No grudge with Spurs, says Jol, as Dutchman arrives at Fulham
FULHAM manager Martin Jol insists he doesn’t have any hard feelings towards Tottenham as he prepares for his second stint in English football.
Jol, who officially began work at Craven Cottage on Monday, was unceremoniously shown the door by Spurs in October 2007 just months after nearly taking them into the Champions League.
But the Dutchman has since enjoyed success at Hamburg and Ajax and says he is on good terms with the man who axed him, Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy.
“I won’t lie – I didn’t feel great at that moment,” Jol said yesterday. “Then later on you go to another club, I was in Germany and Hamburg have 55,000 season ticket holders – not 30,000 – it was a big club.
“Then after a few weeks you go on and we played in Europe, we got to the semi-finals [of the Europa League] – we had played in the quarter-final at Spurs. So it was even better, it was nice. There was no looking back or hard feelings.”
Jol will need to call on his Spurs connections if, as has been suggested, he is interested in making striker Robbie Keane, who has fallen out of favour in north London, one of his first signings.
He plans to bring in “four or five” players but will need to act fast as the club’s first match of the season – the Europa League qualifier against NSI Runavik of the Faroe Islands – is in just eight day’s time.