Tottenham fans do not expect silverware but they do demand progress, excitement and unity. This is where the manager failedWhat came first at Tottenham? The angst and impatience within the fanbase over the lack of trophies that affects the players? Or the players’ inability to cope with the pressure and win trophies that fires the angst and impatience?Antonio Conte is not sure. But what the latest former Spurs manager came to feel was that both were present and incorrect at the club, shaping an environment that resembled the results of an attempt to sprint through quicksand. Or, to put it another way, the impossible job for a manager. Any manager. Even one as decorated as him. Continue reading...
The Italian sent on Davinson Sánchez when a goal was needed on a night of trapped rage and basic patternsBefore this last-16 second leg, Son Heung-min had announced that Tottenham Hotspur intended to “make a statement” And so they did. That statement was: this is not a very good Tottenham Hotspur team. Rather this felt like a Spurs team reaching the end of something, without clarity or craft or any real sense of life; a team that is facing up now to another season of chasing another season of chasing another season of … well, what exactly?There are good 0-0 draws. There are heroic exits, games where you chase the sun and come up short. This wasn’t any of those...
Spurs have stagnated since the departure of Mauricio Pochettino but must resist the temptation to reappoint himFill the bowl of lemons. Dust off the old purple tracksuit. Someone drive down to Big Yellow and get Danny Rose out of storage. Lay palm leaves across Hotspur Way, let the bells ring out across Enfield, make a small summer transfer budget available and prepare for the return of the chosen.Perhaps it really will be that simple. The great travel writer Bill Bryson once observed that there were three things you can’t do in life. You can’t beat the phone company. You can’t get a waiter to see you until he’s ready to see you. And you can’t go home again. For the...
For all the bruises along the way Tottenham’s season is still very much alive on three fronts with the Kane-Son synergy crucialDon’t mess with the formula. With 71 minutes gone at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the first 45 of them a haze of empty content and trapped energy, Harry Kane bumped Angelo Ogbonna away with his back to the West Ham goal, flexing his glutes, aware of the beeping, flashing light on his internal radar. Behind him Son Heung-min had already begun to sprint.Son knew, even before that surge of static had begun to crackle around the stands. We have seen this picture before. The pass from Kane was instant, fizzed with a kind of celebratory excitement. Son flexed his...
João Félix is settling at Chelsea, Eddie Howe is staying positive despite the draws and James Maddison is Leicester’s leading manAs if more than 100 charges weren’t enough, Manchester City were given one more reason to come out fighting on Sunday. They had just been pushed down to third in the league by their not very noisy neighbours, United, in Sunday’s earlier match. City responded as only they can, by taking the lead while their opponents were still trying to figure out their formation. Was it a 3-2-2-3? Whatever it was, it was 3-0 by half-time. Villa had been overrun, Bernardo Silva was the new João Cancelo and City were second again. By Wednesday night, if they play like the...