Spurs to bid a fond farewell to the Lane
AFTER 118 years, the final 90 minutes of football will be played at White Hart Lane today.
Tottenham fans wanted it to be a glorious send-off, with the prospect of winning the Premier League title still in their hands.
Instead they will wonder if they’ll ever end a title- less drought that has lasted since Danny Blanchflower graced the grass.
Spurs have been the best team in the Premier League over the past two seasons. The problem is that haven’t been THE best team in either one of them.
Going into this weekend’s fixtures, they had amassed 144 points from the last two campaigns. Chelsea had 134, last seas o n’s Champions Leicester had 125.
Yet Spurs have nothing to show for it. And now they are about the give up a significant advantage.
Tomorrow the wrecking balls move in and the club has permission for work to be carried out 24 hours a day if necessary to ensure that their new stadium, already partially completed on the site, is ready for the start of the 2018-19 season.
Their urgency is understand able. They will spend next season exiled at Wembley and it hardly promises to be a home from home.
They face Manchester United today having won 16 and drawn two League games at the Lane this season.
Their pursuit of Chelsea has been founded on 13 consecutive victories dating back to October.
But they’ve also played five fixtures at Wembley – in the Champions League, Europa League and the FA Cup semifinal – winning just once and losing three times.
The squad Mauricio Pochettino has built is the best the club has had in a generation. They haven’t bottled it in the last two seasons.
Last season they were probably just too inexperienced to catch Leicester, who had the backing of the nation.
This time they’re the only side to have challenged Chelsea’s dominance of the title race.
But there’s still a sense of another chance lost, a failure to cash in on a second season when most of the Big Six have under-performed.
Next season United and City are guaranteed to be stronger given what they’ll spend in the summer. Chelsea will still be there. Arsenal and Liverpool can improve.
Spurs have passed on two “one- time only” offers. They are unlikely to be given a third.
And when they return from Wembley, Spurs will need time to acclimatise to their new stadium.
They only have to ask West Ham to know how hard that can be.