It’s Horrible, It’s a Mess, It’s Tottenham
On Monday, Spurs published their latest financial results. Revenue was down, and the word of the week was ‘sustainable’, as in Daniel Levy’s insistence that the club’s investment in transfers and salaries had to remain within sustainable limits dictated by income. Time flies – it’s Friday and it’s all about Ange’s ear. The team took the chairman at face value – losing at Stamford Bridge is eminently sustainable.
Over the years, I’ve said how this fixture should not be used as the benchmark to judge the team. I wish it were otherwise, that we could rise to the challenge and out-perform our bitter rivals, but for the moment at least, it’s beyond us and we move on. However, last night’s weak, insipid excuse for a performance sadly was indeed typical of how Spurs have been playing lately. Players drifted around the pitch without making any significant impact on proceedings, going through the motions of worn-out tactics that long since ceased to work on motivated opponents ready and prepared to exploit our predictable routines. There was simply nothing there. Nobody achieved anything. Nobody tried to change anything. Maddison was good for five minutes or so near the end. That’s all I’ve got.
I’d describe this as shocking, except I wasn’t shocked. First five minutes, they have a quick striker, long ball down the middle and we’re nowhere. Comedy moments as the ball bounces around and clatters against the post. I shrugged rather than shouted. Such calamity has become the norm.
And so supporters enter that state of purgatory all too familiar to Spurs fans, where we all know the manager will go but we continue to suffer until we can move on. The myths of religion suggest this is to a higher plane, except for Spurs fans it is more likely to be another state of suffering, but I shall cling on to the fragile hope of salvation.
I can’t envisage any scenario where Ange holds his job into next season. ‘When not if’ seems inescapably to be the only question. I take no pleasure in saying this. I wanted this proud, motivated man to succeed. He was right for my club, so I hoped. I applauded his brave, attacking football and his value-base of teamwork and support for his players, plus his passion for the game, a beacon of authenticity in an increasingly dreary, cynical football world driven by greed.
Except it hasn’t worked. Granted, we will never truly know what he could have achieved if not blighted by injuries. However, the benchmark for any manager, at any level, is whether they can create a team where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and in this respect Ange has failed. Indeed, we often play as a group of individuals with little connection or cohesion, and certainly the players’ confidence and ebullience of the early months has become a distant memory.
He’s done nothing to deal with our problems in defence, with too much space in front of the back four and our penalty box defending is shoddy, as was shown last night with their goal, where a midfield player can lurk unnoticed near our 6 yard box. Udogie should have come across but no midfielder tracked that movement. We constantly, predictably give the ball away. Players are easily isolated on the ball and concede possession. This has been going on for a season and a half.
Some of the players are not up to playing to the level he expects, especially in that central midfield area, and we’ll never know why the club did not act to plug those gaps with a different type of player, one who could also release some of the pressure on talent like Bentacur and Sarr, and enable them to flourish. Our attack, once fast and threatening, is now leaden and predictable.
Ange is rattled. He knows that it’s not working and has to face the bitter reality that he has failed. He cuts an isolated figure on the touchline and, as I understand it, within the club itself. The cupping his hand to the ear gesture will only serve to alienate supporters, bearing in mind that broadly within the ground he’s not been subject to significant negativity. Away matches may be different. I hear from good people who go away that at times the atmosphere has been hostile, which includes abuse directed towards the manager and players, some of it racist.
It is hard and I don’t condone personal abuse in any form, but he like any other manager has to understand that it’s not about his personal vindication, it’s about the team, about fans and team together. He’s created them and us, and it’s not on.
Managers come and go, the hierarchy that runs the club, dictates policy and shapes the ethos where at one of the wealthiest clubs in the world, winning something is a secondary, minor consideration, remains the same. Tottenham are a club devoid of ambition and self-belief, and this comes from the top. For the board, failure is indeed sustainable.
Two home games to come including a European quarter final yet optimism is at rock bottom. The mood among supporters is desultory and doom-laden as we watch yet another iteration of our team decompose then disintegrate before our eyes. It’s horrible, it’s a mess, it’s Tottenham.