So our old friends have decided to part company with yet another manager. It has become an all too familiar story over the last few years.

Spurs hire manager. Funds appear from nowhere to back manager. Manager spends. Manager is eclipsed in terms of success by Wenger. Manager is fired. And the cycle begins again.

Gross, Jol and Ramos have fallen by the wayside. All have achieved success in their managerial careers though notably not at Tottenham (Carling Cup? Oh please...). I believe both Jol and Gross are achieving no small measure of success currently so there doesn’t appear to be too much wrong with them as managers. Despite being Spurs managers, they appear to be decent men (with the obvious exception of Jol with his feeble excuses and failure to play by the spirit of the game most notable at Highbury where he encouraged his charges to continue when Arsenal players were on the deck). Yet they can’t succeed at the ugly end of the Seven Sisters Road. At what point will the Spuds supporters work out that “it’s the board, stupid”?

The board presumably sanctioned the sale of Defoe, Berbatov and Keane and their replacement with heavyweights Bentley (well at least his ego weighs a ton), Modric and Pavlyuchenko. But this is what makes their latest sacking the most cowardly yet. They have acted prior to the derby solely in order to shift the inevitable focus of a defeat away from them. A new manager won’t be held responsible if they lose and a draw or win (perish the thought) will show the “wisdom” of their decision. So Ramos, a man who fashioned a creative, attacking and potent Sevilla side at no great cost is sacrificed to be replaced by a man who has built a side at Portsmouth at great expense, with no resale value, largely the wrong side of 30 who have won an FA Cup, an trophy already on its way down the road taken by The Carling Cup. As Oscar Wilde once said, “It would take a heart of stone not to laugh”.