Did it? Did it really?

This morning, Gus Poyet has admitted that Tottenham were right to sack him and Juande Ramos, going as far as to give “full credit to Harry”. Former director of football Damien Comolli, however, does not hold the same opinion of Tottenham’s start to 2008/09:

“My time at Tottenham went exceptionally well.

“I took a lot of pleasure in what I achieved.

“I think Tottenham was rated as the 11th biggest club in the world — it was extraordinary.

“I had a lot of success. I did a lot of good for the team and left a club in great shape.

“The current results are showing what I did for Tottenham. The team is great and young.”

Granted, Comolli helped the club win silverware and achieved a top five finish in 2006/07, but can the man who forced Martin Jol out of the door really make these claims? Did he really do a lot of good for the team? We’re not convinced.

Levy somehow manages to make things worse for Spurs…again!

Exactly a year to the day after Martin Jol was sacked as Tottenham manager, the club have announced the departures of manager Juande Ramos, assistant Gus Poyet, sporting director Damien Comolli and coach Marcos Alvarez.

The Jol sacking was abysmally timed, with almost everyone who attended the UEFA Cup home game against Getafe besides the Dutchman knowing that he had been axed, but the decision to dismiss the three most important members of the matchday staff just over fifteen hours before a hugely important home game against Bolton, who could climb nine point above Spurs with victory, may have trumped even that.

Poyet was expected by many fans to succeed Ramos but he has gone too, leaving development squad coach Clive Allen and youth team boss Alex Inglethorpe to take temporary charge. With the timing of the announcement it may prove the case that the players won’t even hear the news until the morning and if they are awake to hear the news now, it’s hard to imagine how they’ll manage to sleep on it.

An early favourite to take over as manager is former West Ham boss Alan Curbishley. It has been rumoured that he turned down the QPR job earlier today and the departure of Comolli means that he would not have to deal with a transfer supremo operating over his head, something that compromised his position at Upton Park.

The official Tottenham statement can be read after the jump:

More evidence from our Spurs mole that Ramos isn’t adapting to Premier League life too well.

“Ramos doesn’t talk to any of the players ever,” says Mole. “Ahead of the Portsmouth match, Juande walked on the training pitch to arrange the traditional pre-match training exercise of the 1st XI vs subs/reserves. Having read out his list of who would be in the team, he was angry to see three bibs remained on the ground. Poyet pointed out that two of the names he had read out were injured, one was suspended and therefore none of them had travelled.”

Spanish coach doing his absolute best to ensure Spurs win the Championship next season

The Spoiler has come into information that suggests Spurs fans are badly in denial when it comes to correctly apportioning responsibility for their unhappy start to the season. (The Spoiler has also been accused on more than one occasion of being anti-Tottenhamist, an accusation that has no basis in truth.) Various phone-ins and message boards have Spurs fans laying the blame squarely at the feet of Damien Comolli, who has indeed failed to dazzle in the transfer market, and Daniel Levy, for his “Take care of the pennies, and the players will take care of themselves” economic philosophy. Coach Juande Ramos has been given a pass for quietly getting on with a difficult job.

However, the news from the Spurs training ground indicates a very different situation, and that instead of trying to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, Ramos is one step away from having the players bump into each to the accompaniment of comedy music.
According to our mole: “Juande came back from his (summer) holidays unhappy in London, and now seems hell-bent on doing all he can to induce his own sacking and pay-off.”

How to stop your team from scoring goals

Rival fans may have laughed at the fact that Tottenham finished eleventh last season after talking up their top-four credentials but one area where you couldn’t fault them was their knack of scoring goals. Their 66-goal haul was the fifth best in the league last season and even better than Chelsea’s. But Juande Ramos and Gus Poyet clearly weren’t happy with this free-scoring nature and set about enforcing a five-point plan to change things:

1. Get rid of Jermain Defoe
Juande logic: He might have scored 64 goals for the club from starting 110 games, but who needs Jermain Defoe when you’ve got Robbie Keane and Dimitar Berbatov? By selling him to another club with European aspirations, Portsmouth, there’s no way it’ll come back and bite us. If anything, he’ll help drag them down to our level.
The reality: Defoe has scored thirteen goals in eighteen league starts for his new club and scored against Tottenham this weekend.

2. You don’t win anything with left-wingers
Juande logic: We may already have Jamie O’Hara, Didier Zokora, Tom Huddlestone, Jermaine Jenas and Aaron Lennon here already but what we really need is more midfielders who prefer playing in the centre or on the right. Bring in Luka Modric, David Bentley and Giovani dos Santos, it’ll be fun trying to figure out where to play them all. Who cares if Bentley got into the England squad for his performances on the right, let’s sling him on the left or behind the strikers. Luka Modric is known as the exciting, attacking impetus of the Croatia team but there’s no harm playing him as a holding player. Maybe I could throw him on the left too!
The reality: Spurs ended up starting Gilberto, who hasn’t looked too convincing in his preferred position of left-back, as an attacking left-winger against Portsmouth.

3. Sell one of the best strike forces in the Premier League
Juande logic: Robbie and Dimitar scored 46 goals between them last season for our bottom-half side, and the fans voted Robbie as player of the season but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t be able to cope without them. They both say they want

Does ANYONE want to work with Wise?

Oh dear, poor Newcastle fans. After all their persistent bonkers talk about being the best club in the world, no one appears to fancy them. Granted, that might have much to do with the hideous Gollum-like character they have working for them, but the word on the street is that even Dennis Wise’s pal, Gus Poyet, isn’t particularly interested.

“I’m very happy here, I’ve had almost a year back at the club with Juande and Marcos,” he told a worried young Tottenham journalist, “this is just speculation, and it is all too easy because of my relationship with Dennis Wise - it’s nothing to worry about and all I intend to do is relax and continue with my job.”

And then everyone presumably hugged.

[Tottenham Hotspur]

Look, he done a goal!

Should Poyet go to Newcastle, which - as the only man on the planet who can stomach Dennis Wise - he really should, it’s important that he win over the fans, and fast. Much of the Geordie faithful will still be weeping into their pillows at nighttime, praying that Kevin Keegan isn’t too cold and lonely, and their much-talked-about boycotting of St James’s Park remains to be seen if we are to believe it. But Gustavo Poyet would be wise to remind them of the time he pulled an impressive scissor-kick out of the bag against those bad guys from Sunderland. It was during the glorious summer of 1999, fact fans.

Whatever he does, he mustn’t mention the time he put two past Shay Given in the 2000 FA Cup semi-final.

King Kev 5/1 to succeed himself as manager

Kevin Keegan is the second favourite behind Gus Poyet to return to Newcastle for a third spell as manager just five days after walking out on the club.

However, the departures of his assistant manager Terry McDermott and reserve team coach Adam Sadler today suggest that his short odds are a result of hopeful Magpies fans praying for a takeover rather than any strong indication that he will return.

Super special Spoiler reader offer: Betting on the next Newcastle manager? Get £30 of free bets with Ladbrokes here

Uruguayan leading the race for Geordie hotseat

The list of candidates to replace Kevin Keegan ranges from the very popular - Alan Shearer - to the hugely unpopular - Dennis Wise. Right now though, it’s Tottenham assistant Gus Poyet who is favourite to get the job.

Here’s a rundown of the current contenders, courtesy of the handsome devils at chickendinner:

Gus Poyet
Can someone really go from being assistant manager of Leeds in League One to manager of Newcastle in less than a year? The bookies seem to think so. Poyet worked with Dennis Wise at Elland Road and many believed that his departure had a greater impact on the club’s promotion bid.

Alan Shearer
The former Newcastle striker would probably be the most popular choice with the fans but Shearer is thought to be reluctant to take charge at this point in time. While it would take some of the heat off Mike Ashley in terms of his relationship with the fans, this appointment would be a huge risk.

Dennis Wise
If Shearer would win a popularity contest between the candidates then there is no doubting that Ratboy would lose it. The highlight of his managerial career so far was taking Millwall to the 2004 FA Cup Final. Last year he got Leeds off to a great start in League One but it is argued that Poyet was really pulling the strings. Observe:

Wise with Poyet: P13 W11 D2 L0
Points per Game: 2.69

Wise without Poyet: P15 W7 D3 L5
Points per Game: 1.6

Didier Deschamps
The BBC claim that Deschamps