Tottenham Hotspur’s European season is over as the north London club following UEFA’s ruling on their postponed match against Stade Rennais would be considered a forfeit.
Following a COVID-19 outbreak within the squad, Tottenham’s match against Rennes on December 9th had to be postponed and needed to be played before the end of the year, but that won’t be occurring.
As a result, UEFA deemed that Tottenham lost their match to the French side by a final score of 3-0 under Annex J.3.1 to the Regulations of the UEFA Europa Conference League.
Spurs did comment on the matter as a spokesperson for the club stated their disappointment on the ruling.
“We are disappointed by the ruling of the UEFA Appeals Body and the refusal to allow more time for the match to be rescheduled,” the statement said, which was relayed by The Athletic.
“We have to accept this ruling, however, and our focus now turns to the competitions we remain in.”
Tottenham will now focus on their domestic competitions, looking to finish in the top four in the Premier League and the FA and EFL cup matches. Manager Antonio Conte will look to win silverware domestically while also hoping to place Spurs into a Champions League spot for next season.
The January transfer window will tell us all. If Levy and ENIC pull their usual stunt of fudging and not investing and supporting the manager then it is game over yet again and tbh it will deflate Conte to the extent that he will walk at some point. My only hope is that Levy will be concerned about the flack he will receive if he does not back Conte and he may be forced to be seen to back him. If we can bring in some really solid quality in a number of positions then we may just scrape a fourth-place spot. Our transitional play from defence to attack is still poor. We break quickly on the counter with Kane and Son but when we play through the team we are slow and turn the ball over far too many times
If we look at where this club currently is and where it has come from these past few seasons, taking into consideration the downward spiral it has been on since the CL final, then losing it’s place in this competition is no disaster.
The European competition performances collectively since that time have shown to be below standard and worse, with little if any excuses to fall back on. The squad which has looked tired, worn out even for a couple of seasons, appears to be showing some signs of a recovery under Conte, and coming out of the ECL could prove to be a blessing instead of a distraction and I don’t say that easily.
The very fact of giving up on a competition is not the way, I wouldn’t normally, but we are all in unique circumstances with Covid restrictions and the travelling issues surrounding it causing so many problems, therefore maybe, just maybe the concentration on all the domestics for once could prove beneficial in more ways than one.
Levy of course may well be disappointed in losing matchday revenue if we had progressed in Europe, but long term it could work out better for the players and club should we qualify for the CL or EL proper next season.
I think there are more positives than negatives following UEFA’s decision, however that will depend on how the season pans out, it cannot be denied that this squad needs some adjustment and the winter transfer window will tell us if we are wanting to progress or not.