No axe for Ramos, say Tottenham

Tottenham Hotspur's board yesterday gathered behind Juande Ramos to assure him that he would not become the seventh manager forced out of White Hart Lane in the space of 10 years. The mood from the club's chairman, Daniel Levy, down is that the Spanish coach will not be pushed out the door despite a record of five defeats that has left the club at the bottom of the Premier League.

As the dust settled on a grimly embarrassing home defeat to Hull City on Sunday, sources at Tottenham indicated that they were not about to pin the blame on a manager who arrived less than one year ago. Indeed there is even a sense of collective responsibility at the club that they may have contributed to the chaos of the start of the season with the late sale of Dimitar Berbatov and the failure to sign either of the strikers Diego Milito or Sergio Garcia in the last few days of August.

It has been made clear to Ramos that his job is under no kind of threat for the time being and that nothing has changed in the opinion of Levy in particular from before Sunday's defeat. The Spanish coach is expected to have a few days off over the international break and will not go away with fears about his position. However, little is known about how he feels about his future at Tottenham and if there is a parting of the ways it is more likely to be triggered by Ramos.

There is still a confidence among Levy and Damien Comolli, the club's director of football, that the players they bought this summer are of a sufficient quality to come good in the near future. They do not have any doubt in the ability of the players such as Luka Modric, Vedran Corluka and Heurelho Gomes, but they do acknowledge that a mistake was made over Berbatov and the failure to properly plan for a replacement. There is no appetite to go through the same painful separation that accompanied Martin Jol's departure last year.

Reports that Terry Venables could be making a return to White Hart Lane have been dismissed emphatically in private; that is not a route that the board have any interest in taking. The credibility of Comolli was always tied to that of Ramos – he was responsible for the former Seville manager's appointment – and if it does all go wrong eventually then Comolli would have to accept his share of the blame. However, the current mood is that Levy and Comolli – as well as Ramos – are, eight months on from the Carling Cup final triumph, in this mess together.

There is no sense that Gustavo Poyet, the assistant first team coach who was brought in primarily as a translator, is being lined up as a replacement. If it ever came to that eventuality then the Spurs hierarchy are not convinced that he has the necessary qualities to be a successor to Ramos. The club would prefer it if Ramos was confident enough of his English to do the post-match television interviews but that is not seen as a key concern with two points from seven games. He is understood to speak English in the dressing room – with the help of Poyet.

Other new signings Giovani Dos Santos and Roman Pavlyuchenko will, it has been acknowledged, require time to settle. There is some concern about David Bentley who has so far failed to live up to the £17m billing although he has been shifted around Ramos' team including a stint on the left wing and one at right-back as a substitute against Hull.

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