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The best media seat in the Premier League used to be at White Hart Lane. Directly behind the dugouts, it didn’t help much if you wanted to observe patterns of play, but if you required a view of how fast, physical and athletic modern football is, then it could not be beaten.
It was particularly impressive viewing back when Mauricio Pochettino was building something at Tottenham.
Players such as Toby Alderweireld, Kyle Walker, Moussa Dembele, Eric Dier and Harry Kane were prototype Premier League footballers. Big, quick, clever players, designed to win the 100-yard dash and rounds one, two and three of the big fight all at the same time.
Tottenham’s decline is clear but their problems run deeper than manager Jose Mourinho
It must have been a rare old time to be a Spurs fan. Pochettino was smart, likeable and a young coach with a clear plan.
I recall them playing Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City at home in October 2016. Guardiola’s first season in England had been marked by a 100 per cent start to the league season, but Tottenham beat them 2-0 that day.
The energy of Pochettino’s players as they ran all over City was fabulous to watch.
The exciting side under former boss Mauricio Pochettino seems a distant memory now
Spurs finished second that season after running Leicester close the year before. Two seasons later, they reached a Champions League final.
So to see Tottenham so diminished now is sobering. Their decline has not been particularly dramatic or spectacular. It will not make for car-crash TV when the Amazon Prime series about the club is aired later this summer.
Nevertheless, ahead of Monday night’s home game against Everton, the club’s regression is steady and threatening to take them closer to Burnley, Newcastle and Crystal Palace than it is to the teams in the European places. The concern for them now is that this shift becomes permanent.
Their latest 3-1 defeat to Sheffield United puts them closer to mid-table than Europe now
The appointment of Jose Mourinho was probably not the right one but it’s lazy to say he could never be successful there. It is not completely inconceivable that he could make Spurs a top four club again but to do so he would need money that he just is not going to get.
Certainly the manager is not the only cloud that will hover over Tottenham’s beautiful new stadium at kick-off on Monday night.
The club borrowed £637million to build their home and what was a huge sum a year ago seems altogether more significant in the Covid-19 era.
With no supporters spending money, two American football fixtures cancelled — the first one held at the stadium last October generated £1m in beer sales alone — and Champions League qualification no longer likely, it stands to reason that Tottenham will not be breaking a long-term habit of parsimony when the transfer window opens.
And that, more than anything, is the problem. Of all the missteps made at Spurs in recent times, the mismanagement of the squad has harmed the club the most.
Lost revenue form cancelled events in multi-million pound stadium is another dark cloud
Important players such as Christian Eriksen and Kyle Walker have left and not been replaced
Some good players — Walker, Kieran Trippier, Christian Eriksen — have moved on. Others — Dier, Dele Alli — have regressed, while many of the replacements — Serge Aurier, Davinson Sanchez, Tanguy Ndombele — have not yet made a significant mark at the club.
It does not really matter who your manager is if your players aren’t good enough and, although Mourinho is clearly part of the problem at Spurs, he is not the whole problem. Not by a long way.
And this is what is sad — not so much what Tottenham will become under Mourinho, but thinking instead about everything they have lost.
When Arsene Wenger schooled us sportswriters!
Nike’s unveiling of their new ball for the Premier League last week reminded me of a launch to mark their winning of the contract exactly 20 years ago.
Held at Arsenal’s training ground, the assembled media were invited to take part in a training session with Arsene Wenger.
The drill was simple: play a pass to Wenger stationed on the edge of the penalty area, take the return and try to beat young Arsenal goalkeeper Graham Stack with a first-time shot.
Arsene Wenger held a training session with sportwriters for Nike’s Premier League ball launch
My turn came and, as the ball disappeared high over the crossbar towards the M25, Wenger smiled politely and ventured: ‘Yes… you see how the new ball wobbles on the wind?’
Soon, we had a quick game of 11-a-side with an extraordinarily patient Wenger as referee. My abiding memory of that mish-mash is the moment the man from The Mirror struck the lady from The Times flush in the face from three yards. Somehow, she got up again.
Proof, if ever it were needed, that those who can, play. And those who can’t, write.
Phil Foden’s surge to superstardom
Phil Foden is starting to show that his bright future in the game is starting become present
It was the man who discovered Phil Foden for Manchester City who said there was only one thing holding back the young midfielder.
‘Once he develops that half yard of pace to surge past people, we will see the real Philip,’ Jim Cassell, the former academy director at City, told me over a pub lunch last year.
Watching Foden since the restart, it seems the future that Cassell talked about has very much arrived.
A horrific restart for the bottom four
Since the Premier League resumed on June 17, the teams that occupied the bottom four places have taken a total of three points from a possible 51.
It has been a collective display of utter fecklessness.
The only good news for Norwich, Bournemouth, Aston Villa and Watford is that one of them will somehow be allowed to stick around for another season in the top flight.
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