The end of those summer nights

For me the summer break began with a sigh of relief to see last season disappearing in the rear-view mirror, with a chance to go ‘on a break’ from the familiar, frustrating, joyless marriage that is being a Spurs fan, and slip off for a sweaty summer romp with a Brazilian mistress.

Something with a bit of excitement, maybe a chance of some kind of Glory, to make myself feel good again. But alas, the promise did not match the reality (nothing to do with us guv, we had no fingers in this England pie), the load was shot early and I found myself sloping in through the back door and waiting patiently for me ol’ cockney sparra to give me some home comforts. I’m sorry for cheating on you Spurs, it didn’t mean anything, there’s only ever been you.

Enough of the infidelity metaphors (I was talking about the World Cup then, just for anyone who can’t read between the lines), what have I learnt this close season, and how do I feel about the forthcoming chapter we shall decadently name ‘Season 2014-15’.

Well summer with the eyes off us (especially those of the gutter of the media) has done us no harm in this time of ‘transition’. No unending transfer speculation that a key player wants out, and not much room on the back pages to link us in any realistic fashion to any particular players (this is changing slightly now, see Esteban Cambiasso, Ben Davies).

[linequote]I’m sorry for cheating on you Spurs, it didn’t mean anything, there’s only ever been you[/linequote]

It just seems like Poch has come in and is taking his time to make himself at home and, understand the lay of the land. He obviously gave the coaches a few weeks, had a chat with them, and decided to keep some and not others.

No Moyes-style purge to flaunt some kind of authority, yet no clinging to ethos’ (ethoeseses, ethoes?) past. That’s a nice situation to have, something Sherwood did not have the novelty of, and let’s face it Poch is going to have a much better overview of where we are, what we have, and what he needs to do than your Louis Van Gaal’s of this world, can United fans really be comfortable with the fact that his focus is so very much away from them?

So what have we learnt about the lads on World Cup duty…well in many ways for me it’s just confirmed what we already suspected: Mousa Dembele is good whilst being ineffective, a player who slows down play and lacks penetration; Jan Vertonghen is not really comfortable at left back, and switches off at important moments.

His teammate Nacer Chadli is technically good, strong, but lacks the edge required to shine; Hugo Lloris is world class; Nabil Bentaleb is tidy, useful, a good squad player with promise; Paulinho, the ‘Brazilian Frank Lampard,’ well maybe we did break him, I kind of think he broke himself, what I do know is that he needs to show a lot more to deserve a starting place with us. Now I had to look up the final player and found that it was the delightful Benny Assou-Ekotto, who proved only that he does have some passion in there, somewhere deep down.

[linequote]Let’s be realistic this year, if we can finish two places higher than we did, and win a cup, then that would be extraordinary[/linequote]

So looking forwards and trying to predict the unpredictable, and time for another analogy. Poch is like a good chef in a new kitchen with loads of lovely ingredients. He really can use any of them to create something dee-lish, there’s no need for him to have to include any one ingredient, however expensive, he can just take his time and discard anything he doesn’t need.

You see AVB had an allergy to some ingredients even though they would have made the dish perfect, and he was unwilling to stray from the recipe, instead trying to rely on the individual flavours and expensive quality of the produce to carry the meal. Sherwood was the opposite, throwing in whatever came to hand, cooking things in the wrong order, making a right f***ing mess of the kitchen, which the head chef did not like.

Let’s be realistic this year, if we can finish two places higher than we did, and win a cup, then that would be extraordinary. If we can play attractive football, and more than anything play with some passion and balls, I almost don’t care where we finish. The end does not justify the means.