What do you want?
Spurs News 24/7Another typical entertaining home performance from the mighty Tottenham. Okay, so remove entertaining and perhaps strike-out mighty and we'll be closer to the truth. The truth that has more or less been with us through out the league campaign so far.
It's hardly been exhilarating and it's not got anywhere close to epitomise the Blanchflower and Nicholson ethos. Then again, that ethos took ten years to solidify into silverware and its accompanying iconic glory that is still being spoken about today. From push and run in the early 50s to the double in the early 60s. Don't fret, not comparing our currently slow brooding pedestrian evolution to conclude with such epic glory, but patience still retains its importance. If a fix for every given problem can be found and implemented then it would. But our progression is going to have to be measured in tens of games and not from one to the next.
Remember when Andre Villas-Boas first started out at the Lane? Some fans wanting him gone within a handful of games? Difference between then and now is that we win games. Even the ones that are won ugly count. We hardly ever lose games when comparing to any Spurs side from the past 20 or so years. We are hard to beat. Sure, we find it hard to beat one or two and have to rely on ye old penalty to save the day.
God forbid we forge a winning mentality as a foundation to allow for more expressive and expansive football later on. Spurs might not be as free-flowing when that eventuality happens (I'm confident it will) but they will possess the ability to contain and to frustrate teams perceived stronger than us in the chase for top four/the title.
That ethos, the Spurs way of playing football; Can you place your hand on your heart and seriously say you would be content to say play it but always end up as pretenders not contenders?
Just think about that for a moment.
Now personally, hand on heart, I'd support Spurs in any league playing any brand of football but like you I'm most content when we are all flair and trickery. It's our identity. It's our tradition. It's what we love and adore. From teams to individual players. But as much as this is part of our history and synonymous with our club, so are those other footnotes. The ones we prefer not to linger on too often. The calamitous defending, the choking, the unnecessary off the field dramas. When we get it right, it's glorious when we don't it's heart wrenching. But then that's also part of our identity. You know the one, the one about how the bad times make the good times feel ever better.
Fact is, since that taste of Champions League football, actual tangible success has became a reality. If you expect that potentiality to become reality, don't expect it to happen over night. Why? Because it took us long enough to taste that single season of adventure in Europe's elite competition.
I'm not being apologetic here. I'm not saying we - players and coach - should not be above criticism or that the things that are wrong now should not be pointed out. Football is all about opinions and perspective and most of the time we watch the same game but see different things.
We need to be more than just a side with style. We need substance. Since Jol, hiccups included, we have been on the up. I still see us looking up now. There have always been very organic reminders that something has to change. Under Redknapp our collapse in form was the hint that he had take us as far as he could. Under AVB, there hasn't been such a fatalistic conclusion because we are still at the very beginning of his tenure.
Overly dramatic? That's Spurs for you.
This is what happens when you aspire to contend. When a coach attempt to instil a new philosophy and culture. We can't play the 'Spurs' style and challenge for the title. We've been trying to do that since 1961 and have failed. I guess you could say there is nothing wrong with that. Echoes of glory, right?
No wonder we're so confused. We want the best of both worlds and have no time to find somewhere accommodating in-between.