Wembley factor hanging over Tottenham’s title hopes
The season hadn’t even finished when diggers and cranes arrived at White Hart Lane in the middle of May, beginning the long job of demolishing a stadium that Tottenham had turned into a Premier League fortress.
It will be another year before the team returns to the site of its famous old ground to take up residence in a new 61,000-seat arena, built with the aim of giving the club a better chance of competing with Europe’s elite.
But can they even remain in England’s elite in the intervening 12 months?
For this season, Tottenham will play their “home” games in the Premier League and in European competition at Wembley Stadium, English football’s 90,000-capacity national stadium located about 19km across north London. Chelsea, the defending league champions, are the first visitors on Sunday.
To say Tottenham has a poor record at Wembley would be an understatement.
In 10 matches since reopening in 2007, Tottenham has lost six times and won only twice. Last season, the team played their Champions League games at Wembley and lost to both Monaco and Bayer Leverkusen in the group stage, contributing to an early exit from the competition. Spurs then played Chelsea in the FA Cup semifinals and lost 4-2.
Contrast that with Tottenham’s record at White Hart Lane last season: Played 23, won 21, drawn two.
Led by players like Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Toby Alderweireld, Tottenham has their best team in a generation — finished third and second in the Premier League the last two seasons — and has the best pointsto-game ratio of any team in England’s top flight over the past two years. In normal circumstances, Tottenham might even be the favourite for the league title this season.
The Wembley factor threatens that status.
“We have a really big challenge this season, because it’s not only to fight with the big clubs to try and win (the title) again, but the other thing is try to make Wembley our home,” Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino said days before the start of the season.
“That’s a big challenge for us — similar to winning a title. To make Wembley home and change the fans’ perception and feel, in the end, that Wembley can help us to be better and achieve our dream.”
Sunday’s match will be a test case to see whether the temporary tenants can adjust their style.
Tottenham’s disappointing record could be because Wembley (105x69 meters) has a bigger playing surface than the cramped White Hart Lane (100x67 meters), which was among the smallest in the Premier League.