This post was written
on 13 June on the bus between Boston and New York. When I wrote it, Harry
Redknapp was still an employee of Tottenham Hotspur. Three hours after I saved
it in my document folder and made a mental note to post it before the weekend,
I was supping on a pint of Sam Adams in NYC when I received a text from a
fellow member of the Boston Spurs family.
It was two words – “Harry’s
gone.” I smiled. Then I decided that I would just post the blog exactly as I
had intended when I was sitting on the bus. When Harry was still our "beloved" badger.
DB
The pain won’t go away. I just keep thinking about the
hideous inevitability of it all and how our season of promise turned into a
soap opera of Eastenders-like proportions.
The fact that our hard-fought Champions League place (and
possibly the only reason that Modric would not spend the summer whining about
some mythical agreement on the level of the Le Tissier contract) was decided by
Didier Drogba was only part of the rollercoaster that the 2011/12 campaign
embodied.
Not forgetting the fact that Chelsea came up against the
only German team in living memory that can’t take penalties.
As the television continued to show the celebrations of
Roman’s Army (including the bizarre spectacle of a fully kitted out racist
enjoying yet another undeserved moment of glory), another member of the growing
Boston Spurs family turned to me and shrugged his shoulders.
I could not have summed it up better.
Our entire season came down to one penalty kick. Taken by a
player whose huge size seems to hinder his ability to actually stay on his feet
when tacked. A man who has been a thorn in our side ever since the lure of the
ruble drew him to a part of West London better known for IT girls and trust
fund wankers with a huge belief in their own importance in society.
Didier was born on the Ivory Coast, made in France and made
for Chelsea. He is exactly the sort of striker that we were crying out for
during our “blip”, a bloke whose swan-dives at the slightest touch can be
overlooked when he muscles his way into the right position and gives your team
the shot at glory.
When it all came down to the final reckoning, we didn’t have
someone like that.
We had players who worked hard for 50% of the season and
then went missing when ‘Arry got a whiff of the England job. We had an on-loan
centre forward who was so keen to be accepted by everyone that he spent a lot
of time smiling when he should have been scoring.
Yes, we had injuries to key players at key times – I firmly
believe that the Norwich winner at the Lane would not have happened if Scotty P
had been on the pitch – but at the start of the season, our glorious leader was
adamant that he had the right depth in the squad to push for a top-four
place….which we did get, finishing above the team that got awarded our
Champions League berth.
The middle of our defence never seemed to be settled all
year. Not having Michael Dawson (again) for a significant proportion of the
campaign was tough, watching Ledley succumb to mortality was heartbreaking.
Kaboul stepped up to the plate and was (arguably) one of our most consistent
performers, his non-appearance at the Euros may be a blessing in disguise as I
think he will be determined to prove just how good he can be. Gallas did
alright, Ryan Nelson was brought to N17 five years too late and I can only
assume that we won’t need to worry about Bassong when Caulker comes back from
his sheep trials.
Young Gareth believed the hype and became everything that I
dislike about the modern footballer, a player whose worth to the team comes
into question when the summer vultures are circling. I blame Redknapp entirely for this. Bale is a
winger, he plays on the wing and not in some sort of midfield role where
wandering about the pitch like a excitable puppy is considered to be acceptable
by the manager.
Modric can go. His heart is no longer at the Lane, it is in
the rarefied atmosphere that is being offered by The Manchesters. He won’t be
going to Chelsea, they signed their second Hazard and if he is good as he
thinks he is, they may even get back into the top four.
I would like to see Defoe stay. He makes me smile and curse
in equal quantities. On his day, the little man plays like he is the size of
Drogba and I am always confident that there are goals in his twinkling feet.
But , like so many of us, he has stopped believing the words that come out of
‘Arry’s mouth and despite being among the top scorers at the club (again), he
has had to be content with spending far too much time sitting next to Clive
Allen.
But I don’t want to dwell on next season. It actually seems
a long way away, especially as we now have the joy of watching England prove
just how “organized” they can be – which is another word for creatively dull
and being as exciting to watch as another season of Jersey Shore.
Rumours continue to circulate that The Chairman wasn’t
overly pleased with our eventual failure to hold onto 3rd place and
another trip into the Europa League will not push the balance sheet further
into the black…although if they applied the Financial Fair Play Rule now to
some of our competitors at the top of the table, we would be laughing all the
way to the bank.
‘Arry believes that he has done enough to get a new
contract, something that was a long way from his mind when he got no more than
another day in front of the TV cameras after his trial by HMRC. He thought he
would be spending his summer ensuring a bunch of overpaid primadonnas didn’t
embarrass themselves again…which he is now doing in a TV studio as opposed to
on the football pitch.
The Chairman, however, is playing his cards very close to
his chest. Other teams have already started to strengthen and he needs to make
sure that we don’t have our regular close season of inactivity followed by the
rush to sign anybody before Sky close the window.
To attract the right talent, he needs the right manager.
Everyone knows that I have no real love for Redknapp but I grudgingly admit
that the football we played for some of last season was unbelievably good
(there was an awful lot of crap as well!) and that not finishing outside the
top five for three consecutive seasons is a lot better than we have been used
to.
If the right players become available, Spurs should now be
in a position to make a move. We all know that there is a salary cap at the
club and that prudent financial management hasn’t seen us spend silly money on
players that could be surplus to requirements within a year. I don’t want us to
become like some other clubs that I could mention, that’s not why I bleed
lilywhite and blue.
What I want is to expand the platform that we have built
since the ill-fated Ramos experiment, to take the disappointment of Munich and
weave into a collective DNA that will encourage the players that pull the shirt
on to believe that WE can be the catalyst for their ambitions.
To achieve glory
for ourselves, not through the largesse of an absentee owner but by playing the
game in the Tottenham tradition and by ensuring that we don’t have to rely on
any other team to realise our ambitions.
If the club approaches the next few weeks in the way that it
should, then the supporters can look forward to the next season…the glory is
there, we just need to make sure that we are the ones to take it.
COYS
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