Sherwood - The Undercover Boss

Today sees the next installment of 'weed out the weak' the game being masterminded by Tottenham Head Coach Tim Sherwood.

Now that the reason he was appointed is clear, the how he goes about the task becomes more interesting. Whether the players knew from the start, the certainly figured it out after half a dozen games.
Tim Sherwood the Undercover Boss
Tim Sherwood the Undercover Boss at Spurs

If you a manual worker in an office and give them some office work to do, they will give it their best shot, but it will be obvious this is not a role they are used to. Equally, before I get castigated, give an office worker the manual work and the result would probably be even worse. If it were me for instance you'd have someone with no idea what they were doing, giving it a go and making a complete pigs ear of it.

Tim Sherwood is the Tottenham version of the Undercover Boss. He is in a role that he doesn't know, has asked a bunch of mates to help him, who haven't done the job either, but is there to see what he has within the company. For those of you who don't know the Undercover Boss is a UK reality TV series where a boss goes undercover as a low level emloyee to find out the companies faults.

"They are all men. They all appreciate that I am singing it from the heart, not from the script. I'm not an actor. I work on impulse. I'm just going to shoot from the hip," he says. Well in layman terms that means 'I don't know what I'm doing, I'm guessing.'

Unfortunately the players have now sussed that out and what Sherwood says is now going in one ear and straight out the other. The players are now like a bunch of kids taking a ball to a park and having a kick around with a couple of jumpers for goalposts.

They'll have a laugh and a joke, a bit of fun, they'll try things they wouldn't normally try. Among them however are a group of winners who all want to be on the same side. These guys can tolerate a genuine mistake, they can tolerate someone giving 100% even if they are not very good, what they can't handle are those who don't care.

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Sherwood is stuck with a divided dressing room and has now resorted to shame and embarrassment as motivating factors. Such tactics work once in a blue moon. In his favour today though is one of the biggest games of the season.

If a Spurs player does not try in this game then he is not a Spurs player and won't be for much longer. Today is D Day for some.

There is no place to hide in a North London Derby, a lack of effort and you'll get hammered. Even players not trying don't like being hammered, well usually. We will see 60 minutes of effort, the telling time will come in the last 30 minutes.

That is the danger zone, that is capitulation time, it has been time and time again this season. Will the heads go down, will certain players hide again.

Today is a game of fear. Which Spurs will turn up is anyone's guess. I suspect all 11 will turn up at the start but how many will still be there if Arsenal score. That cannot be counted for, this is not a normal game, but it may be to certain players. If it is then capitulation time could come into play.

Tim Sherwood will be having his fingers crossed all day, he knows what this game means, all 11 have to know what it means. Today is a day they had better understand that or Daniel Levy will be doing his best Alan Sugar impression to a few of them, "You're fired."