Ardiles confirms the players are to blame
Former Tottenham favourite Ossie Ardiles, a guy who won a World Cup and then moved with Ricky Villa to Spurs at a time when this sort of transfer simply didn't happen. The story was front page news and the leading bulletin on the 6 o'clock news.
At Spurs he went on to lift the FA Cup and the UEFA Cup so it's fair to say the little Argentinian knows far more about football players and what it takes to be a winner than our fans in the stands. He confirms that it's the players who are the ones to blame for a disappointing season.
For players not to perform to their capabilities under two managers in one season clearly demonstrates where the buck stops. They simply aren't winners, they are not prepared to do what it takes, to make the sacrifices you have to make to get to the top.
Every day a player should be coming into training asking himself how can he be better than he was yesterday. Only Christian Eriksen, Hugo Lloris and Nabil Bentaleb have shown that attitude this season.
Other have shown it to a degree and that is simply not good enough. That is the attitude of a loser, someone who always has a hard luck story to fall back on. The brutal truth is they have let the club and their managers down. Some supporters will want an individual scapegoat and pick on a manager but the truth is deeper than that, they players have not wanted it and if they don't want something badly enough they will never get it.
It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't have a winning mentality themselves because there are always more important things to them, but for a winner the only thing that matters is winning. Winning creates enjoyment, enjoyment does not create winning.
Until we have players to whom winning is everything, then we will always be a bridesmaid, always be a club with a hard luck story, simply because the players won't push themselves to improve every day unless they have that special ingredient that Frank de Boer and Tim Sherwood have, a winning mentality.
Every player makes an individual choice, nobody makes it for them, some of them need to take a long hard look in the mirror.
At Spurs he went on to lift the FA Cup and the UEFA Cup so it's fair to say the little Argentinian knows far more about football players and what it takes to be a winner than our fans in the stands. He confirms that it's the players who are the ones to blame for a disappointing season.
“I believe that the players we have bought in this season have been the problem. They are not performing the way we expected.
“At the end of the day, whoever the manager is, AVB earlier on in the season and later on Tim, there is not a lot you can do with the kind of players we have right now. Whoever comes in, or if Tim stays, he has to make a big rebuilding of the team.”
For players not to perform to their capabilities under two managers in one season clearly demonstrates where the buck stops. They simply aren't winners, they are not prepared to do what it takes, to make the sacrifices you have to make to get to the top.
Every day a player should be coming into training asking himself how can he be better than he was yesterday. Only Christian Eriksen, Hugo Lloris and Nabil Bentaleb have shown that attitude this season.
Other have shown it to a degree and that is simply not good enough. That is the attitude of a loser, someone who always has a hard luck story to fall back on. The brutal truth is they have let the club and their managers down. Some supporters will want an individual scapegoat and pick on a manager but the truth is deeper than that, they players have not wanted it and if they don't want something badly enough they will never get it.
It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't have a winning mentality themselves because there are always more important things to them, but for a winner the only thing that matters is winning. Winning creates enjoyment, enjoyment does not create winning.
Until we have players to whom winning is everything, then we will always be a bridesmaid, always be a club with a hard luck story, simply because the players won't push themselves to improve every day unless they have that special ingredient that Frank de Boer and Tim Sherwood have, a winning mentality.
Every player makes an individual choice, nobody makes it for them, some of them need to take a long hard look in the mirror.
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