SPURS WORKING AGAINST A TICKING CLOCK
They must take the next step NOW
Harry Kane, loyalist that he is, attempted to clarify his manager’s rather gloomy projections. Five years to a trophy, maybe 10 years, according to Mauricio Pochettino?
Kane would be 35. nobody would expect him to be patient into his thirties. nobody would expect him to be leading the line for Tottenham a decade from now. His team-mates fear his frustration is growing. Maybe theirs is, too.
‘I don’t think it’s far away,’ Kane said. ‘I think what the gaffer was saying was that with the other teams, there is no guarantee you will win, even if you improve.
‘all the teams are strengthening, getting better year by year, so it’s important we don’t slip behind. We’ve got to a stage in the last five years where we’ve done more than we expected, but that means we have to do even more to reach the next step.
‘When the pressure is on we need to find a way to get it done. We haven’t in recent years, we haven’t this week and that is the difference. That is the turning point.’
Tottenham play Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League tomorrow with a three-goal first-leg advantage. It should be a foregone conclusion but Sir alex Ferguson’s famous ‘ Lads, it’s Tottenham’ team talk still resonates.
This is what Kane alludes to when he discusses the next step: the suspicion Tottenham are at their most vulnerable the moment success becomes a genuine possibility. They are comfortable travelling under the radar, but when breaking cover, doubt overwhelms.
They were in the title race, and just as quickly out of it again. They have got to the brink of a Wembley final on several occasions before losing to inferior teams. and last year they seemingly had the jump on Juventus in the Champions League last-16, before succumbing.
So, while Tottenham’s progress to the quarter-finals against Dortmund should be a formality, and they should be considered a threat by any team in the last eight, there is a reason Pochettino talks in years, not months, about winning europe’s biggest prize. even Kane did not sound entirely convinced.
‘anything is possible,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t say we were one of the favourites to win the Champions League, but we’ve shown in games like last year against real Madrid and this year against Barcelona that we can take on or beat the big teams. Bit by bit, if you win big games and beat big teams it gives you more confidence, so we’ll see.
‘ Beating Dortmund would show we’re growing in europe and becoming a bigger team.
‘The competition is getting better, the teams are getting better, so improving is not always easy. Winning it is not impossible, just unlikely.’
There is a growing sense, though, that Tottenham, for all the positivity around their squad, their style and their move to what appears a quite magnificent stadium, are working against a ticking clock. Pochettino to real Madrid is a rumour that will not die, and the majority of the squad are coveted throughout europe.
aaron ramsey’s move to Juventus shows that even the second tier of elite Premier League performers could find a home in some pretty fancy locations, meaning the majority of the squad know they have options. Pochettino’s fury at Burnley last week, as well as his agitation at half-time against arsenal, suggests a growing urgency to seize this moment, even if his public pronouncements are serene.
Tottenham were 10 points clear of arsenal on February 23. That is now four, but for much of this game a real-time table had them separated by a single point, ramsey having given arsenal a first-half lead.
‘The manager said some things at halftime and that was the turning point because he’s usually calm and collected,’ Danny rose revealed. ‘He normally just talks to us but this time he was sending us to war. It was one of the best things I’ve witnessed in football, actually, certainly one of the best team talks.
‘He was really passionate. It made me want to fight for him, fight for my teammates and fight for my club. I love seeing things like that, it really got me firing.
‘Look, we’re not used to losing two games in a row, so something needed to change somewhere. Whether we needed a rocket up our backsides, I don’t know — he just tried a different approach.’
and yet, for all this, Tottenham should have lost. Kane’s equaliser was controversial and had Pierre-emerick aubameyang not taken a dreadful penalty with minutes remaining, Spurs would have been defeated in home and away league games by their great rivals for the first time since 2013-14.
Tottenham are a better team than arsenal, and Chelsea, right now. yet they have lost to both this season — plus Manchester City, Liverpool, Manchester United, Wolves, Watford — every team in the top eight.
arsenal haven’t. They have lost to the majority of the biggest teams — Manchester City, Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea — but not the europa League contenders. and they are back in the scrap for Champions League places, a point behind fourthplaced Manchester United who visit the emirates next Sunday.
United are in better form — and were comprehensive winners in an Fa Cup tie between the teams in January — but arsenal have improved under emery. He also delivered a memorable speech at half-time on Saturday, telling his players he didn’t want them to approach the second half as if defending a lead, but to go out, control the game, and win again. They nearly did, too.
The best chances all went to arsenal — alexandre Lacazette as culpable from open play as aubameyang was from the spot — and Tottenham’s first shot came in the 39th minute, the longest they had waited in a Premier League home game since the visit of Stoke on December 22, 2012.
arsenal play rennes in the europa League — the Champions League backstop, as it should be called — on Thursday and then prepare for United. This remains a club in transition and yet, here they are in March, contemplating the overhaul of Manchester United, and closing in on local rivals that thought they had left them behind.
Tottenham really haven’t got all the time in the world. The great leap forward cannot come soon enough.