‘Unbelievable’: Aaron Lennon says manager who Daniel Levy sacked at Tottenham was actually ‘brilliant’

Since becoming chairman of Tottenham Hotspur in 2001, Daniel Levy has overseen the departure of 16 managers in north London, including those who worked on an interim basis.

Ange Postecoglou is now the latest manager under threat at Tottenham and his fate might actually hang on Spurs’ Europa League second leg with AZ Alkmaar on Thursday.

Tottenham are 1-0 down on aggregate and their questionable performance against Bournemouth in N17 last weekend wasn’t exactly the confidence boost that Postecoglou would have hoped for.

But looking back to those who have overseen Spurs’ travails in the past, former Tottenham winger Aaron Lennon played under six different managers during his 364 appearances for the club.

Lennon joined under Martin Jol’s leadership and then left for Everton in 2015 when Mauricio Pochettino was at the helm.

Aaron Lennon explains why Juande Ramso was so ‘brilliant’ at Tottenham

That being said, in an interview with Football London, Lennon has now made some interesting comments about former Spurs manager Juande Ramos.

Ramos remains the only Tottenham manager in the modern era to win a trophy with the club, his 2008 League Cup success.

Unfortunately, Ramos was then sacked later that year and replaced by Harry Redknapp.

But when recalling Ramos’ time with the club, Lennon only had good things to say, even if might have found the Spaniard’s nutrition rules irritating at the time.

Lennon said: “In the food department, Ramos was by far the strictest. I remember the first day he came in, he tipped the butter into the bin.

“Back then you’d have your toast with butter and he went to the bin and it was like ‘what’s happening here? I’ve just seen him putting the butter in the bin’.

“But as an actual man and a tactician, tactically he was unbelievable. Like really, really good and really clever, but the food stuff that’s where he was really strict on the diet.

“Body fat testing, it was every Tuesday. You couldn’t go up. If you did go up, you’d be doing extra running.”

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Then recalling Spurs’ trophy win under Ramos, Lennon continued: “It was magical, honestly, the whole build up to it that year, it felt like it was going to be our year.

“I remember when we beat Arsenal in the semis, it felt like something special was happening.

“Like I said about Juande, he tactically was unbelievable. He prepared things really, really well.

“His in-game tweaking of things that he could change was what he was brilliant at. He did that throughout a lot of big games.

“He’s really, really clever, and I think that definitely was one of the reasons we managed to win that game, and also the quality. We had some good players as well in that squad.”

Juande Ramos’ record at Tottenham compared with Harry Redknapp

As mentioned, Levy replaced Ramos with Redknapp, a manager who enjoyed his own success with the club even if he wasn’t able to win a trophy.

And in truth, when comparing the win rate of the two Spurs managers, it is pretty night and day.

Ramos will always have a special place in Tottenham history because of his League Cup win, but even he seemed to understand Levy’s decision to head in a new direction when results were waning.

Of course, results haven’t been good enough under Postecoglou in north London recently either.

And as a result, Tottenham have sent a clear message to Postecoglou, one that came after the loss to AZ. 

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