Spurs shedding inferiority Eriksen’s strike keeps title
losing 5-1 at relegated Newcastle, and dropped to third. It put Pochettino in a bad mood for his entire summer holiday.
The most important hurdle for this team to clear is to win a major trophy. The second is to lose their inferiority complex about their neighbours. If they can rid themselves completely of the latter, it may clear their minds for the former — if not this year, then next.
Pochettino has not lost a League game to Arsenal since he took over as Tottenham manager in May 2014, winning one and drawing the other four. Yet, still he cannot outlast Wenger, who took over the year after Arsenal last finished below Spurs. It would be another feather in the Argentine’s cap if he could break Wenger’s perfect sequence.
“Our challenge now is to try to reduce the gap to Chelsea and to try to think about bigger things than only to be above Arsenal,” Pochettino said. “To win big trophies and achieve big things, your mentality must be bigger than that. You must think about bigger dreams.”
It is a reasonable argument, but Tottenham can only realise these “bigger dreams” by bringing an end to St Totteringham’s Day. Because whatever Pochettino might say publicly, he has been at Spurs long enough to understand the significance of this Sunday.
At the end of the 1994-95 season, Harry Kane was a one-year-old, as was Eric Dier. Christian Eriksen was three, and Dele Alli was not even born. Such a barren period cannot be easily dismissed.
Sunday’s may also be the final north London derby at White Hart Lane. Tottenham are holding discussions over the next 24 hours and could reveal definitively tomorrow whether they will play home matches at Wembley next season, ahead of the move to their 61,000-seat stadium — a project costing about £800million — for 2018-19.
Last month, the FA agreed to allow Spurs an extra month to take their decision on Wembley, making April 30 the new deadline. Yet, the announcement is unlikely to be made on a Sunday, meaning that further details are