I played under ruthless Tottenham manager – his brutal training demands left player in hospital on a drip
Ex-Tottenham striker Darren Bent has revealed a player collapsed in training under former manager Juande Ramos.
The Spanish coach spent a short but eventful time in charge of Spurs between 2007 and 2008.
The north London team won its sole significant prize since the turn of the century—the League Cup—thanks to Ramos’ inspirational play.
However, Ramos was fired less than a year into his tenure due to an 11th-place Premier League finish and a terrible start to the 2008–09 season.
Bent has said in the past that the boss’s rigorous dietary requirements caused veteran players to turn against him.
When Ramos arrived, the team’s weight was reportedly 100 kg overweight, but that number was cut in half in the first five months.
Bent has now revealed how terrible life was for one player in particular under the Spanish disciplinarian.
“Juande came in and changed things drastically,” Bent recalled.
“He changed the food, the requirements, your body fat, the weight of you.
“It was so tough when he first came, a player, I won’t mention his name, he ended up on a drip.
“Because he had to lose that much weight that quickly, his body was not used to it. A well-known, established player ended up on a drip.
“He went to hospital. This is the thing, I would’ve never looked at him and thought, ‘He’s big’. He was in great nick.
“Juande came in and went for fine margins. There was one meat option in the canteen, one fish option. He [this player] collapsed, he had nothing left!
“The manager came in and said, ‘Where is so-and-so?’ And the physio responded, ‘He’s in hospital, he collapsed’.
“When he came back, he had to maintain it. Fair play to Juande, he wanted everyone at a certain weight and body fat.
“All I can remember was no ketchup. No salt and pepper. All we could have was a bit of olive oil, bit of rice, bit of veg. No crumble.”
Bent’s story comes after Pep Guardiola recently apologised for calling on-loan Manchester City midfielder Kalvin Phillips overweight.
Ramos, however, went significantly further with a stunning attack on his Tottenham squad’s physical condition after his sacking
Speaking in 2014, the former Sevilla and Real Madrid manager said: “It was like a wedding buffet. Cakes, pastries, sauces.
“Honestly, and I say this with no bitterness at all, there were players who were… well, fat. They were sedentary.
A sportsman needs to be in peak physical shape since they are their bodies. Your fuel comes from food.
“An athlete should be using super fuel; if I eat a cake, I’m putting in diesel.”
Naturally, there was some opposition. We observed a young man, maybe 22 or 23 years old, with money in his pocket, thinking, “And this guy’s coming here telling me what to eat.”
“We used to see them at the McDonald’s in Chigwell, where we trained, consuming Coca-Cola and hamburgers.
“I could keep them out of the side if they weren’t at their ideal weight, but I couldn’t go to their houses to see what they were eating.”
