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David J Pleat was (born January 15, 1945 in Nottingham) is an English football manager and former player, who now provides Champions League commentary for ITV and occasional commentary for BBC Radio Five Live. He is now a Football Consultant for Nottingham Forest. He has managed Luton Town F.C., Tottenham Hotspur F.C. and Sheffield Wednesday F.C. He used to be a consultant at Portsmouth F.C., but his appointment was on a short-term basis.

Contents 1 Luton Town (1978-1986): First job well done 2 Tottenham Hotspur (1986-1987): Brief but eventful 3 Kerb Crawling 4 Leicester City (1988-1991): Disappointment 5 Luton Town (1991-1995): Few highs and a terrible low 6 Sheffield Wednesday (1995-97): Mixed fortunes 7 Tottenham Hotspur (1998-2004): Back at White Hart Lane 8 Portsmouth (2005): Helping Perrin 9 Nottingham Forest (2006): Helping Calderwood 10 Commentary career 11 Managerial stats 12 External links

David Pleat moved into management in 1978 at the age of 33, taking charge of Second Division strugglers Luton Town. In his fourth season as manager, 1981-82, Luton won promotion to the First Division and remained there for the next ten years. An impressive Luton side, including 1984 PFA Young Player of the Year Paul Walsh, were soon a match for most other English teams. In 1988, two years following Pleat's departure, they beat Arsenal to win the League Cup under the management of Ray Harford. This is the club's only major honour to date. Although the success was achieved under Ray Harford, David Pleat contributed to the success because most of the cup-winning players had been signed by Pleat.

David Pleat's second managerial job was with Tottenham Hotspur, commencing in the summer of 1986 when he left Luton Town after eight years in charge and moved to White Hart Lane to replace Peter Shreeves.

1986-87 was a good season for Tottenham. They finished third in the First Division and reached the FA Cup final, where they faced Coventry City. Tottenham had won all seven of their previous finals, and Coventry had never appeared in a final before, so they were hot favourites to win. But a 3-2 defeat meant that Tottenham ended the season trophyless.

Pleat left the following October after rumours began to circulate that he had been caught kerb-crawling. Indeed, Pleat has a criminal conviction for the offence.[1]

David Pleat's third managerial job, at Leicester City, was far from successful. Amongst the promotion favourites when he became manager in the summer of 1988, by the time he was sacked in January 1991 they were fighting against relegation from the Second Division for the first time in their history. This was largely due to Pleat's inability to communicate his over-elaborate ideas and tactics to the players combined with an unfortunate penchant for playing people out of position while simultaneously alienating large sections of the crowd. Eventually the battle against relegation was narrowly won by his successor Gordon Lee.

In May 1991, David Pleat was named as Luton Town manager for the second time. Their fortunes had slipped dramatically in the previous three seasons, when relegation had been avoided on the very last day of each season. Pleat seemed like the man to secure Luton a place clear of relegation, but instead they were relegated on the last day of the season after ten years in the First Division, missed out on a place in the new FA Premier League and have not been in the top division since. They did reach the FA Cup semi finals in 1994, but failed to make an impact in Division One and Pleat left the club in June 1995 to take charge of Sheffield Wednesday.

David Pleat's first season as Sheffield Wednesday manager was frustrating. He had hoped to mount a challenge for a UEFA Cup place, but instead they were involved in a relegation battle right up to the very last day of the season and finished 15th in the Premiership. Not even the addition of expensive foreign players like Regi Blinker, Orlando Trustfull and Dejan Stefanovic could halt Wednesday's decline.

1996-97 was better. Wednesday were top of the Premiership table after winning their first four fixtures of the 1996-97 season, and Pleat was named Premiership Manager of the Month for August 1996. But they were unable to mount a serious title challenge and finished seventh in the final table, not even enough for a UEFA Cup place. Pleat was sacked in October 1997 with Wednesday battling relegation once again.

David Pleat returned to Tottenham Hotspur as Director of Football in 1998, and was put in charge of first-team affairs for most of the 2003-04 season following Glenn Hoddle's dismissal. Tottenham secured a 14th place finish, but there was never any question of Pleat getting his old job back on a permanent basis and he was ousted by new sporting director Frank Arnesen in May 2004.

Towards the end of the 2004/05 season David Pleat returned to English football, working for Portsmouth in a temporary consultancy role under new manager Alain Perrin. This role ended at the close of the season.

On August 11, 2006, Pleat was installed as a consultant/Director of Football for Nottingham Forest, where he will work with current Forest manager Colin Calderwood.[2]

Pleat has since begun a career in commentary, mostly for midweek Champions League matches on ITV.

Pleat's commentary style has developed a cult following among fans as he appears to have an unhealthy interest in the heights of players. Viewers notice that Pleat will reference the dimensions of a player, on average, at least once every 7.5 minutes. The most famous example of this was when asked, by his co-commentator Clive Tyldesley, to discribe the subtle differences in play between Kanu and current Arsenal striker Adebayor, Pleat replied "Well Clive, I think Kanu is a little bit taller." This fetish has also carried over into his column on The Guardian's website "David Pleat's Chalkboard" [3] where he lavishes praise upon Manchester United's Dutch goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar thus, "he is as good making stunning blocks with his tall frame as he is with quick foot movement to collect crosses."

Another favourite topic is the 'width' provided by 'fullbacks' getting forwards. This is mentioned at least once every game.

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				G	W	L	D	Win %
Luton Town		January 25, 1978	May 16, 1986	375	146	125	104	38.93
Tottenham Hotspur		May 16, 1986	October 23, 1987	71	39	21	11	54.92
Leicester City		December 24, 1987	January 29, 1991	153	49	60	44	32.02
Luton Town		June 6, 1991	June 14, 1995	202	55	81	66	27.22
Sheffield Wednesday		June 14, 1995	November 3, 1997	102	32	40	30	31.37
Tottenham Hotspur		September 7, 1998	October 1, 1998	6	3	1	2	50.00
Tottenham Hotspur		March 16, 2001	April 2, 2001	2	1	1	0	50.00
Tottenham Hotspur		September 21, 2003	June 3, 2004	39	16	16	7	41.02

• David Pleat management career stats at Soccerbase

Preceded by Harry Haslam	Luton Town manager 1978-1986	Succeeded by John Moore
Preceded by Peter Shreeves	Tottenham Hotspur manager 1986-1987	Succeeded by Terry Venables
Preceded by Jim Ryan	Luton Town manager 1991-1995	Succeeded by Terry Westley
Preceded by Trevor Francis	Sheffield Wednesday manager 1995-1997	Succeeded by Ron Atkinson
Preceded by Glenn Hoddle	Tottenham Hotspur manager 2003-2004	Succeeded by Jacques Santini