The Kelvin scale is one method of measuring temperature. Absolute zero is -273 degrees centigrade and pre-match that was how low I scored our chances of winning. This is the point where all molecular motion ceases, and therefore comes close to my assessment of some of our players.  

Like many of you, I hoped at least for some effort and application, and to be fair our first half was acceptable in that respect. The amount of pointing and shouting from the back three was noticeable from my position in the South Stand, implying that there was a plan and the players were committed to supporting each other to put it into action, again fair enough as the manager has only had a few days to work with this disorganised, undermotivated group.

Tudor prefers 5-3-2. For us, it meant playing a midfielder at centre back. Also, the midfield three allowed space for them to come down the wings and Saka drifted past our tackles with the ease of a slalom skier zipping past those poles. The lapse of concentration in not picking up Gyokeres did for us. They were not at their best and didn’t have to be. The whole club is streets ahead of us in the way they have allowed their manager to grow and backed him over several years to overcome bad transfer deals by spending big on high quality players. Exactly the opposite of the Tottenham Way, in other words. In the past on Tottenham On My Mind, I’ve written that they are streets head of us. I was wrong. It’s light years.

So welcome Igor Tudor. He has my very best wishes in handling the Herculean task ahead of keeping us in the Premier League. Handpicked by our hierarchy, which frankly is no recommendation given their record, he is apparently an expert in keeping teams up. I read he has never before lost his opening game after joining a club. Well, welcome to Tottenham.

The rest of season isn’t about yesterday’s performance. It’s about how we do against teams further down the league. Let’s call this Tudor’s pre-season: two weeks training, one practice match, then down to the real business. The best that can be said about yesterday is that he now has a fair idea of what he is up against.

We believe fondly in the positives of the new manager bounce, less so in the reality of the newcomer exposing the deep-rooted problems that characterise this Spurs side. We have been poor in the league for at least a year, arguably 18 months. Last season we finished 17^th because we deserved to. The supposed remedy for this – new manager, new club hierarchy, new players – has proved to be toxic rather than healing, and nothing has been done to cure the virus that will bring us to our knees, complacency. What truly hurts is that all of this is so avoidable.

For many years, the club hierarchy has been distant, aloof, all their entries channelled into self-preservation at the expense of the team and the fans, literally in the case of matchgoing supporters. Being average becomes acceptable, opportunities to build on success are allowed to pass by and they choose to look away when confronted with the requirements of creating a successful team, which after all is their stated aim. A life in football and they have learned nothing. Whether it be through the official channels of supporter feedback, through blogs like this one and podcasts or through protests outside and inside the ground, the hierarchy have been warned by the fans. We have seen it coming, they wrapped themselves in self-delusion. Supporters boo because they are not otherwise being heard.

This board have chosen a different route, to appoint several senior officers to manage all aspects of the club. However, they too have succumbed to this complacency. I have no idea what Venkatesham is doing to develop the club. He, the board and Lange (presumably, we don’t know) decided we didn’t need a short-term fix in January, when short-term, we were playing badly and decimated by injuries. They declined to spend money (Gallagher’s fee was offset by the sale of Johnson), when we know the club has funds. They chose not to make these available.

Lange and Frank are close. In fact, what we needed was a director of football (or whatever his job title is) at arm’s length, committed to the club but able to stand back with a degree of objectivity. So Frank stayed longer than he should have. Last week Heitinga left the club. He started work on or around January 15^th. That means, on January 15^th the plan remained that Frank should be supported to stay in post. 27 days later, he was sacked. This shows once more the disorganization and lack of planning at the highest level. It is disgraceful.

A long-held theory of mine is that the club hierarchy would behave differently if they mixed in the same circles as supporters. If they had to endure the stick Spurs fans are getting currently from all quarters, then they would perceive the situation very differently. Senior staff in business and commerce purposely isolate themselves as a form of self-protection. They think they know what’s going on, whereas in reality they fall victim to complacent group think. Apply that to your work if you are part of an organisation of any size. From my experience, being open and accountable is a strain but it’s essential to effective management. This is why the hierarchy’s distance from fans is a significant factor in our decline.  

And we fans are on the receiving end of constant ridicule. I wonder if they can imagine what young Spurs fans have had to put up with in the playground this morning. But they don’t care about that. They don’t care about that part of the Tottenham family.

We are in real trouble. Two wins at home all season, 9 games without any win. The players look demoralised and physically tired. Most of the injured players won’t be back until at least next month, and even then it will take time to become match fit. In the meantime, we’ve let the youngsters with lower league experience out on loan, so are left with a bench full of 17 years old to fight a relegation battle, then to support a period of playing three games in seven or eight days when we’re back in the CL. Our rivals Forest and Wham are not playing well, but they are already set up to be organised and fight (Forest have a new man but his tactics won’t be significantly different from Dyche), whereas we have no pattern to fall back on.

Tudor seems up for it. I just hope the players believe there’s something worth battling for, that the badge genuinely means something to them, or would they rather spend time on the phone to their agents, searching for an escape route. Romero could be a bellwether here. He’s a fighter, a leader, if he’s in the right frame of mind.

If the negative tone of this and recent pieces grates, well, I’m writing from the heart and being honest. We are in a terrible mess and I’m pessimistic about our chances. But there’s potential for change here – if they are up for it. Good luck Mr Tudor, good luck.

The Spurs Way. Attacking football on the front foot. Played with style and a flourish, not sitting back waiting for the others to die of boredom. It’s a familiar precept for Spurs fans that invests meaning and purpose in our passion.

We all need something like this, if only because watching 22 players kick a ball around is essentially hollow and futile without it. It’s been important for Spurs fans in my lifetime, initially because it characterised our approach to the game and latterly as an ambition to cherish during long periods of mediocrity.

It’s live – Tuesday night, first half, centre circle, Bissouma in space, opts to pass back. Hardly the most serious error in a season filled with catastrophe but the South Stand roared in anger. Thomas Frank, all season, doesn’t get it, can’t handle it, out of his depth to the point where even our board can see it. Out the door 6 weeks too late.

I believe in the Spurs Way but realise it has another function in masking the reality of a parallel truth, that Tottenham in modern times are a club with a history of failure, embedded in poor organisation and owners bereft of the capacity to efficiently and effectively run the club. Sum up the last forty years in a couple of pithy phrases: missed opportunities and unfilled potential. There are three fundamental elements to running a successful football club at any level: the coach or manager, recruitment and finance. Those in charge have never consistently shown the will, ambition, structure or capacity that enables this triumvirate to function smoothly together, united in direction and resolve. In short, this is who we are, and this is why we have ended up in the damned mess we are in, near the bottom of the table and staring at the abyss below.

This dates back to the early 1980s, when the club under chairman Irving Scholar put themselves in the vanguard of a new commercialism. The drive to maximise income, in Spurs’ case through floating on the Stock Exchange, non-football manufacturing, the new West Stand with executive boxes, merchandising and television advertising, was intended to generate funds for transfers and wages. In fact, it had two related consequences, in that the expenditure incurred led to mounting debts, so increasing income became an end in itself for club survival.

Keith Burkinshaw’s wonderful team sustained and entertained us into the middle of the decade. Scholar’s predecessors, the Wale family, were perceived as amongst the fusty blazers holding back the development of the game in England, out of touch and highly protective of their own status. Yet their old-school approach led to Burkinshaw’s promotion within the club and allowed him several years following relegation to rebuild, with money spent firstly on the midfield with Ossie and Ricky, then later up front with Crooks and Archibald. Burkinshaw’s famous passing shot ‘there used to be a football club over there’ was probably written by a journalist but it accurately expressed his views, seen here in this post-match interview from 1982 where this normally taciturn man, complete with de rigueur managerial sheepskin, calmly articulates the problems of the contemporary English game, truly ahead of his time.

The warning signs slowly became apparent. Off the pitch, executive boxes displaced the mighty Shelf, while on the field, the skilful teams built by Pleat then Venables began to take shape only for stars to be sold and replaced with frankly inferior footballers. We build again only for the cycle to be repeated. Stars like Sheringham and Klinsmann were never supported by a squad of sufficient talent, or as Colin Calderwood famously put it, “we’ve got the Famous Five [attackers], what about the shit six?”

Sugar, then Levy and ENIC, but the same pattern. The choice of manager unsuited to the club and in many cases to the task as well. Managers never adequately supported in the transfer market. Promises made to fans as the prices went up that were never kept. Pochettino is the outlier in terms of his suitability but the board’s failure to fully support him in the market remains an era-defining error.

And here we are again. New board, new supposedly vaunted backroom staff, same old problems. The search for a manager last summer produced a man unsuited to the club in so many ways, leaving the bloke out of his depth and no intention of throwing him a lifebelt. He’s gone now, but not for the first time, I’m left to ask the question, what were those in charge of the club seeing when Spurs played? Apparently not the shapeless, tactically deficient football we all saw. What in Frank’s approach did they see that gave them cause to believe he could turn things around when we fans saw nothing of the sort? Why wait this long – do they have access to another Premier League table in a parallel universe, because their inaction is that absurd.

Lange in charge of recruitment knows his up and coming players but we needed some experience too. He says they didn’t want a quick fix. Except we need a quick fix. And if we can’t get our top targets, where is the list of players next in line, and where is the sense that we recruit to fill gaps and create a coherent team rather than be opportunistic?

Ventkatesham schmoozes the fans at a meeting and writes some corporate rubbish in the programme. He says the culture needs to change, right, but he needs to start that, because that’s his job. And where has the £150m funding injection from the board gone? Not on players, because we sold our top goalscorer in order to fund Gallagher’s purchase.

Spurs are sleepwalking towards relegation. Lousy form, shattered confidence, no structure. I hear that the squad is more than capable of staying up. It is, except half of them are injured. Players who thought they would be competing for honours are not ready for a relegation fight. The current hierarchy is riven with complacency. It could spell disaster.

As I write, Spurs have appointed Igor Tudor as a temp until the end of the season. Good luck – he has my best wishes. I only know what you know after your frantic googling, same as me. I quote Wikipedia: “On 13 February 2026, Tudor agreed a deal to become Tottenham interim head coach until they get relegated from the premier league in the 2025/26 season.” David Ornstein, a reliable source, says that the process was led by Ventkatesham and Lange. That does not fill me with confidence.

On Tuesday night, the booing at full-time was full of righteous fury. What received less attention, but is just as telling, was that as many fans, if not more, shrugged and wandered silently home. Perhaps I’m over-interpreting, but I’ve seldom heard as many non-football conversations going on around me during and after a game, given that stakes were high and despite being excruciatingly bad, we were never more than a goal down. Injury time, ball in their box, there was no excitement in the stands, no tension or jeopardy, and for the first time this season, the players looked utterly dejected as yet another aimless cross went weakly by.

This has been going on for years and we are drained of enthusiasm. Watching Spurs is joyless. It’s the ultimate criticism as far as we fans go. If Spurs can stagger through to the end of the season and avoid relegation, that’s all I care about. But the long-term problems are structural and chronic, and they won’t go away.

A fine outcome to the City game soothed our troubled emotions, a welcome relief from recent struggles. A point! A home point! Yes, it has come to this, but I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to get behind the team. The fans’ effort matched that of the players and most of the South Stand stayed to applaud them off. 

It was heartening to see spirit, guts and taking the game to our opponents pays dividends. Xavi arrives as proper Spurs. He’s taken stock, inhaled deeply and told himself, right, this is what the Premier League is all about and I’m up for it. I’m Xavi Simons and I will show them all how good I am. And he is. Solanke ran himself senseless for the team, he’s a focal point, target man and finisher. The whole shape looks better with him in the team. I like his close control and ability to nick a fraction ahead of his marker.

Gallagher I like a lot too. He drives the team forwards, makes himself available, is fearless and shows the others the way. His assist was a template for the games ahead, winning the ball through sheer determination then delivering a sweet centre. More please. 

The TOMM mantra is always enjoy a win, or in this case a vitally important comeback that hopefully injects some much needed momentum into the tricky games ahead.  Optimism has been in short supply lately so let’s take it where we can. However, let nobody pretend this addresses the chronic problems facing the club. My last piece articulated my assessment of the situation so I won’t go over well-trodden ground again but the relative inaction during the transfer window may provide further clues to the short-term future.

Thomas Frank came with a reputation for sound organisation, tactical nouse and as a man-motivator. We’ve seen none of this at Spurs, where he seems out of his depth. The Burnley match served as a further indictment of his methods. Once again, he took an overly cautious approach to a game against the bottom side but to be fair, three at the back doesn’t have to be negative and in the first half, it enabled us to get forward frequently. Once under pressure, however, the tactics crumbled and the defensive unit appeared to have not been introduced to each other, let alone work together. Frank’s adjustments to tactics don’t work because the side are not clear about their basic approach in the first place, unlike his time at Brentford where he had years to instil his methods into his players. 

To be fair to him, the injury toll would be nigh on impossible for any coach to manage. Much criticism has been directed at the medical staff, most recently by Romero at least by implication. Yet I thought we totally revamped this side of our operations this season. We will probably never know what’s been going on behind the scenes but the medics don’t work in isolation. They treat problems, caused variously by bad luck, over-playing and/or coming back too soon when not fully recovered from an injury. 

Which brings us back to the squad and the transfer window. If most players are fit, we can select a decent side but the lack of cover in certain areas, such as full-back, leads to overwork and the lack of alternatives creates real problems. Porro has been run into the ground. However, the window has brought little cover or comfort. The club appear unwilling to invest in premier league ready players at this point. They have been busy hoovering up teenage talent from other clubs, including Wilson from Hearts and youngsters from West Ham and Chelsea, but this neglects the here, now and next season for that matter. The club hierarchy stated their aim to be competing on all fronts but this laudable intention isn’t supported by the reality of our recruitment policy, in a context where our league position and form is dire. It feels like the hierarchy are in denial, pretending our lousy form is just a blip, not a structural fault.

Legitimate questions follow. One, why can’t our vaunted revamped recruitment team, stuffed with analysts high on data and led by Lange find any players? Two, why sell our top goalscorer without securing a replacement? Three, that £150m pumped into the club last year – what exactly is that for, because it does not seem to be available for players. History tells us the answer is that Tottenham owners first and foremost safeguard their investment. I hope I’m wrong.

And of course, four, how long can the manager stay in his position? Again, the team’s league position and form do not appear to be the key factors in this decision. My interpretation is the board, including the owners and Venai, counted on this season being one of consolidation. In this scenario, Frank is seen as a safe pair of hands, a force for stability, and maybe we’d get a decent run in the cups. By May 2026, the board would have a better idea of what they needed to do, their preference being to help Frank build his side gradually and allow him to come to terms with the demands of managing Spurs. Essentially this is how Venai approached his work at Arsenal, and look where they are now. 

But this is Tottenham. However much the board would wish to turn a deaf ear, the hoofbeats of history thunder up on the inside track and they have been overtaken by a series of unanticipated problems. The manager’s not up to it, the squad are weak in key areas and injuries have taken their toll. Team morale falls as fast as our league position. Players didn’t sign up for a relegation battle. The board are unprepared. If they wish to sack Frank, there are no ready made caretakers within the club or approachable outside candidates. Also, a sacking so soon after his appointment means the owners and CEO would lose face. Further, Lange and Frank are close, so there is a big investment there. 

I suspect their current plan is to see this through to the end of the season. They do not wish to invest large sums on players at this point because they are already thinking ahead to the summer and what a new man could bring, a summer when Pochettino, Alonso and Ariola, to name but three, could be available. Given our league form, there are inherent risks in that strategy that do not bear thinking about, except I do think about them, every time our defence evaporates, our keeper flaps or when Solanke or VDV go down injured. Fine margins protect us. 

And so we stagger on through another set of problems. Nothing changes, especially the promise of changes. Prefacing this with a big for what it’s worth, I saw Vivienne Lewis recently at a performance of The Ghost of White Hart Lane, a play by Martin Murphy intertwining the life of John White with his son’s search for his father’s character, based on the book by Rob White and Julie Welch. I didn’t speak with her, but a couple of fans who did, like me fellow sceptics, said she understood and valued the club’s history, and has a genuine feeling for the club. The previous regime would never have appeared in a small public gathering like this and sat chatting amongst the punters in a cosy bar. 

I try to remain optimistic, but like you, I remember the days, not so long along go, when we cut teams apart with two or three passes, just like City did in the first half. A world away now, as the best we can hope for is staggering on. 

With full respect to Bournemouth, losing to their 94^th minute winner would not in normal circumstances been seen as a significant moment in the recent history of any Premier League club, let alone Tottenham. But Tottenham are no normal club. Normally, teams strive to win a trophy, celebrate the win then use it as a platform to build upon. Not Tottenham. We’ve chucked it all away.

Delirium in Bilbao and at the Lane for those of us watching on the screens. 250000 in the streets on a working day. At last, a trophy. At last, supporters and players can celebrate in unity. It seems like a fantasy now, a fever dream hallucination. Two points from three games against teams who were not at their best but have in common the harmony of purpose and intensity that is so obviously absent from our football. Ahead in two of these, we cave. Our first goal in open play since December 6^th. The sale of our top goalscorer with, so far, no replacement.

The football is dull and unadventurous. It’s not even safe, the late goal being the perfect example. It typified Spurs defensive deficiencies this season. Deep into injury time, we are wide open rather than closing ranks, leaving their most dangerous player time and space at the edge of the area. No last ditch tackles, no flying blocking bodies, but shoulder shrugging spectating.

More than this, it’s inept. We cannot consistently pass the ball to a teammate. Players are spread far and wide on the field with little connection to each other. We are persistently caught in possession. We’re easy. We’re mugs.

It’s accurate to say that Frank and perhaps those who appointed him do not grasp the heritage of a team that wants to play exciting football and that this is what supporters want to see. However, attacking front foot football is not merely about aesthetics, it’s about winning. Teams who succeed do not sit back.

In other circumstances I might write in philosophical whimsy about how remarkable it is that Spurs could waste supporters’ goodwill, stretched already to near breaking point by high ticket prices and the club’s treatment of fans as customers and consumers. But I’m not in that frame of mind. Our football is terrible. It’s tactically negligent, gutless and soporific. To reach this point is an indictment of the club’s strategy and neglect.  

The Lewis family declare their intentions to make Spurs a major force through strategic investment and better off the field organisation, but already the reserves of their most precious resource, time, have been severely depleted. Everybody at the club is under pressure now. You can’t build on foundations of quicksand. Years of change and transition undermine the efforts of the new manager and the revamped recruitment and medical teams to develop the squad.

I tend to be cautious and patient in making my judgements, in life as well as in football. I thought Frank would bring much-needed qualities to the club. He is a manager with a solid reputation, a thinker, a good motivator and organiser, and a shrewd tactician who can get the most from his players.

We’ve not seen any of this. In a league where other sides, Bournemouth again being a good example, with fewer resources than us compensate and prosper through organisation and identity, we have few discernible effective patterns of play, especially to turn defence into attack. These issues could perhaps have been mitigated by the comfort and security of a set pattern of play, a familiar formation where teammates knew what was expected of them and others and where young players could grow and flourish. Instead we have flux and change. Managers come and go, unsuitable in their individual, special ways but all with different philosophies and approaches to team building, often diametrically opposed to that of their predecessor.

Our current coach alters the set-up every game. Ostensibly this is in response to our opponents’ assumed tactics. Frank treats this squad as he did his Brentford team, the difference being that whereas in west London he had many years to build a squad and inculcate this approach, at Spurs there is no such foundation upon which to base these changes. It has the effect of creating uncertainty within our own players, and masks the truth that he does not know his best team.

The club thought he was ready to step up. In reality, he seems out of his depth. Managing  Spurs is different: expectations are higher, as is the pressure, and he does not have the long history of support from within that he benefitted from at Brentford. When highly rated coach Matt Wells left the club recently, his stated aim as boss of his new club was to play football on the front foot. Looking at Frank’s Spurs, no wonder he saw his future elsewhere. (Remember we’ve also lost a strong link to our heritage as the grandson of Cliff Jones).

Like Ange before him, when stressed Frank returns to his past record of achievement. I understand why he feels the need for self-justification, but it sounds hollow when his current side are chronically underachieving.

Not one player has improved their game under Frank. On the contrary, the deficiencies of team play have revealed the lack of quality in the squad. Granted, injuries have not helped, particularly to my mind to Solanke, a good rather than great centre forward who can be both target and finisher and above all can provide a focus for attacking play, someone to build play around. Players like Bergvall, Tel and Odobert have promising futures ahead of them but this is now, and time is running out.

It is legitimate to question the judgement of our vaunted recruitment team to allow us to be in this situation. Paratici and Lange are supposed to be working in unison, but already the former supposedly wants to go back to Italy. However, underlying these issues is a long-term structural weakness where the chronically dysfunctional relationship between football (i.e. the coach), recruitment and budget (the board) undermines any pretensions to achievement.

I’ve written repeatedly about this, that in any club these three elements have to align, and since ENIC took over, they have failed to consistently fulfil their duty to do so with diligence and insight. They were never clear about these goals or if they were, how to achieve them. At Spurs we have an embedded culture where people running a football club don’t understand football.

The question is, recruitment for what? To be contenders, the finance for salaries and transfers has to be made available. Players come and go according to the whims of these coaches and whatever the job title is this week of those in charge of recruitment, ever changing but never evolving. Modern football at a high level requires investment and resources, yet after a generation’s work to make us one of the most wealthy and self-sufficient clubs in the world, we remain stubbornly oblivious to the necessity of spending a substantial portion of that money in order to remain competitive.

This is not just about recruitment – it is also about retention. If our policy is to buy and develop young talent without also strengthening the team ready to be contenders in four competitions in the here and now, then the likely outcome is not success, it is that we become a nursery for Europe’s top sides as the likes of Bergvall, Gray and Vuscovic move on.

Where does this leave Spurs? In a dire mess. Players having a go at the fans. Players having a go at the board. Fans having a go at players, although at home games the crowd has been reasonably tolerant given the extent of the problems. This may change on Saturday where we will field a weakened side against a rampant Villa who have an allocation of 9k, that’s a lot of away fan noise.

Having vehemently criticised the club’s leadership for their lack of long-term strategy, it’s hardly logical to suggest they should sack Frank now unless they have a suitably able replacement available, which is seldom the case mid-season. There are no suitable candidates within the club as Frank brought his own men with him. I fear things could turn ugly if we lose to Wham, which is perfectly possible given our form and their motivation to beat us. Frank now also has to contend with a series of injuries. I suspect it may turn on the desire of the Lewis family to make statement decisions, a message that they are in charge, rather than on league form.

In this window we need to sign players with proven experience at this level, ideally from the PL, who can pass the ball forwards and strengthen the side from the start of their Spurs career, especially in central midfield. Good luck to the 19 year old fullback coming from Santos, but he’s not what I have in mind.

Whether the Lewis family, supported by our supposedly able and fan-friendly CEO, can change this toxic culture remains to be seen. The reconstituted board is packed with experience in finance and in sports finance, but running an English football club, to echo a previous comment, is different. Vinai Venkatesham has to make the forces align – that’s the role of an effective CEO. Certainly there is no quick fix. This will take time, but if our league form remains so poor, short-term decisions will have to be made, potentially undermining the longer term strategy.

And so we go, round and round again. Something has to break the cycle. Whether the Lewis family want to make it work is a question only they can answer, because as we all know, the I in ENIC stands for investment, and they must be tempted to walk away from these problems and towards a mountain of cash.

To alleviate the gloom and doom of this piece, two friends of the blog have shared their warm memories about Spurs. Take a look.

More Trauma Than Triumph is Harvey Burgess’s story of his life as a Spurs fan

Norman Giller is a veteran of Fleet Street and lifelong Spurs fan who knows the club and the players. His latest Spurs Select evokes warm memories available with all his many other books here