Spurs must be wary of going backwards
THERE’S been much talk between fans of the top clubs about who had the best season.
It has all been a bit “my dad’s bigger than your dad”, with nobody outside of Chelsea able to confidently state whose is.
In north London, with St Totteringham’s Day being scratched from the calender, Spurs fans are right to crow. But how loudly?
At the end of April, when they beat Arsenal to ensure their first finish above them in 22 years, it looked like the two sides were heading rapidly in opposite directions.
Tottenham were still in with a shout of the title and their young, freescoring team tipped to be on the brink of greatness. Arsenal were facing Champions League exile, with their manager, top-earning players, board and fans mired in an ugly civil war.
But six straight wins for the Gunners, including that stunning FA Cup Final victory, has changed the weather slightly.
Had a victory parade not been ruled out after the Manchester bombing, Arsenal would once again have been the team riding around north London showing off a trophy.
A reminder that for all their progress, Spurs are yet to win anything under Mauricio Pochettino, and for the second year running they ended up Premier League bridesmaids when they could, and maybe should, have been brides. Arsenal being the only top-six side not in the Champions League next season has been used as a stick to beat their manager with, but don’t rule out it working in his favour. Without the pressure to finally succeed against Europe’s elite, Arsene Wenger’s focus will be solely on a title challenge.
Keep the exits down to a minimum, finally spend the war chest he’s been promised, and he will have a squad capable of doing that. But what of Spurs? Last season they were unbeaten at White Hart Lane, but failed to win away against any topseven side. At Wembley, they were beaten by Monaco, Bayer Leverkusen and Chelsea, meaning they have won only once in their last nine visits to their new home ground. They may well adapt quickly to Wembley, but even if the enforced move isn’t a disaster on the West Ham scale, leaving White Hart Lane, where they won 17 and drew two of their league games last season, is bound to hit their points haul.
They’ll need to get much better on the road against their rivals and that means improving their squad at least as well as sides who will be spending between £150million and £300m each over the coming months. Tottenham’s net spend of £1m in the past five years borders on miraculous, but surely can’t go on, unless Daniel Levy sells top players like Kyle Walker to fund it.
This is a huge summer for Spurs. In many ways bigger than Arsenal’s. With their financial focus on a new stadium that they have yet to get naming rights for, and a disruptive temporary move to one known to other sides as a neutral venue, Levy cannot afford to cut corners in the transfer market.
After losing at Anfield in February a downbeat Pochettino (left with Dele Alli) said: “We are a club fighting for the Premier League with different tools in a different project. We’ll see how we cope.” Some took that as a dig at his board for missing out on Sadio Mane last summer when they refused to match the £90,000-a-week wages Liverpool had offered.
On a relatively small transfer and wages budget, Tottenham have done remarkably well over the past two seasons to be fighting for the league right up to the death.
But unless they have a summer that shows they are determined to take the final step and win it, with the ambition of the teams behind them, the next step could be backwards.