It's a make or break season for Tottenham

Expert Opinion

10Aug

It’s a make-or-break season for Tottenham

by Ed Malyon

It was no secret that Chelsea winning the Champions League would severely damage Spurs; but it wasn’t just the hurt of the long-standing rivalry between the clubs, nor the fact that any dreamy ambitions of being the first London club in history to lift the European Cup had been dashed. Rather than the past, this was about the future.

Spurs had spent the first half of the 2011-12 season as title contenders and even once they had dropped off the pace of the Mancunian clubs, they still looked good for Champions League qualification.

While it is a sad indictment of modern football that finishing in the top four should be the be-all and end-all for so many teams, the financial realities for those teams involved are unavoidable, and when they finally managed to secure a return to Champions League football on the final day, Spurs had without doubt fulfilled their ambition for the season.

With Chelsea’s penalty shootout win in Munich a week later, all that good work was undone. All of the TV money gone, all of the extra gate receipts and glamour ties gone, but most importantly, the prestige of being a Champions League club would not be theirs.

Tottenham attempted to continue their business as if they had qualified for Europe’s elite club competition, showing no lack of ambition as they vied with Premier League rivals to sign the continent’s hottest property in Eden Hazard. Hazard, who had previously expressed an interest in signing for the White Hart Lane club, ended up at the club that had dashed Spurs’ dreams in the first place, Chelsea.

It didn’t matter though, because in came André Villas-Boas with his shopping list, beautiful, high-pressing football, and a long-term vision for the club – surely it would all be plain-sailing from here?

Top of the Portuguese manager’s list was Oscar, a modern, all-action midfielder at Internacional, whom Spurs have an international affiliation agreement with. That Spurs managed to miss out on the player again to Chelsea, even with such a deal in place, was a theme that was beginning to become a little familiar and worrying for Daniel Levy and his club, not to mention the inconvenience that these failures also happened to be strengthening their direct rivals.

It would happen again when Spanish club Málaga – themselves a side that had finally reached the precious bounty of the Champions League – found themselves in financial difficulties and had to sell their leading stars. Tottenham were the first club to bid for playmaker-in-chief Santi Cazorla, but once more they would miss out on a key target with the Spaniard electing to join arch rivals Arsenal instead.

With Tottenham having to resort to second-best on all fronts – their manager is a Chelsea cast-off after all – this season is absolutely make-or-break for the medium and longer-term future of the club.

Their transfer policy now will entail taking more gambles. Leandro Damião of Brazil may be their top target, but it is far from ideal for Tottenham to see him shining so brightly at the Olympics.

In going for players such as Damião instead of proven Premier League performers like Emmanuel Adebayor, the White Hart Lane club are taking a risk. But it is a risk that they have been forced to take not even by their own failures, but by Chelsea’s most unlikely success.

If their unwanted gamble pays off, then they can rebuild as a top-four club and wipe the sweat from their brow, having got away with it. If it goes the other way, then the consequences for the club will be far wider-reaching.

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Comments

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Kareem_shabazz

This crap has been going on for many years now and to be frank (no I’m not really frank that’s my cousin) Im sick to death of the man. Mr Levy is wrong Modric is not worth 40m of anyone’s money unless you are Man city.
why are we in this position? well its easy, everything that we have according to Mr Levy is worth top dollar (Jenas = 10m Bentley = 16m) but everyone Else’s players are over priced. even Stevie Wonder can see that’s not fair and that’s what is holding us back. It is time for that man to leave the club.

Top four? hahahahahaha never again as long as we have a cabbage as the chairman he is to tight!!!!!
we have gone backwards what a shame and whose to blame? simples that man Levy.

so let me say it first before we all start shouting “we want Levy out say we want Levy out”
Andre

We never bid for cazorla, you’ve just made that up to try and prove a point
http://www.facebook.com/ernie.wright.54 Ernie Wright

LETS ALL GET BEHIND AVB, I’VE GOT GOOD FEELINGS BOUT THIS SEASON, COME ON LADS. GET BEHIND THE MANAGER & OUR TEAM.
COYS >>>>>>>>>>>
http://www.facebook.com/ernie.wright.54 Ernie Wright

LETS GET BEHIND OUR NEW MAN AVB…………
THINK WERE GONNA DO ALRIGHT WITH HIM, COYS !!!!!!!!!!!
Kennethhjonnevaag

what are you on? levy have done a great job for spurs. you silly monkey
Ray

I’m fed up of reading bullshit written on a daily basis from would be journalists and journalists masquerading as professionals in the know when in fact they know absolutely FA as none of them have privvy to Daniel Levy or any member of the Spurs board.
The used car salesman who was masquerading as a top notch manager, was always good for a quote, but he’s gone so the guess work at Spurs has intensified.
Spurs have been linked to every Tom, Dick and Harry worldwide by the low class rags such as the Daily Fail, Sun, Mirror, Evening Standard and assortment of Northern rags as well as Foreign media which has encouraged a host of bloggers to pen a mountain of shit, most of whom aren’t even Spurs fans.
I suppose numpties like Kareem_shabazz and people like him would replace our current Chairman with a used car wheeler dealer like Redcrapp instead of a sound businessman like Daniel Levy, who has guided Spurs finances impeccably.
We would all like to see top notch strikers arrive at WHL but these players wont come cheaply because they like Modric, are prized assets and Modric wont be sold cheaply irrespective of what Real or anyoner else thinks or feels about Daniel Levy.
All this bollocks about Cazorla, Domiao etc is all paper talk and when they dont end up at Spurs, it’s Spurs lose out again. Bullshit from start to finish. The weak headed generally fall for all the crap written by the low lifes. I suppose that Joe Lewis should sell his shares to a wealthy Arab or a Russian Oligarch, maybe that would apease a few.
Tim Sheerwood.

why dont you fuck off and learn to spell…
http://www.facebook.com/daniel.shevlin1 Danny Shevlin

You just made a lot of this shit up! There was no Cazorla bid and our affiliation with Internacionale extends to academy produced players only since the Sandro deal.I think Ade is still on his way myself and that is pure speculation that the deal has fell thro’.I think he and Levy are co-conspiring to drain that city contract ’til the last minute,we all know how Levy works.Call yourselves journalists!? this is no better than professional trolling….C**ts!
http://www.facebook.com/daniel.shevlin1 Danny Shevlin

twat
Johnsonvilleboy

spur is going down, they will remain as a mid table club and that is the fact,the reasons are very simple, 1 selling Modric last season to Chelsea for 40 million pounds could have been the right thing, that money could have brought spurs three or four very good player that could take the team to the next level, but sick head levy refused, Luka Modric was not a factor in Spurs good run last season, it was Bale, Adebaryo, Vander vaart and Scott Parker,40 mil was a whole lot for a player like modric, i still can not understand why Chelsea was willing to pay that much for a player who can not score even 8 goals in a whole season. 2 Daniel Levy is a joke he is the one who keeping Spurs down, for Spurs to make a stand in the top four club in the EPL Levy has to go, 3 sacking Harry was a big mistake, and let me tell u why,, Fans of Spurs do you all remember four five years ago when your beloved team was in the bottom four place in the league and who came to the rescued HARRY, do you hear what i just said? Harry took your Spurs from in that hole and turn your club into a competitive side, Spurs made it to the Champion league knock of stage, spurs was playing great football, but dump ass Levy sack a great manager, i think Harry personality was too strong for him to handle, 4 Hiring Andre Villas Boas is a huge mistake, can’t Levy see what the guy did at Chelsea, Chelsea took a risk on him when every one was saying he was not the right person for the job and he blunder, the guy is not a manager, his knowledge of the game is not good for the primer league he will be good in the championship but not the best and hardest league. THESE ARE THE PROBLEMS Spurs.
Stewstewbarneymagrew

Agree 110% with everything. Absolutely no fail season for the Spurs. The players need to play for the CLUB and not for themselves. Get Dawson, Van de vaart, Bale, lennon and the general Parker playing consistently, showing the passion for our great club. Amen. COYS.
Anonymous

Pretty fanciful the notion that THFC were after Santi C, but then Arseblog writes that he turned down real Madrid for the Gunners … Sure. The real story is not that Chelsea won the CL, it is that Spurs snatched defeat from the jaws of victory (or at least a 3rd. place finish); that during a season in which all the big PL clubs were vulnerable – a genuinely unique moment – they managed to finish behind Arsenal, even if it took a “miraculous” performance from WBA’s goalie to ensure that on the last day.

As far as a post-mortem goes, it seems that whether or not Modric should have been sold to Chelseas – personally I think they should have taken the 40 million quid and run – the real mistake was in not spending in January.

But that window is now closed. Maybe City have not improved – though a) they’re much better than us and b) Balotelli and Kun are both ready for break-out years – but MUFC, Arsenal and Chelsea have each strengthened massively and the two Manchester clubs and Chelsea may even be closing the gap on Barca and RM.

It hurts me to say this, especially since I was living in Tottenham and turned 16 during the Double year, but It’s too late for us; in fact, we’re not even a shoo-in for 5th., given Newcastle’s level of ambition.

Of course, I’d love to be wrong.
Owatkinson

And no matter how good tottenham are they will allways be behind Arsenal because that quite simply is where they belong, discuss.

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