Anything can happen, but we’d prefer if it didn’t

It’s the eve of the football season, so what Sky and BT will be telling us is that ‘anything can happen’ over the next 9 months or so. Your team could be walking out in May to a Guard of Honour having just won the league against all odds, or you could be sitting in the away end of St James’ Park, sobbing uncontrollably as the TV cameras zoom in on your face while wearing an ill-judged banana costume. ‘It’ll be a laugh’, your mate said.

Realistically, most teams know their lot. It’s probably a 2 or 3 way fight between City, Chelsea and – sorry to say – the Arsenal lot for the title, and any three from about six or seven down the bottom. There will be a no-man’s land of mid table which will almost certainly feature Stoke and Newcastle. Then there’s Spurs.

There’s a great line in the film In Bruges when the main characters are talking about the idea of purgatory. ‘That’s that place you go when you weren’t really shit, but you weren’t all that great either – like Tottenham’. It’s a brilliant piece of narrative, and that’s despite it being delivered by Colin Farrell.

[linequote]we had two managers with vastly differing styles and ideas of what man-management is, who both alienated the fans at one point or another[/linequote]

It seems to ring truer than ever as we go into 2014/15. Last season was diabolical, a mess from top to bottom, with only the performances of Lloris and Eriksen to really take solace from, and the emergence of Bentaleb and Kane as genuine first-team contenders.

Apart from that, we had two managers with vastly differing styles and ideas of what man-management is, who both alienated the fans at one point or another, a record signing who scored one goal against FC Tractor at home and disappeared for the rest of the campaign, and a defensive line so horribly leaky that I refused to watch us against the top 4 away from home. Getting whacked by 4 or 5 – and knowing it was going to happen, too – wasn’t my idea of an afternoon.

Now, we’ve not done massive amounts of business (yet), but then we already have a large squad which is screaming out for a little coaching to go a long way. Pochettino is probably best set to do that judging by what he got out of a talented, if limited, somewhat unambitious, squad at Southampton, and there should be a number of players willing to start their Spurs career from fresh if they really want to. There’s positivity in the camp by all accounts; instead of upheaval and the thought that at any moment the best player in your dressing room is packing his flip flops and heading to Spain, there seems to be some sense of realism and working towards something.

[linequote] I can be happy with the installation of a playing style under a young and hungry manager for us to develop and take the team forward[/linequote]

That’s transferred to the fans. I haven’t seen a single person claim we’re going to finish top 4 this season, or even suggest we’ll mount a serious challenge. This time last year, with Lamela, Eriksen, Soldado, Capoue, Chadli and Paulinho coming in, we were talking about a title. The sense of realism is refreshing, even if it does ultimately mean we should be expecting no higher than 6th.

So while in the back of our minds there is still that niggling sense of ‘yes, but if we go on a run…’ or ‘well, if Liverpool slip up after Suarez…’ or ‘if United get a few injuries…’, we know that after last season, ‘anything can happen’ isn’t necessarily a good thing. I can be happy with the installation of a playing style under a young and hungry manager for us to develop and take the team forward, even if that means finishing 6th or 7th with maybe a cup run, and hope that come the end of April I’m not looking to book out a banana suit from anywhere.