Here’s a question for you, a real poser. If Mauricio Pochettino was as magical as a legion of Spurs fans and the engraving on his BBQ would have us believe, then what does that make Mikel Arteta?
Poch had a squad that was – subject to treating domestic cup competitions with total destain – capable of routinely clocking in top four receipts for his paymasters and was lauded for doing so by many.
Yet Arteta arrives mid-season with a squad that very few fans outside the Arsenal fanbase would recognize if they sat opposite them on the tube, and the Spaniard wins the FA Cup and secures European football.
The ambitions of the two clubs are poles apart, as it became evident when the Arsenal players slipped into their celebratory shirts with the big number 14 on the back, to signify how many times they’d won that cup.
Spurs used to be a cup side. Which is about as helpful an insight as telling you that I used to be 7lbs and 8 ounces.
Daniel Levy talks about Spurs being sustainable, which is playing to those in the audience that recite ‘wouldn’t want to do Leeds’ to themselves like hail Marys, whenever the fear grips them (Leeds United went bust in 2007 and have been one of the very few football club’s of such stature on the planet to suffer such an indignity since then).
Spurs are to busy trying to look like a big club, that they have forgotten what it takes to truly be one.