It's Christmas, a joyful time of year, but Spurs have done their best to dampen the mood. Craig Harrison looks at what has been a painful end to 2013.
The gift that gives so little
To say it’s been a bit of a rough week as a Spurs fan would be the same as saying that family dinner at the Giggs residence has been a bit awkward recently. An almighty hammering by the team with possibly the gobbiest fans in the league, the sacking of our manager, another defeat by a team with possibly the second most goby fans in the league, and now we’re a few days off playing away to an in-form team just screams banana skin; 8/5 for a Southampton home win anyone?
I am of the opinion that the reason this week has been so particularly awful (aside from the obvious) is that for many people, life outside of Spurs isn’t currently offering much either. It’s Christmas, a joyful time of year, but also an extremely expensive one for a lot of families.
People all over the country get up early each morning, trek to work in the cold and spend all day working in an economy that serves the interests of very few. Football offers an escape for a lot of people who might not have that much else to look forward to or get excited about.
[authquoteleft text=”life outside of Spurs isn’t currently offering much either[/linequote]
Tottenham gives us a project, something to buy into, to believe in, to follow the progress of and to enthuse about. We’re excited to wake up and count the days down until we play again, buzzing about the potential of the next match.
But what happens when the project stutters so spectacularly?
What happens when it derails, and the powers that be make it worse by throwing us into an even faster paced state of floundering by getting rid of the man we looked to in order to make things better?
What happens when the new decision makers still don’t bring positive results, and the wolves on Fleet Street lick their lips in delight at the chance to feast on our misery and flaunt the bloody mess all over the morning’s back page?
The word “numb” has been used in relation to Spurs a lot over the past week. Fans are numb over questions about AVB. Fans don’t know what to say when asked what exactly is going so wrong at Spurs.
Fans are disengaged, left in the dark by the board’s thought process and disappointed time after time at what’s happening on the pitch. The project is spiralling out of control and we don’t know when any sort of normal service is going to be resumed. What are we supposed to do in the face of this?
[authquoteright text=”The project is spiralling out of control and we don’t know when any sort of normal service is going to be resumed[/linequote]
The only light I see is the fact that the current favourite to be our next manager isn’t Fabio Capello or Glenn Hoddle. Frank de Boer’s Ajax play good football and know how to win things, and he has a history with Jan Vertonghen and Christian Eriksen. If the Dutchman takes the reins, maybe he can make things right in our world again, and if not bring the ultimate success that we wanted this season, at least threaten to and give us something to shout about for a few months.
Hopefully his appointment will allow us to escape into football again, and breathe some life back into this project, that most of us have spent all our lives buying into.
What I want this Christmas is a Tottenham we can be proud of again.
[author name=”Craig Harrison” avatar=”https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/378800000836728525/f3a5d00c84b742e292eaf00e1882ae73_bigger.jpeg” twitter=”niYido7″ tag=”CraigHarrison[/linequote]
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6 Comments
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20/12/2013 @ 1:05 pm
FDB has said no I believe : ((
20/12/2013 @ 2:20 pm
As a lifetime Arsenal supporter I know my opinion will be biased. It has been one of the great ambitions of my life to watch the decline of Manchester United so it is good times all around these days, but to see the horrendous misuse of club wealth at Tottenham and how it was sold to their support is like discovering the world’s finest narcotic in endless supply with zero side effects. The level of joy that I felt watching Liverpool end your season and the certain knock on effects that it would have was sublime. Rather than be patient and spend a portion of the Bale money on a much needed defence and the rest towards the stadium, your club went nuts like a sailor on Viagra in Vegas. You cheered as you broke your own transfer record repeatedly but what you were really breaking was the potential of your club’s future.
It is highly unlikely that your club will see such a cash injection and the resulting opportunity again. If the penny of that truth hasn’t dropped yet it surely will soon. Stability is key to success and a club bereft of stability will always be bereft of success. Were you not watching the actions of a great club for so long that you could learn from them? A magnificent new stadium and perennial CL football. How could Levy have thought that he could do it better and faster. Now the money is spent on players who will walk out the door at first opportunity for a lower price. The current top 5 will yield the future top 4. AVB was the patsy for the culture of failure that has been fostered at Tottenham under Levy, and Baldini has sabotaged your best hope for clawing your way out of the shadow realm of being forever Europa League. No great player will want to play for you and no great manager will risk working for Levy. All that awaits you now is a gradual decline speckled with cruel moments of false hope. It is all but set in stone. FFP is a Trojan horse cementing the status quo of which your are not a part of. Yours was one of the first clubs to have a wealthy benefactor and time and again you failed to press your advantage. last year was your peak and the long and painful journey to your inevitable trough is the only Christmas cheer awaiting you like a lump of coal. Embrace it or deny it but remember this:
Dreams of greatness when you are not great yield only madness and grief.
20/12/2013 @ 3:30 pm
Do you realise what a prat you sound, giving it large about success when Arsenal have won nothing for 8 years and you have had NASRI, FAB and then RVP all leave you and immediately win titles. If you think your £43 million pound frog man is going to change things, your very much mistaken. He never wanted to come to you in the first place and he certainly has no respect for your fans, as he’s just shown @ City… bout time you troll off isn’t it?
20/12/2013 @ 2:23 pm
FDB has NOT said no, nor has his agent. They are being very tactful in what they say as he is currently employed by a different club (remember the whole ‘Arry & England fiasco?) and have made all the right PR noises about being fully committed to Ajax, as one would expect. FDB has personally said he is “honoured” to be linked with the vacancy at our club, but you can’t honestly expect him as manager of Ajax to come out bluntly and say “yeah I’m 100% interested and am in talks” as it would be very unprofessional and neglectful of his duty of care at his current post. In my honest opinion, and until concrete proof surfaces it remains just that, I think there are legs to this story. Ajax are a brilliant club, play beautiful football and have a rich history, plus they do make the group stages of the champions league continually. The negative for them is the league they are in. Not the most prestigious or strongest. Plus over 2 seasons we have pinched their best 2 players with whom he is already very well acquainted and mindful of their talents. They way Ajax play would suit the way us Spurs fans want our team to play. Plus with a bigger budget and higher calibre of talent at his disposal, all the tools are in place for him to take what he’s done at Ajax and surpass it, it’s certainly a mouth watering prospect on paper. I see no reason as to why he wouldn’t be interested, sure we’re getting a bit of a reputation as a hire & fire club but I think AVB’s dismissal was more than just results based. Hopefully our chairman will issue a statement in the coming days to clear that aspect up. He fits the bill of what Levy wants going forward from a manager, young and progressive and employs fluid attacking football.
Like I said, he’s not come out and bluntly said “I’m not interested”, he has said he’s “honoured but committed” (as you would expect him to say otherwise he’d be putting himself out of a job!) to his current post. This would be a big step forward for FDB, and for Spurs, providing he was given time to implement his ideals and could forge a harmonious relationship with the chairman/DoF. Wheels will be in motion behind the scenes but for now it’s pretty cloak and dagger. Don’t believe internet page headlines like “FDB rules out move”, he’s done nothing of the sort, he’s just being very careful as to what he does or does not say. WATCH THIS SPACE. COYS!
20/12/2013 @ 2:32 pm
It must be great for Arse plastic bags to come and gloat on a spurs site. It would be you guys, we’d gloat too. But do you really want to take your own club as an example of success , is getting into the top 4 and never really challenging for the important silverware really your norm of succes and glory ? Stability is the key , forgotten how much of a meltdown you guys were having this summer ? Forgotten that players like RVP and Fabregas had to leave your ‘succesfull’ club to win prizes elsewhere ?
A great club ? Do you really think that , or did you just come out of the closet because you’re temporary at the top of the PL ?
My question for you – Is reaching the 1/4 finals of the Champions league really achieving greatness ? And if it isn’t , you’ve been yielding the same madness and grief for over 10 years now. A bit higher up the echolon than we, granted but the likes of Manchester U & C are laughing their heads of at your delusions of grandeur. A bit like you do with ours.
20/12/2013 @ 3:31 pm
Look I’m a gooner and naturally Tottenham going into meltdown is hilarious, but there’s a point here bigger than N5/N17 rivalry. Look at Ferguson, well documented to struggle for 3 years but he had the execs etc largely behind him for the majority of those 3 years. He had belief in what he was trying to do and belief in him from those with the power to sack him and that didn’t turn out too bad hey. I don’t know what you AVB-out lot are expecting from the next 3 years, your club is going to go nowhere; how can you expect instant success from anyone? You sold Bale which is justifiable, you bought 7 players and it’s still not clear how good most of them are. Lamela could be great or could be total wank, Soldado could just need time to settle blah blah.
If Levy is going to hire a manager on a 3 year deal, he needs to have faith in him for the duration of those 3 years. That’s the point of a sodding contract, it’s binding and entrusts a degree of faith in a manager. No messing around with chopping and changing, if you want to make your club anything more than a boom-bust cycle akin to that of the stock economy, you need to stop firing your coaches.
Look at Wenger, the board (for all their faults) stuck with him and as a result we have a massive stadium, £150m of standard commercial income and Mesut fucking Ozil. Arsene gets on our wick sometimes, and we haven’t won trophies in a few years if you didn’t know, but Arsenal have a 60,000 capacity stadium which secures the long-term stability of the club, something which I will benefit from for the rest of my life.
If you are really intending to build a stadium, having Tim Sherwood, Capello or some other short-term no hoper overseeing the project at the Lane probably isn’t the best idea. For a couple of years we were all worried about your potential, but Levy pressed the self-destruct button by firing Redknapp and Villas-Boas.
Probably gonna kill you in the cup now, so enjoy it
UTA