I think there's something in that.
I always remember around the time that we signed Tino, I read this article by Brian Clough in one of the tabloids. He said that when he was manager of Notts Forest, during their title-winning season, he was very tempted to make sure of success by buying another player towards the end of the transfer window. In the end, he decided to hold his nerve, because a new player at that stage might be difficult to integrate, and might be seen by his existing squad as a vote of no confidence in them. For those reasons, he decided against entering the transfer market, and he now had similar doubts as to whether it was wise for Keegan to buy Tino.
We'll never know for sure whether things would have turned out differently if Keegan had done differently, but I've since been inclined to think that Clough made the right call. Tino was a good player all right, but he wasn't the player we needed. Including him meant that the Sir Les - Pedro partnership, which had been so fruitful, was disrupted, with Beardsley being pushed out right. The weak link in the side, and the player that should have been replaced, was Gillespie. We needed a wide player.
I recently saw an interview with Sir Les, where he himself said that changing the line-up to bring in Tino was a significant error. It's not that Tino can be held 'to blame'. It's just that he was the wrong player at the time.
Sir Les was brilliant and I've got all the time in the world for him, but the truth is he wasn't able to adapt his game to play alongside Tino. Which is not really surprising and can easily lead one to think it was the wrong decision.
Personally I thought Les went missing in the second half of the season whereas Tino seemed to be fine when the pressure was on. That finish against Liverpool in th famous 4-3, he was cool as a cucumber. So yeah, while I'm a big Les fan, think that wasn't quite the whole story there. Those figures for goals and finishes bear out his effectiveness and I agree with Optimistic that he got scapegoated a bit.
Ferdinand stopped hitting the back of the net, Beardsley started to show his age, but personally I thought the introduction of Batty to the team had more of an impact than Asprilla. Batty was a good player no doubt, but I think the dynamic of the team changed and we were a better team with Clark in the middle. A half decent keeper and we would have wrapped the title up as well.
Still hurts like a motherfucker.