Car Crash
I had plans to write up pocket reviews and observations of all the league games I’ve not blogged about in the days immediately after the results. ‘Had plans’. Yeah, right. I’ve been solely focused on the Champions League. I can’t seem to look away from her gaze, the brazen hussy. I doubt any of you want to relive some of the more gruesome moments from the listed fixtures below. So I won’t share the pocket reviews. Instead, here’s some super pocket reviews, downsized for easy consumption.
Huddersfield. Woeful team, constantly smashed by us in the past two seasons. Going to miss the easy points. Comfortable win. Lucas hattrick. Beautiful scenes with his kid coming down onto the pitch after the 4-0 win.
Man City. Not too shabby a performance all things considered. A 1-0 loss but a free hit as every other 'competing’ top four club dropped points. In terms of emotional hedging, it allows us to live in the hope that Liverpool won’t win the title.
Brighton. Ten men behind the ball, this was never going to be easy. Take into account the forced and required rotation and we had ourselves the antithesis of a barnstormer. Best laugh out loud moment of the game was the visitors attempting to actually play football in our half after Christian Eriksen scored a superb (88th minute) late late winner.
West Ham. Utterly predicable and in a distorted way understandable but also tinged with plenty of ‘Y SPURS Y U DO THIS’ memes aplenty. Was that their first away win in 2019? Probably. You can’t make this up because, well, you don’t need to. Is it me or do we always play them towards the end of every season. I’m thinking it’s a sinister piece of code, an algorithm in the Premier League fixture mainframe to deter Spurs from having an easy run-in mainly because the ‘ammers put their entire identity into this game (home and away). Regardless, they played well. We didn’t. We ended the game with Janssen and Llorente upfront ffs. They’ll be adding this into their history books to go along side beating a diarrhoetic Spurs team in 2006 and blackmailing Bobby Moore into signing a new contract. Tottenham had won 21 consecutive games in N17. Nothing lasts forever and, well, we do often lose to tinpot clubs at home (been a while since we had a throwback to them days).
Upcoming fixture of the week:
Ajax. No Winks, Lamela, Kane, Sissoko or Aurier.
Son suspended.
Someone please hold me. Hold me tight. When you least expect it, that’s when Tottenham deliver. I think. I don’t know anymore. So, I’m hoping Pochettino can muster up some magic. Gonna need to pull out more than a single rabbit from a hat on this occasion.
Imagine a season without injuries to key players. A season where Kane, Dele, Son and Eriksen play more than ten games together. Imagine.
Imagine Daniel Levy giving him a new hat where he can pull out superb understudy’s for all those aforementioned key players that mean we retain a sense of momentum or even rotate earlier in the season to keep those sexy thighs fresh for the end game. Imagine is all we can bloody do.
We’ve been a bit of a mess for months now. Even when we play well we still lose. But way too often we’ve deserved no points based on a subdued and fatigued effort, fragmented further with laboured tactics that are anchored thanks to the lack of options. That ongoing narrative relating to extra dimensions is one that is easily fixed with quality transfer acquisitions. A magic hat.
Which isn’t an easy fix thanks to our laboured strategy when targeting players. I support Poch and his philosophy. The collective is this powerful synergy driving force but we can’t keep pretending it’s enough. We need to find a way past the stubbornness so that we are not struggling for in-season reinforcement. Grealish, Tielemans, Maddison…we don’t need to fixate on marquee superstar signings. Although nothing comes cheap. Bolster up please Levy otherwise we’ll be spending more time in Beavertown rather than watching stagnant progression from the stands.Although this is high level, top tier stagnation. The ilk of which sees us fighting for top four rather than the title. Push out a little further for the latter - like peak Conor McGregor, we’re brilliant with the early round precision and power but go the distance and our cardio leaves us taking a pounding on the ground.
Let’s take a moment to thank a proper shambles of a football club; Arsenal. The bottle jobs. Thank you for giving me a slice of my weekend back. One more win now required. To think them lot down the road had it in their hands after we let it go from ours. No points from Palace, Wolves and Leicester. Conceding three goals each time. They are so poor, such flat-track bullies only winning when the pressure is off. Yet somehow they persist with being in touching distance to us - but of course, only because we allowed it to happen. I guess their supposedly derogatory (lol) nickname for us, ‘spuds’, makes more sense now. Arsenal dropping Champions League qualification like a hot potato.
I’m on one, so I’ll continue.
I’ve never known a fanbase so reliant on being able to gloat about their status, as though following and belonging to your club isn’t enough. But then they don’t follow or belong. They’ve attached themselves like a parasite, a reflection of what their owner has done with the clubs accountancy. Both sucking out the lifeblood like an awoken vampire thirsty after a 200 year old sleep.
Why would you care this much? About bragging rights that belong in the playground? I mean, we all like to give it. It’s a tribal war cry from afar. We give, they give, everyone takes it and so on, on repeat. Much like the West Ham fans are giving it to us at the moment. I can’t deny them that right? But to build your very essence on these foundations?
Yet, it’s so important to them*. I guess this is a consequence of a club with a fraudulent identity and hefty self-entitlement.
*demographic based on vbloggers and fan tv.
We finished above them the first time and we celebrated. It was expected. The gloating was deserved. After that, we're like...*shrug* k, done it again, keep your chill m8. Them lot are like rabid dogs foaming at the mouth wanting to be able to bite back at us.
Of course, we too have weird fans. Wanting Poch sacked in his first season because...I don't know why tbh. I guess you have to be reactionary rather than balanced when you're stuck in front of a camera or posting on social media. All logic is thrown to the (rabid) dogs.
Back on track…
Twelve league defeats is, simply put, pretty unacceptable but once more understandable considering we’ve been pulled apart like a Stretch Armstrong oozing gel. Imagine looking at the table and thinking ‘we could have done with more draws’. Spurs with less draw(er)s than a peak 1970s porn orgy. Pochettino is still magic. You’ve got to be magic considering how we’re fearful of losing it all (top four, semi-final) when once again, we didn’t expect to be here and thanks to ‘no signings’, is it any surprise? Of course if Harry Kane wasn’t out injured, we’d be more comfortable on the pitch and in the stands. But hey, we play better without Harry, don’t we? Hello? Anyone? It’s a shame he’ll miss out on a 5th consecutive 20+ goal Prem season.
As for the next round of league games?
Next week’s fixture list is tinged with a potential twist. We play Bournemouth away. The others?
Chelsea v Watford
Huddersfield v Manchester United
Arsenal v Brighton
Anyone think home win, away win and home win? I don’t think I can handle a ‘must beat Everton’ on the last day of the season to finish top four scenario.
Before all this, it’s the Champions League on Tuesday.
Spurs are on the brink of greatness and if we never make it beyond this point, it is what it is. We are in a perpetual state of chasing the dragon. Lows are a consequence of the highs. Without one you can’t appreciate the other.
This scene from Fight Club is pretty much how I feel about Tottenham at the moment. Which isn’t a bad thing. I think we all have to find our inner Tyler Durden.
“Stop trying to control everything and just let go”
Another relevant quote from the movie is this; “You decide your own level of involvement.”
My involvement is 100% all in. Always. With the highs and especially with the lows.
I’d like to come up please now Tottenham.
COYS