Ruthless Ramos has golden touch

MANAGERS, or the best ones at any rate, are alchemists. Their ability to transform base matches into precious points is what makes them so highly coveted and Juande Ramos, whose €7.8million-a-year salary reputedly makes him the best paid coach in world club football, is proving something of a bargain for Tottenham Hotspur.

This match was ambling to an apparently inevitable goalless draw when Ramos decided to intervene. An audacious double-substitution, including the removal of a centre-back for a centre-forward, broke the shackles on Spurs and in the space of 120 seconds, the manager’s replacements had turned one point into three.

Ramos did not seem surprised. He appears to come from the school of management that interprets shows of emotion as signs of weakness, and is content to leave the leaping and wailing to his more traditionally Latin assistant, Gustavo Poyet.