that it was obvious he had to go.

I don't think he would be a good appointment for us or him. It would be seen as the same with Keegan and just creates another element to the circus.
 
scaramanga said:
I'd love Hoddle to be a success as a manager, but everything he did with us, the team he advocated on Sky Sports and the fact that he's a mental all point towards very likely failure.
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this. I read the old Rohan Rickets article last night, very good read.

But one thing I find incredibly promising. When managing Wolves, he only lost 16 games out of 76. For a **** team that is rather good. But hey, he is a legend and I would welcome him is a caretaker manager, not so sure about permanent.
 
Ganter said:
this. I read the old Rohan Rickets article last night, very good read.

But one thing I find incredibly promising. When managing Wolves, he only lost 16 games out of 76. For a **** team that is rather good. But hey, he is a legend and I would welcome him is a caretaker manager, not so sure about permanent.
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He managed Wolves in the Championship at a time when they were one of the stronger teams in it. Not that impressive especially when you consider that he won only 27 games out of 76 (35.5%).
 
He did ok with a pretty limited squad iirc. The squad now is crying out for a manager to get something out of them. Glen's preferred system of 3-5-2 would certainly work here and I think it's the perfect foil for 4-5-1 teams that come to the Lane and sit. A risk though and part of me thinks that Sherwood might actually be the man.
 
I don't mean to be ageist

But, I get the feeling it's quite a few of the older fans who recall him playing that want him back, I don't recall him playing for us but understand he is a legend and can see he was a brilliant player from clips etc so I am not swayed by what he is done previously at the club
 
The heart says yes.

Apart from the messiah bandwagon, his weird personal beliefs, the legacy of being an ex-England manager and how a provocative press would be looking for every opportunity to **** stir, the biggest worry would be his time out of coaching (2006?). He was an excellent coach, arguably the one who set Chelsea on their way, long before Abramovich, and England have rarely played as well since his time. A danger is his time has passed and he could find himself out of his depth the way Dalglish did. Seems very risky for a lot of reasons.

However, if the alternative is Sherwood as interim for the rest of the season, then Hoddle as Head Coach becomes more appealing.
 
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Lloris
Chirices-kaboul-vertonghen
Walker Townsend
Sandro - dembele
Eriksen
Soldado - Adebayor


I don't know, we would have alot of surplus players all off a sudden, and with our injury history, about 12 central defenders we'd need as cover. How would the defenders cope with a new system? I do think walker would flourish in a system like this though. Freeing him of defensive responsibilities and just let him loose!
 
jpp said:
He did ok with a pretty limited squad iirc. The squad now is crying out for a manager to get something out of them. Glen's preferred system of 3-5-2 would certainly work here and I think it's the perfect foil for 4-5-1 teams that come to the Lane and sit. A risk though and part of me thinks that Sherwood might actually be the man.
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errrr I couldnt disagree more! Firstly, how many of Lennon, Townsend, Chadli, Eriksen, Lamela and Holtby can you get into 3-5-2? One.

And as for 3-5-2 being ideal for counter-acting 4-5-1, again that doesnt make sense to me - it means you have 3 CBs in teh team marking just one CF and even if one of those CBs could push forward, you're better off having an extra midfielder or winger in teh team
 
3-5-2 went out of fashion when 4-3-3 became popular. Reason being? Because as long as the team playing 4-3-3 has decent wing forwards, a team playing 3-5-2 will struggle badly because the wing backs will struggle. The wing back has a tricky job on their hands, if they go forward to support the attacks then they leave the wing forward unmarked, and we got badly punished by that a lot. However, if they sit back and mark the wing forward, then the team has no width and becomes much easier to defend against.

Having said that, crazy as this does look, I think there may be some merits for it in certain games

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Walker and Rose are very fast (certainly a lot faster than Ziege or Taricco were), so they could get back and cover quicker. You'd have comfortable ball playing defenders to carry the ball out. A wall of steel in Paulinho and Sandro. And the front three is where things get interesting. Because Townsend is a very direct player, if he gets the ball he'll start running at goal, and with two strikers that will also start making forward runs either side ahead of him, opposition centre-backs will know that if they stick close to the striker they're supposed to be marking, space will open up for Townsend to shoot in, whereas if they try to close him off he can play in one of the strikers. Could work. Or could **** up completely.

Hoddle came to Spurs the first time after years of us being ****ing awful to watch and sorted things out. The Chelsea 5-1 is the most famous one but I also remember us spanking Bolton 6-0 and Fulham 4-0. He had us top of the league at the start of the 02/03 season, and he signed Robbie Keane and Freddie Kanoute. But, he made a lot of mistakes. The Rebrov situation was farcical, if he didn't rate him he should have sold him instead of letting him rot on the bench. Instead of signing Jay-Jay Okocha who was available on a free transfer he went for Milenko Acimovic. He signed Helder Postiga. He did nothing for youth development. He regularly put out sides with absolutely no pace or ability to tackle. We had a habit of choking in the big games.

I think his failure to sign a defensive midfielder in the summer of 2003 was the final straw for me. It was so obviously what we needed, and I remember going to his last game, against his old team Southampton, who absolutely dingdonged on us at White Hart Lane and their fans were loving it. He was too stubborn to change his ways and ****ed off a lot of the senior players which is never a good thing. It wasn't a one off either, most of the England team of 1998 **** him off in their autobiographies, even though he had us playing good football.

I may be wrong, but I don't think this is a good idea.
 
Re Hoddle and the DM, we were after Scott Parker, who went somewhere else (Chelsea, Saudi Sportswashing Machine?) at the last moment.
Love to see Glenn back...Spurs would be a thing of beauty again.
 
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