Mihir Bose in the Telegraph:
‘the Leeds story has echoes of Tottenham in 1991. Then, too, there was a once great club in deep financial trouble and if Ridsdale's answer is Woodgate, Tottenham had an even greater asset - Paul Gascoigne, whose sale would certainly have saved the Irving Scholar regime. Just as Ridsdale flew to Spain to get Venables, in 1987 Scholar had flown to Florida to get Venables as his manager and was beguiled by Tel, before they fell out.
In 1991 newspapers were full of stories denouncing Scholar, much worse than the treatment Ridsdale is getting, and Venables was presented as the saviour who would ensure Gascoigne would not be sold. In one libel action brought by Scholar against the Daily Mail, which Scholar won, Venables went into bat for the newspaper and said under oath that he first thought of buying Tottenham as a way of trying to prevent the sale of Gascoigne.
But, when he achieved his ambition and bought Tottenham with Alan Sugar, one of his first acts was to negotiate the sale of Gascoigne, which was justified as good business for Tottenham.
Five years later, having bought 51 per cent of Portsmouth for £1, Venables wasted no time in selling Lee Bradbury to Manchester City for £3 million, claiming for himself a performance bonus of £300,000. Again good business.
Can it seriously be argued, even allowing for the sales, that his Leeds team is less gifted than Southampton or Everton?
Now is the time for Venables to stop talking about trust and honour and prove that he really is the world class coach his media friends claim.’