As you know, I think the top four last season will be the same top four next May, even if the finishing order changes.

However, if you'd ask me pre-season if there was any team I'd fancy had a chance of breaking into that elite group, I'd have gone for Spurs.

Once again, it shows you what I know about football. The Carling Cup win in midweek was blessed but minor relief.

It's a less than proud Tottenham that is currently adrift at the bottom of the Premier League table.

It's hard to explain the ragged start they've made though allowing Robbie Keane to leave for Liverpool - no matter the less than auspicious beginning he's had at Anfield - and then the lateness of Dimitar Berbatov's departure for Old Trafford have both undoubtedly contributed.

Yes, they've pocketed £50 million and more from the two transfers but at what cost to the team?

How could Juande Ramos build a side that he wants in such circumstances?

Surely, he wouldn't have chosen to sell either player?

However, just as at Newcastle and as at West Ham, where the managers (Kevin Keegan and Alan Curbishley) felt on the outside looking in as players were bought and sold without anyone consulting them, Ramos is dealing with the new 'in' system in English top flight football.

Damien Comolli is the man charged with transfers at Tottenham and here is a prime example of where these arrangements are faltering: where ‘Managers' are not asked to manage anymore in terms of who leaves and who's brought in.

Rather they're asked to acquiesce in decisions made by others not remotely as qualified to judge. It's a joke.

Now, to be fair, Ramos may not be complaining. After all he was accustomed to such arrangements in Spain.

And, if you're used to it, you're more likely to accept it: unless, like Rafa Benitez, you scarper.

At Valencia,Benitez once complained he'd asked for a dining table and had been given a lampshade!

The truth is such arrangements only work when the 'Director of Football', or whatever you want to call him, is appointed by the manager not the chairman or the owner and when their thinking is in tandem with the coach's i.e. the manager says "I need an attacking right-back" and the Director goes and finds one after a discussion about the best possible candidates. Otherwise, there's chaos and the resulting position that Spurs find themselves in.

I don't think Ramos' job as manager is under threat.

Not even Daniel Levy could be that stupid.

The Spaniard is unquestionably highly talented and, even if he doesn't ultimately produce a title-winning team at White Hart Lane, Spurs will be mightily attractive to watch and a good bet for any cup competition going.

But Comolli can't be as secure. Actually, the best thing the Spurs' chairman could do is get rid of him.

Judgement was carried out in the wrong way

I have serious reservations about the judgement handed down regarding Carlos Tevez, West Ham and Sheffield United.

For a start it is a judgement presented by our learned friends and I'd rather keep football out of anything resembling a courtroom.

Further, why should the Daily Telegraph's Henry Winter and Gary Lineker be deemed princes among experts?

I've nothing against either but I don't see why their views stand out in terms of quantifying the role of Tevez in the final few weeks of his time at West Ham, more than anyone else.

All journalists, even former international footballers now in our midst, like to think we're objective but the truth is we're more ‘subjective' than we should be.

However, having outlined reasons why I query what's happened and how it was decided, my view is as it was at the time.

Sheffield United were in the right and were robbed of their place in the Premier League because West Ham were allowed to get away with fielding an ineligible player.

They should have been docked points (and been relegated)and not simply fined.

The Blades deserve every single pound that's coming their way.

FA need to act fast to end horror tackles

I wish the Football Association was more proactive than reactive. It's as if something has to slap them in the face before they get around to doing anything about it.

Seeing Newcastle's Danny Guthrie scything challenge on Hull's Craig Fagan should have been enough.

How typical though that the FA needed another appaling 'tackle' - Boro's Emanuel Pogatetz on Manchester United's Rodrigo Possebon.

It was sickening and we're all relieved that the youngster's leg wasn't broken.

Frankly, I don't care whether or not Pogatetz now says he's sorry publicly and will talk directly as such to the United kid.

At least Guthrie can plead ‘youth' as an excuse: the Boro defender can't.

If the FA can't really throw the book at him (I seem to remember them appropriately hammering the former Manchester City full back Ben Thatcher after his now infamous elbow incident at Portsmouth) then at least they can sort out a means whereby they can impose a sliding scale of punishments, put it to FIFA and get it ratified.

It's overdue.