Spurs should never have sacked Martin Jol, says Gary Lineker

Anthony Clavane
Mirror.co.uk
Sunday 12 October 2008

Spurs legend Gary Lineker thinks the crisis club should have stuck by previous boss Martin Jol.

And he insists they must not make the same mistake twice by sacking Jol's successor.

Tottenham have made their worst start in 96 years and are bottom of the Premier League with only two points from seven matches. No wonder the bookies have made manager Juande Ramos odds-on to lose his job by Christmas.

But Lineker, who scored 67 goals in 105 games for the club, believes Ramos (below) must not suffer the same fate as Jol, who was sacked a year ago.

The BBC anchorman said: "Look how well Jol is doing with Hamburg now. They should have stuck by him.

"We'll see what happens with Ramos. Generally, if you look at the clubs who have been successful, they are the ones who have stuck by their manager.

"Obviously you need the right one. If they think Ramos is the right guy and knows his stuff then they should give him time."

The ex-England star feels Spurs' problems are the result of selling top-class forwards Jermain Defoe, Robbie Keane and Dimitar Berbatov.

"After having a load of strikers they are now struggling up front," said Lineker.

"You hope Roman Pavlyuchenko adapts really quickly - but now he's out for a while. It's just been a really tough start for them. Everything that could go wrong has done.

"Defoe has been on fire at Portsmouth. We all know Berbatov was a different case - if he's desperate to go then he's going to go. And losing Keane was another huge blow."

Lineker spoke to Sunday Mirror Sport after opening new football pitches for disabled children at the Abbey School in Surrey. He fully supports the grassroots work of the Football Foundation - which donated £40,000 to the project - and argues that the game has a good record of helping local communities.