As a Tottenham Hotspurs fan for many years, and like thousands of others, this year was going to be 'the year' that it all finally started to happen. We were at last getting back into the big time where we think we belong; the Top 4, Champions League, attracting the best players in the world, a 1st team made up entirely of Internationals and in with a real shout for the three domestic trophies.

And then, as usual, it all went down the toilet…except this time even earlier in the season and even more of a mess than ever.

So what the hell has gone wrong…again?

The Club has a World Class Manager, apparently, and a fantastic No.2, apparently, and a host of fantastic signings that every big club in Europe was after, apparently.

Then two of Tottenham's best players leave, plus a handful of very useful others also leave, and suddenly we're watching a team that looks like they have no idea what they're doing, show so little effort that they look as if they're on a training ground and looking forward to a night out...and this great club is slowly heading towards relegation.

I've seen endless comments and answers in the press, on TV and on various websites and forums, but I think that the problems at White Hart Lane go a lot deeper than what's happened in the last few months.

I think the problems are engrained throughout the whole Club and go back years – and I'll try and explain those thoughts here…

THE MANAGER MUST HAVE TIME - AND AUTHORITY.

It is a fact that most of the greatest Managers of all time (Nicholson, Shankly, Paisley, Clough, Wenger, Ferguson) have had a long, secure tenure in their jobs, giving them time to build settled squads that can compete against all nature of opponents – and win trophies – and no Chairman nor certainly any Director of Football would have dared to interfere in their authority as Manager and selector of the football team.

Also interestingly…none of these great names had World Class management pedigrees.

Few at Liverpool had ever heard of Bill Shankly when he arrived from Huddersfield and it was 6 years before he won a major trophy. Few in Manchester had heard of Alex Ferguson from Aberdeen and it was 4 years to a major cup, and 6 years to a league title.

It is a sad and telling indictment of THFC that in the 34 years since the great Bill Nicholson left (incidentally, after 16 years in charge) the club have had an astonishing 22 changes of Manager. That's a ridiculous 18½ months per Manager.

Utter madness.

The result is that on average, every year and a half, Spurs have a new Manager with new ideas, a turf out of unwanted (often very good) players and an influx of others all needing time to settle in and gel.

Oddly, the Manager who was given the longest time, a certain, unfashionable Keith Burkinshaw, was the most successful, winning 3 major trophies in the last 3 years of his 8 year reign (get the drift?) and even winning the UEFA Cup on his very last game…and departing that night with the now famous line "there used to be a football club here".

Also, the Manager with the best 'win average' in this period (50.42% of 119 games) is one Mr David Pleat over his 4 stints as Manager, which sort of constitutes the same thing (longevity of tenure) as he was at the Club somehow from 1986 to 2004.

The club needs a great Manager with a good track record (doesn't have to be a famous name) with great man-management skills, is highly respected (and feared!) by the players, preferably one who can speak good English and have a great strategic coach of a No.2…AND a Chairman who supports him to the hilt, in the Board Room and publicly in the Press - and then leaves him alone!

THE CAPTAIN…OR LACK OF ONE.

One of the most important factors of all the great teams ever was the Captain, and this is where Spurs have been lacking so badly over the years.

Remember Roy Keane, Patrick Vieira, Billy Bremner, Emlyn Hughes, Ron Harris, Terry Butcher, Bryan Robson, Franz Beckenbauer, Bobby Moore, Stuart Pearce, John Terry, some of the greatest Captains of all time and they all have a few things in common.

Firstly, they're all from the same part of the pitch; Central Defender or Central Midfielder where the Captain should be, organising and orchestrating the whole shebang.

Secondly, they were all immensely respected by the entire club; the team, the Managers, the Board and the fans and, importantly, are all natural leaders.

Thirdly, when called upon, they were all capable of calming explosive incidents AND capable of lifting the team when the heads went down AND when things went wrong, none would take prisoners, screaming blue murder at any team-mate who wasn't pulling his weight AND reorganising the team in seconds when called for by the manager.

A great Captain, like any of these, is worth 3 players on the pitch, and a poor Captain can have exactly the opposite affect and I believe that the role of the Captain is totally underestimated by many Managers, but not by those great ones I have mentioned.

I would rather see the Club 'buy' a great Captain, then turn him into a Spurs player, rather than buy a great player and try and turn him into a Captain (that's the sort of thing we did at school) and a player like Stuart Pearce in charge on the pitch would be worth a good 15 points a season and frighten the life out of me, let alone the players.

Sadly, we have rarely seen the likes of these at Tottenham, with 1 or 2 possible exceptions (Steve Perryman?) and the Spurs Captains have all been Attacking Midfielders, Strikers, Wingers or quiet ("but he leads by example") defenders such Sol Campbell and our beloved Ledley.

Much as 'leading by example' is also very important, it's only a small part of a true Captain's make-up and until Spurs have a strong, bullish, highly vocal leader based in a position to organise and motivate the whole team they'll always lack that vital missing ingredient on the pitch. It's called leadership.

THE STADIUM

I really believe that the structure and position of the Stadium is a massive part of the on-going success of a football club and you only need to look throughout the footballing world to see how relevant that is.

Back in the depths of time when I was a kid (i.e.: pre Alan Sugar) life was somewhat different when 60,000 people would cram into the old stadium and mainly stand. It only cost a few quid to get in and apart from a cup of tea and a bag of peanuts that was it.

And travelling to and from the stadium (in my case, from Walthamstow) also seemed very easy with a regular bus and a leisurely walk from Tottenham Hale.

Nowadays it's another world.

The cost of running a football club has gone through the roof with the crazy cost of players, barmy salaries and a shed-load of highly paid Board Directors, endless management staff and other expenses plus, as a PLC, the need to placate shareholders.

Whilst it's true that there is now a great deal of TV cash available, the vast bulk of this expense is borne by the fans with sky-high ticket prices, catering, merchandising and Corporate boxes and events. It's now very big business and the success of the team is not always truly top of the agenda.

But success, of course, breeds turnover, and the most important element to achieve all of this (success on the pitch and on the Balance Sheet) is a great Stadium as it is the fans (for fans read customers, punters, market, target audience) who ultimately generate this income – and even TV revenue is determined by the success of the football team.

A Stadium must have capacity. In these times, from a basic financial point of view, 36,000 is simply not enough and I've little doubt that under the right circumstances, Tottenham could easily fill another 10,000 seats for the big weekend games, so a 50,000+ seater Stadium makes complete sense.

This would not only increase ticket sales, but also catering, merchandising, programmes and of course Corporate boxes & entertainment. Plus, importantly, the costs incurred against increased sales do not rise pro rata and the profit on those extra 10,000 tickets would be immense (Arsenal openly admits that their increased capacity gives them approximately another £1M per match) and this extra profit opens up the purchase and funding of new players.

A Stadium must have great facilities – partly for the fans on match day such as catering, merchandising, parking, toilets etc, which increases turnover and increases the feel good factor (a happy punter comes back!) but also for non match day activities such as clubs, restaurants, Corporate events, meeting facilities, health spa & sports medical units…and this all adds income, profit and, ultimately, success on the pitch.

A Stadium must be accessible and I'm afraid that White Hart Lane will never be that in today's world. The train and bus facilities can never be efficient enough (how far away is Seven Sister Road?) and car parking is a total nightmare unless you're a Director or VIP.

Tottenham High Road will always be at a standstill on match days and now, with the parking exclusion zone, it's even worse and if you are parked in one of the £10 car parks somewhere in the area it can take an hour to even get out if it.

If they rebuilt White Hart Lane where it stands, the Club would add another 10,000 mortals into this mix every match day which will expound the problem by perhaps 30% - and yet at the same time the whole traffic, transport and parking situation will get worse, not better, so in a couple of years it could take me 7 or 8 hours to see a match, including travel (it takes me 5 or 6 now).

The answer is obvious. The club should MOVE.

I know that this is all easier said than done, that a new Stadium costs a great deal of money (£300M?) that a new site is not easy to find and that there are some who romantically would not want to move.

However, the club has been faffing around with this for, to my knowledge, over 20 years and many opportunities have arisen; the Olympic Stadium, Ponders End, Enfield and rebuilding in the same place (which won't solve the traffic infrastructure or parking problems) and there have been endless, pointless discussions with Haringey Council.

To bring the Club into the 21st Century, to be a Top 4 club, to be a power in world football (things that everyone always seems to be yearning for) the Club has to start proceedings now towards a new super Stadium – and not in Tottenham High Road.

THE FINANCES OF THE CLUB

It has often been levelled that Tottenham Hotspur is a selling club, or a 'feeder' club, and although this has always been vehemently denied there's certainly a great deal of fact that the Club does put finances first and this has indirectly affected the success on the pitch.

Whether in the days of Alan Sugar or Daniel Levy, it has regularly been suggested that the Club has always made funds available to purchase players and that Spurs have always been one of the highest spending Clubs and, at face value, this has been true.

However, it must be made quite clear that, at Tottenham, players are usually purchased or sold for financial reasons rather than footballing reasons – or to clarify that, if a Manager desperately wants to buy a player, he will be purchased only if he is good value for money, will create a good asset value or more importantly can create a good sell-on profit and even if he doesn't want to sell a player (Berbatov, Keane, Carrick, Defoe) if someone comes knocking with a big bag of silver – they're gone. Cynical perhaps, but true.

I'm sure there's many a bean counter out there who totally sees the sense in this philosophy, that there is a business to run, shareholders to look after and the future to consider, but they're all missing the point – and that is the 'product' is a football team, and the customers are the fans.

They can't continue yearly without success, raising ticket prices, sending 36,000 people home after every match calling for people's heads (Chairman, Manager, DOF, players) and that long-term a profitable business must have success and must have happy customers – otherwise eventually the bubble bursts.

A fact that really hits this nail home is that Tottenham Hotspur Football Club is the 12th richest club in the World, but this story is even more amazing than that.

Firstly, Tottenham's total debt against total value is a mere 15%, whereas the World's top 4 richest clubs have an average debt/value of a worrying 48.75% making Spurs look even healthier.

Secondly, the Club has reached these dizzy financial heights having achieved relatively little success on the pitch, particularly in Europe and having none of the annual riches of the Champions League. I recently produced a rather interesting schedule of all player signings and sales fees over the last 7 transfer windows (estimating fees against those 'undisclosed') taking into account the profit or loss on a player plus, if still at the Club, his current asset value, and the result was astonishing. The profit+asset total was £240M…and I think that says it all.

I'm quite sure that Tottenham will never have real success on the pitch while this pure financial stance is in place and the fact remains that Tottenham IS a big club, a very big and very rich club with a vast fan base and massive potential.

LOYALTY

There is a nasty little disease at Tottenham that I have seen develop over the last 20 years, and it's one of loyalty, or rather the lack of it, and the Club is riddled with it.

Starting at the very top, the Chairman (whether Alan Sugar or Daniel Levy) and the Board (remember Paul Kemsley and the Jol affair?) show little consideration for the Manager and his team, the players (it is no coincidence that the turnover of Managers and Players at Spurs is the highest in the Premiership) or certainly the fans who turn out in all weathers to watch substandard teams for extortionate prices. I doubt Mr Levy has ever queued for 15 minutes to pay far too much for a cup of wee and an inedible burger.

This disloyal attitude works its way throughout the Club with many a Manager simply waiting for the sack (that's the way to get the best out of someone!) and players who look as if they're on a Training Ground and those who have far too often openly slated the Club in the Press - from Tim Sherwood to Pascal Chimbonda.

And yes, naturally this even spreads to the fans (although for some reason regularly turn up) who can certainly be the most critical in the League, to put it mildly, basically because they are constantly fed up with supporting such a big club, with such great traditions, yet being treated to such regular failure because of an almost lack of ambition.

Indeed there are many times that I've sat at a match and honestly thought I was in the Visitors section listening to the anti-Spurs player vitriol and would often love to remind many angry fans what the word supporter means – but I sort of understand where they're coming from.

This simply doesn't happen at other clubs, or certainly not to this extent, and I'm sure it doesn't at the Big 4 where players often state that they would like to end their careers at the club (I don't ever remember a Spurs player ever saying that, or at least sticking to it) and Liverpool, Newcastle and Manchester United fans scream support at their teams even when they're playing badly and are 2-0 down.

Loyalty is all part of creating the success story and Tottenham need to address this big time, from the Chairman, the Board, Management team and the fans, through footballing success, customer care and regular PR in the programmes and in that environment, the players will play their socks off…and who knows?

THE DIRECTOR OF FOOTBALL

And lastly, but certainly not leastly, the infamous Director of Football – another strange phenomenon that has stricken the Club in the last few years.

I suspect that more has been written and said about this in the Media than any of the other points I've mentioned and has without doubt had a massive affect on the performance of the Club…on the pitch that is. And we have heard it said many times that "it works perfectly well on the Continent"

Well, firstly, I disagree with that entirely as I've heard of many reports of terrible conflict between Managers, DOFs and Directors across the footballing globe in Italy, Spain, France and particularly in Holland and Scandinavia. That simply isn't true.

Secondly, even if it were true, that doesn't mean to suggest that it would work in England which, because of tradition, is very different, and no it doesn't work anywhere else in the UK, does it? It certainly didn't work at Newcastle did it?

The Director of Football structure can only work if that person's role is clearly identified and that person fully understands their role.

That means that it's his task to buy or sell players that the Manager (and his team) have identified and at a price that is pre-agreed by the Manager and the Board and to ensure that the deal is completed within a certain time scale (determined by the Manager) and ensure that no unnecessary percentages are added or removed along the way.

That's it, nothing else. It's not for him to make any decisions about which players, nor to search for untapped talent (that's what scouts are for).

Unfortunately, as we all now know so well, that hasn't been the case and there has in recent years been an endless stream of players purchased and sold either irrespective of the Manager's opinion or, even worse, without his knowledge – who bought Rocha, Taarabt, Bent, Ghaly, Kaboul, Boateng, Gilberto, Dos Santos, Pavlyuchernko?…and who sold Mendes, Carrick, Malbranque, Chimbonda, Tainio, Defoe, Berbatov, Keane? I doubt the Managers had little or nothing to do with any of these deals! And what of all those deals that never happened?

Eto, Torres, Santa Cruz, Carew, Nani, Asharvin? All of these players, and many more, could apparently easily now be wearing a Tottenham shirt, and at a fraction of their current value and all were virtually 'done deals' (and I have this of very good authority from solid sources within the Club, articles in the National Press and admissions by previous Managers Hoddle and Jol).

So what happened? Who stopped them? Who fouled up?

It wasn't the tea lady was it?

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From the 'never to be published' book, THE RAMBLINGS OF AN ORDINARY BLOKE and for a Tottenham Hotspur web site, 2009.