Well! No apologies for starting with the gift that keeps on giving: the never-ending, ever-more-bizarre soap/rope-a-dope opera that is Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. We are, as I may have mentioned before, beyond a shambles, providing vastly more entertainment off the field than on.
Admittedly, the people laughing the loudest are our deadly rivals Arsenal, on course to win the premier league title and, possibly, three cup competitions; West Ham, who loathe us and would love to see us relegated; Nottingham Forest – we seem to have replaced them, with their volatile Greek owner, as the top division’s top basket case; and Leeds United, who must fancy their chances of staying above us as we continue to self-destruct in spectacular style.
Style. Ah, yes. We pride ourselves on our style at Spurs but there’s no sign of that – or any class – at the moment. We got rid of the unfortunate Thomas Frank and brought in Igor Tudor, a big, brooding Croat who was meant to be a quick fix, rescue merchant. He’s been in charge for four matches, all lost and has managed to make things worse with a pall of gloom hanging all over the club.
Reasons to be cheerful? None. And it’s showing.
Outside in the cold: still sweeping up the carpet-munching blighters. Think I’m winning this one. Fingers crossed
I’ll spare you all the gory goalie details from our last game, a 5-2 defeat in Madrid, against Atletico. Suffice to say it made headlines across the world – and not in a good way, you couldn’t make it up. If our young reserve goalkeeper, tipped for the top by some of the best but thrown in to the cauldron of the Metropolitano with barely any prep, then subbed after 17 minutes (and three goals conceded, two of them entirely his fault), recovers his equilibrium, he’ll have a long and distinguished career. Goalies need a special resilience anyway and if public humiliation early on in their career doesn’t give them the screaming abdabs, they’re made of the right stuff.
The teasing, nay, mockery (of the club, not the goalie who’s received a lot of sympathetic support) is relentless and some of it is very funny, particularly from the Spurs fans getting their retaliation in first. There is one video of a guy in his car, at the start of next season, being asked by his friend where he’s off to. “Lincoln,” sez he.
“Lovely. Going on holiday?”
“No.”
“You’ll love Lincoln, it’s got a castle, a cathedral, it’s really mediaeval. Beautiful.”
“I’m not going on holiday.”
“City break?”
“No, I’m going to a match.”
“Ah, Lincoln City. One of those Cup matches, the FA Cup is it?”
“No.”
“One of those other Cups?”
“No.”
“Friendly?”
“No. It’s a league game.”
“What! Lincoln City are in the Premier League?”
“No.”
“Oh. Ah……….”
There follows a long list of the places that Spurs will be going to, many of which they haven’t been to for years, nay, decades. Then the friend, who’d pretended he wasn’t really up to speed with it all, delivered the killer line:-
“Well, at least you won’t have to take all those batterings from Arsenal and Chelsea….”
Ho. Ho. Ho.
More important things to worry about: it’s The Big Plastic Count week, so I’m trying to keep track and help change our bad habits.
Igor, sadly robotic, is not spreading joy and if anything, has managed to put even more of a dampener on the proceedings. He was brought in to get points, to save us from relegation and so far? Nul points. Even I could do a better job. As somebody pointed out it’s not a coaching job, it’s a building confidence job, a generating a teensy weensy bit of optimism job, a smile here and there job. And I’d do it for nothing. There are still plenty of football people around to do any basic coaching.
Perhaps we could borrow Sarina Wiegman from the Lionesses until the end of the season – she’s a proper football person with tactical nous and, more important, she’s a people person too and seems to be human. Then, to rebuild, perhaps we could tempt Robbie Keane from Ferencvaros or Kasper Hjulmand from Bayer Leverkusen. Admittedly, he’s Danish and our last Dane didn’t fare so well but….
There’s always prayer I suppose…
Hjulmand, known for being tactically astute, was in charge of Denmark at Euro 2020 when Christian Eriksen (not long left Spurs) had his cardiac arrest on the pitch and the boss handled the whole situation with great class and compassion. His team reached the semi-finals, at Wembley, where they were narrowly beaten by England.
However, what really caught my eye when I looked him up was a quote from Simon Kjaer, the Denmark captain, who said to Hjulmand: “You see the person before the football player and at the same time you’re insanely ambitious.”
Sounds like a formidable combination to me.
I don’t suppose he’d fancy a stint in the Championship, so we’d better try and scrape together a few points in our remaining nine league games. We’re away at Anfield next, never a happy hunting ground for us and, alarmingly, we still have to play Forest and Leeds at home. At our home and it’s alarming because we’ve been so appalling there that I think we season ticket holders should be given our money back.
The season ticket renewal email arrived on Wednesday and there was no mention of even a discount to compensate us for our suffering, though the price has been frozen and we were thanked for our “incredible support”.
The statement also included the following: “We recognise the seriousness of the current league position of our men’s team and, following discussions with our Fan Advisory Board and the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust, can confirm the renewal window for 2026/27 will now remain open for an extended period until Sunday 7 June to ensure fans have full clarity on next season before renewing.”
Clarity? A quality that seems to be distinctly lacking at the football club…
Oh well. Apologies for all the footy folly. COYS.
Beacon Park: a calming scene after all the chaos.
I feel your pain but poor me, West Brom are my team and have been since 1954.
Oh Ivan, I have a lot of friends and family who are also Baggies fans but you, like us, might just sneak away from the dreaded drop. Fingers crossed. Hope springs eternal and all that.