The Joy of Tottenham
Let’s get a little crazy here.
No strikers, no midfield, no defence, no pressing, no discipline, no tempo, no synergy, no purpose, no dynamism, no togetherness, no leadership, no style, no identity.
Dull. Transitional. Fragmented.
The injuries have also left us toothless, to add insult to…er…injury.
It would have been the same under Mauricio Pochettino. Stop expecting Jose Mourinho to get ‘something’ out of these players with immediate impact. Everyone is obsessed with the here and now. Remember some of you wanted Poch out after six months. Some of you still questioned him after five years. Football isn’t easy, it isn’t meant to be. If it was you wouldn’t get anything out of it. No adversity, no growth, no learning curve. No sense of progression and conquering demons. No pockets of glory. No limbs that are worth breaking. No scenes worth reminiscing.
Today is sadly different to yesterday. There is no project at Spurs. You can’t even quantify it as homework. We’ve done a copy and paste, a duplicate of someone else’s work with scribbles and guesses from older test papers. The questions and answers don’t match up.
Not everyone can be elite. Not everyone can be spoilt. These are riches very few ever set eyes on, let alone touch. The stars aligned and not only did we zoom in on them, we almost…almost…took them all for ourselves, proving that dreaming isn’t a make-believe reality. On this occasion the eclipse left us with no shining light. We lost the spark in the darkness.
That’s why everyone hates Spurs fans, right? Because once upon a time (not that long ago and for decades and decades) we kept believing, not demanding or expecting, that we might just get things right. No petulance just perchance. We’re the fuel in the tank and a certain driver took hold of the wheels and turned us electric. It felt right, it wasn’t perfect and ultimately in the end it wasn’t enough. The hybrid has run out of juice.
It was Poch, it was his team. His reflection. Ultimately, the mirror cracked. The flaws, the blemishes, no amount of make-up could cover the decay. This team? This is the remnants of a side not trying to rediscover or reclaim the past but it’s one that is seeking to look to the future with eyes shut. So instead of waiting for a renaissance, allow the slow chugging cold reboot to warm things up again.
Be patient. It’s not a sign of weakness. It’s an awareness. A cradling of the truth. We need a rebuild. We needed one after the CL final. We needed the foundations for that rebuild to be designed a season or two earlier. But when you ride that wave you’re not thinking about the next one, you’re not even thinking about the wipe-out. You’re in the moment, you know you could drown, but in that very moment you’re as big as the wave you’re riding. Tomorrow there might not be a big wave. There might be no waves at all.
What we don’t need is an autopsy after every game. The same micro-aggressions repeated ad infinitum. Our new signings, had they come in, say, two seasons ago, would have found a more settled and accommodating environment. Instead, their form and fitness is under constant scrutiny as though the weight of all our problems should firmly be placed on their shoulders.
Sure, all I desire, is that essence of what it is to be Tottenham. You know what I mean. That true defining socks rolled down, shirts tucked out swagger and swashbuckle. Pulsating, push and run. We’ve always had it, even in the midst of mediocrity. It’s comforting. It’s the true definition of what it is to be Spursy. What we have now isn’t. In a perverse way, this state of flux might prove to be a means to an end.
Alas, sometimes we fall apart. In this case, we had something and it’s now broken beyond repair. It’s in pieces. We can’t stick it back together. What we had was a culture of strength; physically and mentally. That often over used philosophy, on the pitch and in the stands, cultivated as one; a singularity. It was generational. It was unique. it was…irreplaceable? We took it for granted. It’s curator and owner took it all for granted. So did we, always thinking it would be on display for us to enjoy and crow about.
That culture and the joy it radiated is better suited as a painting that now sits dust covered in the loft. It should not be hidden away, it should be seen by the world to pay homage to. In another life time perhaps. Now it’s an artefact, a relic. A museum piece rather than the centrepiece. In the mean time, we all wait for a new masterpiece. An original, not a copy or God forbid a forgery and definitely not having to dust down that memory from the loft and changing the signature in the corner.
We’re going to need a new canvas and a new palette. We’re going to need some new paints. We also need a few tools, a little instruction and a vision in our mind. Add to it some titanium white, straight from the sharp blade of a knife.
We’ll have to wait and see if the current brush and its old hard worn bristles can produce, at the very least, no mistakes but instead happy little accidents. Turn a blemish into a bird. After-all, you need the dark to show the light although in our case, we might have to wash the brush to have to beat the devil out of it.
We need to mix it up right? Be more expressive. More expansive. We have unlimited power on a new canvas. We can literally, literally move mountains. Right now though, what we’re painting can be punished. Right now, there are no new paints or tools. There is no titanium. Just dried up paint that’s lost its colour.
We are not being true to ourselves if we don’t admit this.
Being patient, obviously in this constantly angry modern world of non-face-to-face communication, wont get your voice heard over the digital social landscape. So find your scapegoat and knock yourself out with the same poisonous venom that you enjoy tasting in your throat as you spit your anger out for everyone to swallow.
Supporters will target the chairman (too easy) yet the very same vocal pitchforkers lauded the Mourinho appointment as if it was going to magical fix everything instantly. As if they and Jose didn’t know how things work in N17. In fact, as I’ve often defaulted to, it’s best to let your mind go on a sabbatical (much like our players have) and wake up in time for the summer and Mourinho’s proper first full season. Then we can go to work on the occasional autopsy and dissect the body of evidence because at that point, there is no debatable excuse to reference.
If there’s one constant in football it’s hypocrisy.
Whether Jose is the right fit for a rebuild is a question I think we all know the answer to. He’s more likely to be a catalyst. One that might still produce a positive from the negativity festering on the pitch and in the stands. But a positive that will be hold the heavy burden of the very same hypocrisy we often ridicule others for. What is a football club if it isn’t its fanbase and what is a fanbase without tradition and heritage and history? What is football without enjoyment? In those moments. Of course, there’s also sacrifice and that’s where patience has to kick in.
There’s a twisted irony here, Daniel Levy thinking of the same here and now that a substantial chunk of our supporters are equally obsessed with.
We’re a mess. On and off the pitch. But it’s our mess so let’s all try to f**king own it. Together.
The bad times make the good times better and ‘our’ bad time currently is maybe not finishing in a CL position. As someone grand and wise once said; gotta have a little sadness once in a while so you know when the good times come. I’m waiting on the good times now…