A Spurs marriage that was never likely to have a happy ending

Football FanCast guest columnist Luke Preston won’t be sad to see the back of Roman Pavlyuchenko.

Say what you want about Roman Pavlyuchenko but no one can ever accusing him of being a trouble maker or stirring things up behind the scenes, because this player throughout his time has said it how it is and never worried about giving his opinion, whether it be the English weather, food, or letting Jonathan Woodgate know he has no style after Woody took the wee-wee out of his Armani suit.

Some call honesty a decent trait and I for one do, but in the right context and there are times you should keep your view to yourself, especially when the people you are having a pop at are paying you a rather handsomely on a weekly basis. I can understand Roman’s frustrations, but I can guarantee they are not half as bad as the ones that supporters have suffered with a player that has made no attempts to get acquainted with the English game, look to learn the language to a decent degree so it will enable him to adjust to his surrounds and make it easy to settle in. I mean the club invested £14m to bring him to White Hart Lane; a figure that we have no chance of recouping at any stage and yet what have we got for our return apart from a grumpy, sulking footballer who isn’t prepared to adjust to his surrounds.

Pav has been a big disappointment and the very fact that Hiddink, past coaches and even his agent has suggested that his head isn’t right at times tells the sorry tale of a footballer, who wants to be treated with professionalism by his coaches and club, yet clearly fails to show it return. He has bitched today about Redknapp shunning him out, but the fact of the matter is that Harry has consistently only put his effort and drive behind players who want to pull their weight for the cause. Pav hasn’t been singled out as the likes of Bentley and Dos Santos have also seen Harry’s cold shoulder and that is the way he operates where he only has time for those who show application and appetite for the game, Redknapp is very much old school in that respects, therefore having a player that needs an arm round the shoulder all the time was never going to be a marriage made in heaven, especially when we needed players to roll up their sleeves to help stave off the threat of relegation and where he already had three preferred strikers in Defoe, Keane and Bent ahead of him last season.

I wish Pav well wherever he goes and I hope he gets the right club he so craves. Let’s hope he gives them a damn sight more application than he shows us.