It’s a funny old game. Only a few years ago I was routinely chastened by my moral overlords within the Spurs fanbase for not being much of a fan. This is was based upon unchecked contempt for the ENIC regime that was more interested in making money than lifting trophies. Nobody wanted to read about Daniel Levy’s hands-on involvement in the non-football related purchases stretches of Haringey, nor about the manner in which it was all done. A small local business had the audacity to get in the way and such levels of hate began to pressurize, that an arson attack took place. Anyone that was against the Big Hurrah was an enemy.
Nobody wanted to read about the debt which in the final analysis had become generational. Instead, the Stubborn mixed it up with the Millennials and it was decided that things had never been so good.
Pochettino was emotionally overinvested in by supporters, but underfunded financially by his master. That was another situation that gradually blew up like an old boiler; despite me spending years telling you that Levy did the buying, it took Mauricio to blow his last gasket in a presser and reveal that the Hurrah Fans had been wrong all along. There was no committee. Maybe they should change his job title to avoid further confusion.
Regrettably, I was right, and everyone that wasted their time arguing with me was grimly wrong. The stadium build before trophies has proved to be classic cart before the horse moment as predicted, saddling us with a debt that has eclipsed all imaginings. This is wholly separate from the Coronavirus business which of course very few had predicted, although I remain utterly bewildered that insurance against such a pandemic was freely available as a commercial product, as subscribed to by the tennis bods down in Wimbledon, and yet THFC, whose largest sponsor was and still is… an insurance company, declined it. The most valuable things in my life are insured, aren’t yours?
Pochettino of course, was left to swing in the breeze, unfunded and left to serve up some extraordinarily dysfunctional football with a squad of players who had truly had their moment and missed it. The Champions League final was so bad a spectacle, that a certain band of Harrah Fans adopted a bizarre psychological coping strategy, and chose to pluck out the come-back game against Ajax as the everlasting memory of another nearly moment – instead of the reality.
The later football under Poch, I repeat, was awful. The players had run their race and truth be told, after some three and half years of hearing the same messages from the same faces, the squad was mentally tired of the whole wretched shebang and the side that lost to Liverpool in Madrid was finished before the teams stepped out to play. Jeez, Pochettino even dropped the heroic Moura for the off-colour Kane. That told us where the club’s head was at the time. So much for enjoying the ride. Spurs were just going round in circles, occasionally making one a bit queezy.
The swinging Pochhtino was finally cut down from the beam he had once trodden quite deftly. Enter stage left the panto villain, José Mourinho. Part-time serial winner, full time divisive.
The All or Nothing television shows made uncomfortable viewing for lots of people. One was Daniel Levy, who would have undoubtedly involved himself in the production with the same meticulous detail he applies to everything in his professional life. Only a handful of Pochettino minutes avoided the cutting room floor. That filming would have undoubtedly shaped his thinking.
Hurrah Fans were instead presented with a whole series of unedifying stuff that didn’t fit in at all with the Hurrah Brief. Dele Alli was tragically lazy, a boy more interested in a puerile debate over chocolate bars than impressing a coach whose haul of trophies ought to have instantly commanded his respect. Harry Kane was troubled by the lack of collective responsibility in the group. Finally, the bubble was well and truly burst when Mourinho told the nice boys that they needed to stop being nice boys and start being a bunch of [insert industrial naughty word here].
Fast forward to this season and we witnessed some absolutely fantastical moves in the transfer window, which either indicated that Steve Hitchen had been locked ina broom cupboard for the duration or that Mourinho had managed to comprise a wishlist of players that he felt matched the objectives he needed to achieve, but on a budget that was realistic. After all, the Special One would have sat and watched like the rest of us over the years, as Levy routinely failed to secure transfer targets. José’s list had to be so easy, that even a man who regularly practiced peeling a Terry’s Chocolate Orange in his pocket in his spare time, would be capable of securing the names.
The players arrived, and Spurs looked more than occasionally reinvigorated. Sonny and Kane produced so many goals and assists it was breathtaking just adding them all up. Despite this quite firey rebirth, there remained grave doubts over the style of play that achieved it. Manchester City, for example, were beaten by two clear goals in a game that was rather like one of those cheffy deconstructed dishes where the rhubarb, the crumble, and the custard are all served on the same plate, but in three odd-looking spheres. Spurs even topped the table on and off for a few days.
Now we are looking at a team that isn’t quite satisfying any examination. Tottenham is neither nice boys nor a bunch of [insert industrial naughty word here]. The Hurrah brigade have been in like Flynn, spouting inexorable outrage about the lack of ride enjoyment to be had under the prehistoric Portuguese Pulis. The same coach that in his last impossible role at Old Trafford lifted 3 pieces of silverware. The same coach that started so comparatively brightly, on the results front, anyway.
As for style; this, as in life is an incredibly subjective area, and those who cannot cope with José’s ought do as I prescribed previously, and stop watching us live, and opt instead for the highlight reels. That way, you get all the sweetie and very little of the wrapper.
We would be told that Mourinho has been found out and much darker shades of fruitcake theories are to be found on Twitter, the home of the unrelentingly hysterical vox pop.
The truth, if there are those who can cope with another dose, is that uniformed yelps and squeals are unhelpful. They must be ignored. As ought any form of weirdo propaganda that is based upon fantasy. What is useful is context and healthy doses of the stuff.
Harry Kane is playing too many games because Carlos Vicinious isn’t good enough, and beyond that blindingly obvious fact, the squad still has far too many of Pochettino’s ghouls haunting it. Eric Dier is fundamentally unreliable. Erik Lamela is still threatening to play at an acceptable level some 7 years after first signing for us. Harry Winks’ role remains unfathomable. Dele Alli has become a Dele Alli tribute act. The most obscene inconsistency is without a fraction of doubt, is Gareth Bale. Never has so much cash been set fire to with just one Dunhill lighter. Another box office blunder from Levy who, when he does occasionally does dig deep, he spends with all the aplomb of drunken lottery winner. He blew the Bale money on players that didn’t work and didn’t win anything. He blew a billion on shopping centre with a football pitch in the middle of it (which wasn’t comprehensively insured) and is now blowing a quarter of a million pounds a week on a player that is inarguably well past his sell-by date. All 3 if these decisions smack of refusing to take reasonable and sound advice from anyone, and after 20-years in charge you can bet there is no one left to provide such guidance.
Mourinho must be compared to ensure context, and surely fair example is that of Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool, who too had a squad which needed licking into something with an identity. It is fair comment that many of us would manage to spot Tottenham in a crowded street, given how indistinct they can occasionally be. Klopp started his tenure at Anfield in 2015. Perhaps the German’s early years were dogged by naysayers who missed Gérard Houllier or Rafael Benítez, who won them trophies? I don’t know, I don’t follow that team. I would welcome anyone who can make a substantive contribution to that part of the conversation.
Where does this leave us now? The only credible pathway is that of reason and this requires an acceptance that in football there are no such things as overnight successes, and that that past is a place occupied by the discarded and the dead. If Mourinho is to deliver trophies, which is what any normal fan of professional sport wants, then he must be given the time and the tools with which to work. Instead, we are a year in, and in the main, all I have heard to date is an awful lot of bleating.