Juandé Danny Levy's Prince Will Come

A year ago yesterday I woke up to read that Spurs were all chop-chop ready-steady-go to move out of Harringay and how Damien Comolli's heart was set on bringing in Juán Roman Riquelme to be his midfield general. Right, I thought, they'll be moving to the burbs. A plan: An actual concrete plan: Like ve one wot ve Gooners 'ad. I might not LIKE the plan, but at least there was a plan. Was it possible that the billionaires cabal, Messrs. Levy, Lewis and Haji-Ionnou of the ENIC Corporation would finally leave their egos outside the door and come up with something that served the club and its fans? Nah. Not a chance. A couple of weeks later, on October 26th, a day that will live in infamy in Spurs' history, Tony Soprano's brudda, the big gruff Dutchman, Martin Jol, finally took one in the back of the barnet.

The Spurs board, having encouraged intercinine warfare between Jol and Comolli, can't blame anybody but themselves for this mess. Jol was very good at getting the maximum effort out of players of medium talent. He is doing well at S.V. Hamburg, leading the Bundesliga, although that , too, will prove to be another thankless job if their board expect t Jol to break the stranglehold Bayern have over the Bundesliga. If, as with Spurs, coming in below second is unacceptable, he'll probably end up shining at a club with a great youth system like Sporting Lisbon, PSV or West Ham. Jol made many mistakes, to be sure, some very odd substitutions and odd tactical gaffes.