STAN COLLYMORE No trophy, REFEREEING BY NUMBERS no loyalty, no-brainer

COLLY

THE next 15 months will be the most crucial period in Tottenham Hotspur’s history since they won the Double back in 1961.

Danny Blanchflower, Dave Mackay, Bobby Smith, Les Allen, Cliff Jones and Co made Spurs one of the big clubs back then.

And Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Christian Eriksen and their pals can turn them into a massive one – IF they can catch fire before the end of next season.

But if they don’t put that elusive trophy on the table by then, much of what they have been setting in place under Mauricio Pochettino could go awry.

The manager will be off if he doesn’t won that piece of silverware.

Alli, and maybe even Kane, will be too.

Now, before Spurs fans get upset with me again and start saying, ‘Oh, you’re selling our manager for us, and Alli and Kane will hang around forever...’, let me tell you this: They won’t. It doesn’t work like that. I guarantee that all three will have woken up on Thursday, the morning after the night before against Juventus, thinking, ‘You know what, that was so close that I could easily be playing in a Champions League quarterfinal, semi-final, a final… In fact, I could win it’.

I don’t know if either Kane or Alli are in contact with Gareth Bale.

But even if not they will be conscious of what he has done.

Bale could have stayed at Spurs and been loved for the next 10 years — but instead he went, and in four-and-a-half seasons at Real Madrid he has won La Liga and three Champions Leagues.

I guarantee Kane and Alli will be thinking, ‘Do I fancy a bit of that?’

The answer will always be, ‘Yes’.

The only way you’re going to stay at Spurs without winning a trophy is if you’re a diehard Tottenham fan who comes from a diehard family of season-ticket holders for 50 or 60 years and your dad FORMER shoe salesman Arrigo Sacchi, who managed Milan and Italy, busted the myth that you must have played professional football to become a top boss. So Grimsby’s new boss, former banker Michael Jolley, is in esteemed company in that sense. And, as long as Jolley is passionate about the game and has an understanding of dealing with and managing people to go with his coaching badges, then he is always going to have a chance. and grandad both played for the club. Otherwise, it is absolute folly to suggest that any footballer would want to stay forever.

Fans say that players won’t leave the club because ‘they feel about it the same as we do’.

But they don’t. Ever. And you’re kidding yourself if you think that way.

What players are really thinking is, ‘Yes, it’s great to be loved at Tottenham. But I could be equally loved at Barcelona, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich’.

There’s a doubled- edged sword hanging over Spurs too.

Because if Alli, Kane and Co have got the ambition and ruthlessness they will need to win one of the major trophies, those are the same character traits that also mean they will want to reach the highest level they can.

When Matt Le Tissier stayed at Southampton, no one questioned his gift as a player or his ability to score great goals.

But they did question hi s ambition – and why he never wanted to go to Liverpool or Manchester United to win things.

Le Tissier will say, ‘Well, I was happy at Southampton and I weighed everything up’, but ultimately the greatest players want to win, and at any cost.

The same will be true of a manager like Pochettino.

He’ll want to lead Spurs back into their new stadium and he’ll want to win one of the major trophies.

But he’ll have been at Tottenham for FIVE years by summer 2019 – and without a trophy I’m certain he’ll be looking elsewhere.

I don’t want to criticise Poch or his players for much about Wednesday’s 2-1 defeat – they just showed a little bit of naivety at Wembley.

In a game of that magnitude there is no time to switch off – and Juve showed all their big-game experience.

It’s unquantifiable, really, just something that players who’ve played at that level for a number of years have, and those who haven’t, well, don’t.

Spurs need to show signs of having that special something sooner rather than later – because Poch, Kane, Alli and Co need to believe that at White Hart Lane they can still achieve everything they want. REFEREE Szymon Marciniak’s decision not to give Juventus a penalty when Jan Vertonghen fouled Douglas Costa on Wednesday was a terrible one.

And plenty of people were railing that the standard of refereeing at home and abroad had slipped this season on the back of it. But I don’t buy into that. What I do buy into is the fact that the rules and regulations are so uniform these days that the thinking process for referees has gone.

Match officials used to be given loose frameworks within which to make their decisions and to be able to interpret each incident within the context of a particular game.

Is it quiet? Is it volatile? Shall I let that go or blow up?

Now they aren’t allowed to use their common sense.

It’s refereeing by numbers, refereeing robotics, not referees using their brain.

Spurs S fans may think Alli and Kane will hang around forever but let me tell you this: They won’t. It doesn’t work like that.