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Why don’t we win anything?

5 min read
by Conner Green
Conner Green tries to answer a straightforward question.

“It is better to fail aiming high than to succeed aiming low. And we of Spurs have set our sights very high, so high in fact that even failure will have in it an echo of glory” that famous quote by our greatest manager Bill Nicholson. There’s no doubt Bill is our greatest manager, Poch may have a few ideas about changing that but for now the late great Bill is the most important and to the supporters most famous man to don the touchline at White Hart Lane. There are many reasons the fans love Nicholson, a player turned manager who had quotes like “it’s been my life and I love the club” about his beloved Spurs. Mostly for Spurs fans it’s that he actually won things; as a player he won the league with Tottenham in 1951 and then a decade later he won it as a manager in our famous double winning season of 1960-61. As well as multiple FA Cups throughout the sixties, a UEFA Cup and a few League Cups thrown in for good measure. Bill did lead Tottenham through their most glory filled era, this is why Spurs fans will never forget him.

Since this glory-filled era in the 60s and early 70s Spurs have been through a slight drought, there has been another UEFA Cup win in the 80’s and a few more FA cups dotted about throughout the decades but for a club that “have set our sights very high, so high in fact that even failure will have in it an echo of glory” this really isn’t good enough. If you’re to take Tottenham’s record since the inception of the modern game (the Premier League era) it’s pitiful to say the least. Since the Premier League Tottenham have won a grand total of zero FA Cups, two League Cups and zero Premier League titles. This begs the question, why don’t we win anything?

[linequote]If you’re to take Tottenham’s record since the inception of the modern game (the Premier League era) it’s pitiful to say the least.[/linequote]

What could it be? The Premier League itself is fairly self-explanatory as other than that Leicester win and Blackburn winning it way back in ancient history the Premier League trophy has pretty much stayed in the same four or five trophy cabinets, I don’t to list them, because we all, sadly, know our name isn’t there, and know too well whose is. The Premier League makes sense, but this doesn’t excuse our frankly woeful record in cup competitions; to not have won an FA Cup semi-final since the 1990-91 season, for a club with our history in the competition is frankly, woeful. The League Cup, although for many seen as an irrelevant competition it has positives, and we’ve only won that once, that cup run of 2008. A win that was seen as for many as a platform to move on to bigger things, but in classic Tottenham style within six months we’d sold our two best players and sacked our manager. This still begs the question, why don’t we win anything?

It doesn’t come down to purely squad strength as since our last trophy in 2008, Portsmouth, Swansea, Birmingham and Wigan have all won trophies, although the latter two were relegated in the same season, something even the most desperate-for-silverware-Tottenham-fans wouldn’t be willing to trade for some silverware. These clubs did have something Tottenham do seem to lack; luck. Tottenham tend to be on the level of world’s unluckiest team, ever. The great Pochettino said when his Espanyol side beat Barcelona “to win anything, you need some luck” and any Spurs fan will know we really do lack luck, so we’ll just have to make up for it with pure determination. Although our starting XI is much stronger than previous winners mentioned, our squad does lack real strength in depth, so there has been times when fielding a weaker starting XI has cost us. It’s no real secret to anyone that our squad could do with more padding out, and that will undoubtedly help us on our quest for first silverware under Pochettino.

[linequote]In classic Tottenham style within six months we’d sold our two best players and sacked our manager.[/linequote]

The real defining factor for me is lack of a winning mentality; it’s all well and good saying you want to win trophies, because who in football doesn’t want to win trophies? No one, but there is a serious difference between wanting to win trophies and having a squad full of players who have been there and done it on multiple occasions. I know our squad is young and still learning, but with learning how to play does come with one serious drawback; an actual lack of experience of playing in big games and knowing how to win them. I’m not one to criticise Hugo Loris (I don’t think any Spurs fan is) but in an ESPN interview after we lost 1-0 at that vapid shell of ground The London Stadium Hugo told ESPN he was “gutted” and Tottenham’s ‘weak mentality’ had cost them. Which is a fair comment, but as a captain and senior member of the team it’s his job to inspire the team, maybe that’s harder to do as a goalkeeper as oppose to a commanding centre-mid directly shouting directions from the middle of the pitch.

Tottenham have always been known as a team that can’t finish, a team that crumbles as soon as they concede a goal, a team that can’t hack it in the big games, but this is changing, ever so slowly. In the three seasons that Pochettino has had at White Hart Lane he has begun to slowly but surely turn our club around, we are no longer just good going forward we are solid defensively, no longer do we get outclassed every time we play another big team. No longer do we always falter at the final hurdle and finish behind those tourists from South London. All that needs to come is that first piece of silverware which will, unlike 2008, serve as a platform for much, much more silverware. Even if it doesn’t, at least our new ground will host a few NFL games, right guys?

Right guys?

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.

Conner Green

4 Comments

  1. Alex
    09/08/2017 @ 12:00 pm

    Spurs don’t win cups because they frankly do not want to. The fans might. The club don’t.

    I’ve lost count of the number of times in Cup matches the whole team has looked a yard or two off where they would be in a league match. To win any cup competition you need to beat at least one and maybe two or three teams who also have some change of winning the competition. The last time Spurs did this was the 2008 league cup. The fact is that the current team will stumble through any given competition until it meets a team of quality, at which point it will lose.

    Why the performance drop off? Because the board value qualification for the Champions League above all else. I reckon every player’s contract, and the manager’s includes extremely hefty bonuses for Premier League placing and Champions League qualification. Any bonus for FA or league cup wins will be comparatively tiny, because the financial rewards associated with those competitions are tiny also. Hence the drop-off in performance and lack of Cup focus.

  2. Adrian Gordon
    09/08/2017 @ 12:07 pm

    Aside from all of the above I think a major factor is fighting on so many fronts year after year and prioritizing the league and then Europe ahead of cup competitions every year. We shouldn’t forget that this is our 7th consecutive season in Europe and our 11th in the last 12. As noted above we don’t have the squad depth of our rivals to put forward strong sides in every match and never have done.

    This has meant we’ve ended up putting forward weak sides against eminently winnable opposition in cup games and lost. Yes we’ve had rotten luck with draws, getting drawn forever away at Old Trafford and to Martin Atkinson led Chelsea, but what about Leeds away in 2013, Leicester at home in 2015, Crystal Palace at home in 2016, West Ham at home in 2013 League Cup? Hell even the League Cup games at home to the Scum in 2010 and 2015 were eminently winnable had we put forward decent teams in the games, but we didn’t and lost both (which bloody hurt even if it is a lesser competition).

    We need to at least progress further on a yearly basis to give ourselves a chance – we’ve only made it to one League Cup final and two FA Cup semifinals in 7 seasons, and that’s not good enough for a team that hasn’t finished outside the top 6 during that time. I hate to say it but I can’t see us winning the League Cup again until we next fail to qualify for Europe, so bar a miracle in the League or Europe that basically leaves the FA Cup. And if the injuries stack up towards the end of the season then you know it’s going to be second to the league as per usual.

  3. j. greaves jnr
    09/08/2017 @ 12:09 pm

    seconded- sad but valid to reflect on the assertion, however intended, of a. conte re ‘ambition’. in team sport esp those dominated by profit, ambition comes from the top, right? hence doubts will swirl and lurk until evidence of boardroom desire can be seen to match onfield passion levels.

  4. Cheshuntboy
    09/08/2017 @ 2:06 pm

    The fans who constantly accept second-best are a big part of the problem – the club motto should be changed to ‘at least we haven’t done a Leeds’, since you hear it so often from the ENIC apologists. Even the dreaded 1990s produced an FA Cup as well as a League Cup, but the single trophy in sixteen ENIC seasons is truly pathetic, but doesn’t seem to matter to supporters who honestly seem to prefer what they see as the moral high ground of failure to the grubby business of success, as practised by the likes of City and Chelsea. When the owners are only interested in profit and the fans are happy with second place it’s no wonder we’re setting new records for failure – seven consecutive FA Cup semi losses (and we used to be the cup kings!).

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