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Lads, it’s Tottenham

7 min read
by BarcelonaSpurs
BarcelonaSpurs aka JimmyRiggle on the forum, takes a look at Spurs' metamorphosis from soft touch, to all up in your face, hard tackling, yellow card earning bad boys.

These are the now immortal words that Roy Keane claimed Alex Ferguson once used in his pre-match team talk ahead of a familiar Manchester United vs Spurs walkover in the early 2000s. “We all know what Tottenham is about, they are nice and tidy but we’ll do them,” he went on to add. For decades Tottenham Hotspur has been renowned for trying (and not always managing) to play attractive, exciting football. However, the club was simultaneously known across the country for having an underbelly as soft as a blancmange cover in mink fur.

This is something Harry Redknapp tried to address as soon as he joined the club. The very first opportunity he had to dip his paws into Daniel Levy’s ironclad wallet, he bought Wigan’s midfield destroyer Wilson Palacios. “The whole atmosphere around the place needed changing,” Redknapp said in a 2009 interview. “Spurs had been a soft touch in the last few years. I knew at Portsmouth we always felt we could get after them and beat them. Now we are a stronger looking team.”

Indeed, that Redknapp side mixed fearsome pace and attacking attitude with a midfield steel which helped to propel the club into the Champions League for the first time in history. Unfortunately merely placing Palacios and later Scott Parker in a destroyer role was enough to rub off on the rest of the squad, and Spurs found yet more and original ways of bottling their limitless potential before Redknapp was ushered out the door.

In fact, Palacios’ loss of form after personal tragedy and Parker’s war-worn legs giving up in March are possibly more to blame for the great collapses than many have given credit for. Another midfield beast, Sandro, sadly found he was more effective on Twitter than as a defensive protector after his knee deserted him in a match at Loftus Road. In short, the team relied on just a handful of players to do the dirty work whilst everyone else concentrated on the beautiful stuff.

[linequote]Hard work, belief, teamwork, fight, relentless pressing – all words that bear as much resemblance to traditional Tottenham Hotspur as Chirpy does to an actual cockerel[/linequote]

The Spurs of 2015-16 under Mauricio Pochettino are a very different beast. The attractive football has been a while in the making, but pundits and players alike in the present day speak of Tottenham in ways many fans have never heard them spoken of before. Hard work, belief, teamwork, fight, relentless pressing – all words that bear as much resemblance to traditional Tottenham Hotspur as Chirpy does to an actual cockerel.

In addition, the current squad possesses a large amount of players who love to get in the opposition’s faces. For want of a better word, Pochettino’s Spurs are actually a bit dirty, but the fans love it. That’s not to say dirty in the diving, cheating way associated with serial newspaper-fillers Chelsea. Rather, each player is not afraid to get stuck in, make tackles, take a booking if they need to and stick up for each other when the other team tries to intimidate them. They are quickly discovering that fans get as much of a buzz from seeing a player give his absolute all as they do from any cute step over or Rabona goal.

This was no more evident than in the recent home game with West Ham, where the crowd was treated to several instances of Noble and Kouyate giving up on trying to play football all together and trying to rough up the young men in Lilywhite, only to be met by a snarling pack of warriors all willing to push the boundaries of acceptable behavior on a football pitch. Walker and Alli may have copped a booking for their troubles (with the latter receiving a suspension) but the overall effect on the game was to show the unhappy Hammers that this team is not to be messed with.

A quick look at the stats shows an even clearer picture. So far this season (pre Chelsea), Spurs are joint 2nd in the league for most yellow cards with 28 in 13 games. In terms of individual players, Eric Dier, Erik Lamela and Dele Alli all lead the way with 5 a piece, putting them joint 2nd in the league by just one card. All three of them also average just over 2 fouls per game and over 4 tackles per game. The cards are a natural consequence of a combative style of play. Kyle Walker and Jan Vertonghen both weigh in with 3 bookings each (now four after the Chelsea clash).

In Pochettino’s first season, Spurs finished 3rd in the yellow card standings overall with 80 cautions (behind perennial cloggers Stoke and Sunderland) at an average of 2.11 booking per game. Ryan Mason was the 7th most carded player in the league with 10. Nabil Bentaleb was not far behind with 8.

The difference between now and before is stark, even going back just a few years. In 2013/14 Spurs were the 7th most carded side with 66 yellows and 4 reds. Not one player featured in the 30 most carded in the league. It could be said that season that most of those were more down to stupid individual errors leading to penalties and direct free kicks near the box.

2012/13 saw the club pick up a mere 50 yellow cards, the 16th most in league. Again no Spurs players featured in the top 30. In fact you have to go back one more season to 2011/12 to find a Spurs man, Scott Parker, finish in the top 10 most booked players, yet the club were way down in 13th place for cautions.

Given that all three of present-days Spurs’ most-carded players are midfielders, it’s easy to draw the conclusion that Pochettino likes his fouls to take place higher up the pitch, before his defenders even have a chance to be called into ‘taking one for the team.’ You often hear a commentator describe an obvious hack during a transition of play as ‘a good foul.’ This is precisely the ethos that the Argentinian has installed in his side. Press high, don’t let them counter. If they do, kick them.

Many Spurs fans still lie awake at night reliving the moment Paulinho pulled out of a crucial challenge at home to Newcastle, right before they snatched a goal and thoroughly undeserved victory at White Hart Lane. It’s incredibly hard to imagine the same scenario in a terrifying midfield of Dier, Alli, Mason, Dembele.

[linequote]You often hear a commentator describe an obvious hack during a transition of play as ‘a good foul.’ This is precisely the ethos that the Argentinian has installed in his side. Press high, don’t let them counter. If they do, kick them[/linequote]

Perhaps most impressive is that this added steel and aggression has not resulted in a single red card this season. This side knows how far to push it without being detrimental to the overall good of the team. Add to this the little niggly fouls away from the prying eyes of the officials – a little pinch in the back here, a little cupping of testicles there – and you can see the influence of the Argentinian dark arts of defending all over these young players.

New Tottenham has more grit than the M25 in early January. They are tough, athletic, nasty and ruthless. These are traits that can be crucial to success in the Premier League. No one likes John Terry, not even some Chelsea fans, but do you think he cares when he sits at home polishing his trophies, in front of a nice roaring fire in his Surrey mansion? He wins games by being a bit of a front bottom, but he revels in it.

There used to be a time when Spurs fans would treat finishing high up the Fair Play League as a badge of honour. We may not have been the best team, but at least we weren’t cheats like Chelsea and the Gooners. One season it very nearly got the team into Europe but for the cruel outcome of the UEFA fair play tombola. It’s hard to imagine many players and managers adopting Keane and Ferguson’s pre-match attitude to facing Spurs this season. The teamtalk could be just as brief and prescient, but with the addition of just two additional words:

“Oh sh*t lads, it’s Tottenham.”

All views and opinions expressed in this article are the views and opinions of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of The Fighting Cock. We offer a platform for fans to commit their views to text and voice their thoughts. Football is a passionate game and as long as the views stay within the parameters of what is acceptable, we encourage people to write, get involved and share their thoughts on the mighty Tottenham Hotspur.

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2 Comments

  1. albert toninho
    30/11/2015 @ 12:05 pm

    Excellent article. Good observation about Palacios, Parker and Sandro. Palacios and Sandro both sadly cut down in their prime by tragedy and, in the latter case, injury. Predict a right old battle at WBA next week.

  2. paddyspurs
    30/11/2015 @ 6:46 pm

    Great article. Please write some more soon!

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