I’ve been a Spurs fan for well over 30 years and in most of that time, we haven’t been very good. Oh, we’ve been entertaining and we’ve occasionally won a cup, but most of the time we’ve lurched from crisis to crisis.
A lot of Spurs fans talk about the Champions League as though it’s an entitlement. As though it’s something that Spurs are accustomed to; the reality is that in the Premier League era we’ve qualified just once for the Champions League. Indeed, for the first ten years of the Premier League era, we looked more likely to be relegated than finish in Europe. I remember being elated when we qualified for the UEFA Cup back in 1999. It was just exciting to be playing in Europe again.
In the ENIC/Levy era we have spent a lot of money – some of it wisely, some of it foolishly. Spurs have hired and fired a lot of managers. We’ve narrowly missed out on the Champions League a few times but equally, we’ve finished 9th, 10th, 14th, 11th, 8th. Most of the time we’ve been an above average team with the occasional genius player (Berbatov, King, Modric, Bale). It’s only in the last six or seven years, due to a combination of investment, good players and good management that we’ve consistently looked likely to finish in the top four. For four odd years under Redknapp we had a really good go of it: we had the same manager, a settled team, three great players: Bale, Modric, VdV (none of whom were signed by Redkapp) and genuinely looked like a proper team – until Redknapp took his eye off the ball, distracted by dreams of England, and it all went to shit. Redknapp was sacked, AVB appointed and the rest is history.
My point is that what we’re seeing right now at Spurs is normal service. We are not Chelsea or Arsenal or Man Utd or Man City or Liverpool, who between them have recently won numerous domestic cups, league titles and Champions League titles. In the last 20 years we’ve won the League Cup twice. We haven’t even come close to winning anything else. There may be new fans from the last five years who expect us to always finish in the top five and threaten to win the League, but for the rest of us, this is what we expect from Spurs.
I’m not talking down Spurs. I love the club. But I’m also realistic about the fact that we are not entitled to anything. Appointing the next bright young thing as manager and spunking £30 million on an Argentinian starlet isn’t a guarantee of success. So I don’t expect us to finish in the top four this year, and that isn’t the end of the world. I’ve supported the club for a long time, and in that time we’ve only qualified for the Champions League once. So lets be proud to be Spurs fans, but lets also be realistic about our recent history. We may appoint Hoddle or Bielsa or De Boer or whoever; we may have a shitload of talent on our books, but we are not entitled to anything. We had a great few years of it, but Bale, Modric and the rest are long gone and perhaps we have to lower our expectations.
