The Champions League delusion

The really annoying thing about Saturday’s defeat was that it wasn’t really a surprise. Our mouthy ‘supply teacher’ returned to the school in which he failed to earn respect from the students, the governors and ultimately the headmaster, to mastermind a comfortable 1-0 victory for his relegation-threatened team against our alleged Champions League contenders. It was (as everyone likes to say these days) very ‘spursy’. God, I hate that word.

Being at WHL for Saturday’s game was another glum experience. The days of the Lane’s raucous and intimidating atmosphere are long gone and have been replaced by deafening silence and deep groans whenever the ball comes within 10 feet of Vlad Chiriches.

The Lane is now a cauldron of frustration, which has been built up by the unrealistic expectations of a section of our fanbase and the premium ticket prices beefing up Mr Levy’s wallet. It’s like buying a luxury hamper from Selfridges and opening it up to find a bottle of Blue Nun and a tin of Spam. Ticket prices aside, I feel that as fans we need to lower our expectations and be far more realistic about where we are as a club and what our genuine ambitions should be.

The fact of the matter is, in the 22 seasons of the Premier League’s existence we have finished in 4th place twice, and have only endured one season in the Champions League, thanks to Chelsea parking the bus all the way to the trophy in 2012.

[linequote]The Lane is now a cauldron of frustration, which has been built up by the unrealistic expectations of a section of our fanbase and the premium ticket prices beefing up Mr Levy’s wallet.[/linequote]

For a club of our stature, resources and quality of player, any finish above 6th should be considered as an achievement, not the failure which many supporters have already doomed our season to be. We must accept that aside from our 3 star players in Lloris, Eriksen and Kane, we have a very average squad.

Comparing the line-ups on Saturday, there was little difference in quality between us and Aston Villa. Guzan is probably a better and more commanding keeper than Vorm, Ron Vlaar on his day is arguably better than any CB we have (except for Vertonghen when he can be ar**d), Fabian Delph is streets ahead of Ryan Mason and Christian Benteke is, whether we like it or not, a more accomplished Premier League striker than Harry Kane. Talking in this sense, defeat to Villa at home is no shock. In key positions we are no better than a side that is sat 15th in the league.

This brings me to the next issue which is the Europa League. Sky Sports amongst other media outlets have indoctrinated many fans into believing in the lesser importance of the Europa League and using it as a scapegoat for our poor performances and our apparent ‘lack of steam’ in Saturday’s defeat.

[fullquote]Sky Sports amongst other media outlets have indoctrinated many fans into believing in the lesser importance of the Europa League and using it as a scapegoat for our poor performances[/fullquote]

European football of any kind should be considered a privilege, whether that’s playing Real Madrid or a team with no vowels in its name from Eastern Europe. We are a club with rich history in Europe which should be respected and continued. In the last two games, Burnley and Villa, it has looked as if the players are deliberately trying to do their best to finish 7th and make sure we are out of Europe next year. Apart from Danny Rose, the effort put in by the players in the last two games has been nothing short of shoddy.

I’ve even seen some fans on Twitter saying they were ’happy’ with the Villa defeat because we might not qualify for the Europa League. For them the season finished with defeat at Old Trafford last month, but there is plenty more to play for. Qualification for the Europa League should be considered as an achievement not a failure.

Whether Pochettino is backed heavily by Levy in the summer transfer window will be very intriguing. The club’s ‘sell to buy’ policy will be tested as Poch will want to bring in his own players to improve the squad. However, with the new stadium estimated to be costing £400m, Pochettino may find that he must get rid of ‘dead wood’ such as Soldado, Paulinho, Chiriches, Capoue and Kaboul amongst others before funds become available to him.

Daniel Levy’s reluctance to make a significant loss on these players could hinder our transfer activity and thus we should adjust our expectations based on this. The promotion of youth players to the first team looks more likely next season.

Alex Pritchard will probably play a role in the squad after a superb season with Brentford, Tom Carroll has done well at Swansea, Dele Alli has been lauded as by far the best player in League 1 this season and Josh Onomah looks like one for the future. If these young players are brought through, we surely cannot expect to be challenging for the Champions League next season or indeed maybe the season after that.

[linequote]We often berate Woolwich supporters for being deluded, but many of our fans have been caught up in a web of Champions League lies, in which failing to qualify is a small catastrophe[/linequote]

Overall, with 6 games to go, I’d judge our season to be a success. Only a possible disastrous run of results should see us finish no lower than 7th, and on top of that we have reached a cup final in our manager’s first season in charge. Harry Kane, Nabil Bentaleb and Ryan Mason have been nothing short of success stories, and with the squad we have, we are probably in the right position in the table that we should be.

The meltdown after Saturday’s defeat to me shows that we have set the bar too high for our players and we expect too much. We often berate Woolwich supporters for being deluded, but many of our fans have been caught up in a web of Champions League lies, in which failing to qualify is a small catastrophe. 6/7th place and a cup final is a good season for us and we haven’t under-achieved.

I’m going to leave you to ponder the words of our old supply teacher Mr Sherwood “everyone in the club talks about 4th, nah wake up”.