On the day before Tottenham Hotspur officially fired him, Tim Sherwood sounded off on the reasons why he thinks his team failed to reach its stated goal of a top-four finish in thePremier League this season. Chief among them, he said, was the sale of Gareth Bale to Real Madrid, whose sale sparked a transfer market shopping spree by former coach AndreVillas-Boas.
“We’re taking out one of the best players in the world and replacing him with seven players who have never played in this competition before,” Sherwoodsaid. “How on earth did people think we would be title challengers or even make the top four? If you don’t know the game you could possibly think that they would all hit the floor running but itdoesn’t happen, they need time. This club will be better with those seven players next season – they’ll have experience of the competition and they will improve from that.”
Spurs finished theseason in sixth-place with 69 points, three less than last season’s club-record total of 72, but 10 behind fourth-place Arsenal. “It was hyped – the hype was ridiculous,” he added. “We’vequalified for the Champions League once – why have we got a divine right to qualify for the Champions League? Where we’ve finished in sixth is where we should be, it’s where we are as aclub.”