Swept away with the leaves once more

Breaking news from Russia, and it appears thespoiler favourite Juande Ramos will yet again, to paraphrase Wyclef Jean, be “gone by November.” No stranger to the Spanish Archer, Ramos has now bade farewell to his 13th club. Ramos’ P45 from CSKA Moscow will appear in the post almost a year to the day since Daniel Levy sent him one printed on Tottenham Hotspur-headed notepaper.

Juande’s latest sacking followed a 3-1 defeat to FC Moscow at the weekend, a result that leaves CSKA struggling to make Champions League qualification with just four games remaining in the Russian season. A CSKA statement read:

“Following an agreement between all parties, CSKA have cancelled their contract with head coach Juande Ramos. We are very grateful to Juande Ramos for the work he has done with the team.”

Clearly very grateful. The Ramos career remains something of an enigma. He passed through a plethora of mediocre Spanish teams whilst making very little impact, before bandwagonning on the the transfer brilliance of Sevilla’s Sports Chief Monchi, to take the club to back-to-back UEFA Cups. His time at Spurs was a disaster, before relative success at Madrid. And now chaos at CSKA.

It appears Ramos does his best when in Spain, but once on his travels, he likes to sign large contracts, and then do his upmost to get the boot. His time at Spurs famously included starving his players on matchday, naming teams in the dressing room that included players who were suspended or out on loan, and trying to sign Jesus Navas, a player who gets chronically home-sick even on away trips within Spain.

Having failed to engage with the English language at White Hart Lane, did he ever truly expect to master Russian, a language composed of an entirely different alphabet and with many regional variant dialects? Or was Juande once more up to his old tricks?