A Man City fan’s view on Spurs

We at The Fighting Cock love our forum. It’s like a little dog, loyal, faithful and funny. Occasionally it may chew our favourite shoe, or make a mess but we always forgive it, even when it attracts trolls from other teams, but something happened this weekend, something quite strange, a Man City fan came in peace and dropped something we felt was worth sharing.

Thank you for your words Aaron Manc:

“Leicester City have likely secured the title this season, and good luck to them for fulfilling that fairy tale; they’ve proved that good old fashioned pragmatism and playing to your strengths rather than the obligatory ‘good’ football can neutralise financial supremacy, but ultimately they’ve overachieved and Spurs’ continued progress under Pochettino will gradually peak and sustain, finally filling void left by the Ferguson-era United as English football’s next great dynasty.

The parallels between United in the early 90’s and the current Tottenham team are startling; intense, principled managers who’ve paid their dues and worked their way up the ladder, who’ve weaned the negative influences out of the club and established a young British core of the team who’re developing in sync, ala the class of ’92, alongside some shrewdly acquired foreign talent.

Both are built on solid defensive foundations and play with width and dynamism, constantly switching the play and firing crosses into the box until the opposition succumb to the pressure. Another common element is the adulation they receive from Sky; Chelsea, Woolwich and City have all managed to attain a degree of success during the Sky Sports era, but they’ve never really been as emphatically embraced by them in the way United were, and in my opinion the reason are obvious and fully justified.

Those clubs have all had an overly-cosmopolitan aura, and in the case of City and Chelsea a vulgar approach to buying the success with their benefactor’s wealth with little regard to the overall benefit to the English game; this Spurs team, like that United one, has an authentic Anglo-identity that is greatly benefiting the English game and providing opportunity to young domestic talent, while gradually establishing success built on solid foundations via hard work, shrewd transfer strategy and impeccable standards imposed by the managers. United’s demise means Sky need new poster boys to project, and humble starlets like Kane, Alli and Dier are the ideal candidates.

As a City fan back when we prided ourselves on being a ‘proper’ club, as well as an advocate of fundamental opportunity for English talent, it’s been hard to watch the transition into an embodiment of everything that’s wrong with modern football, and I’ve spent the past few years being told by the hypocritical morons that most of our fans have become that selling ourselves to an Arab was ‘the only way’ we could compete with the established top 4.

We’ve also been constantly fed the nonsense argument that English players aren’t good enough in failed justification for the Anglo-apartheid at the club since the Hispanic colonisation in 2013, so I’ve been buzzing with what this Spurs team has been doing to disprove that idiotic misconception, even to the extent where I actually enjoyed you lot taking 6 points of us this season.

Moving forward, with the new stadium in the pipeline and the Nike investment in addition to the Champions League revenue, there is absolutely no reason for Pochettino or any of the aforementioned uber-talents to leave; constant exposure to elite level football via International and European competition is going to facilitate their development into top-level footballers, and as a result see the club become a dominant force in English and even European football.

The similarities in style and standards between former Argentina teammates Pochettino and Diego Simeone are glaringly obvious, and Spurs can easily embrace and emulate Atletico’s impact in the Champions League next season.

Guardiola is put on a pedestal for his achievements at Barca, but he’s only ever inherited great players at clubs with a culture of winning; Pochettino is Pep without the privileges. Would Guardiola have matched Pochettino’s achievements with Espanyol, Southampton and the shambles of a Spurs squad he took over?

Success is relative, and the Argentinian’s work so far has been as good as anybody else’s in the same timescale. 

From what little I’ve seen of Winks, Pritchard and Edwards, they have the talent to be integrated into the squad within the next few seasons and Pochettino will inevitably do so, further strengthening that success-defining identity in the process; the key to completing the transition from very good team to winning team will be the quality and compatibility of the signings.

United needed a catalyst for their own transition in the early 90’s, a talisman to inspire and implement a winning mentality into a talented young team and they found it in Cantona; Ibrahimovic could be that player here.

He’s a perennial winner, who sets and demands from others the highest standards; Kane could attain career-defining advice and experience alongside such a player, taking his own career beyond even its current stratospheric potential. He’s got a few years left in him, wants a move to England and would destroy most Premier League defences.

PSG want Lloris and this summer would likely see his value peak given his age and the fact he’ll be a key figure for a France team that I expect to make a big impact at Euro 2016, so it’d be a good time to sell; Jack Butland’s career trajectory will see him as England’s number one by the 2018 World Cup, and he has all the credentials to be a Spurs player (i.e. young, English and superbly talented) as well as the physical stature to dominate the box better than Hugo. He’d realistically be available for half of what PSG would pay for Lloris as well. 

When Bale was sold in 2013, I imagine the first option clause was nothing more than Levy being awkward and Real obliging to be polite, but given the bizarre change in the footballing landscape in England since then, and especially Spurs currently being the best placed team to dominate domestically as well as become perennial participants in the Champions League, the possibility of a Bale return is a valid one. 

Regardless of what actually happens in the summer transfer-wise, you club is on the cusp of greatness and is without question the pride of English football.”