Just when I thought we were getting somewhere.

Beating the Blues on Sunday felt good, not just because it is rare these days. This was a grown-up performance from a frequently immature Spurs team. Without playing at our best, we succeeded in our concerted efforts to get on top after a couple of early scares, first to loose balls and determined in countless challenges. It was a similar story against W Ham the previous weekend. We were sharp and strong, and didn’t give the ball away with unnecessary carelessness.

Well, forget all that. It’s a cup game, so add last night to the litany of failure chronicled in these pages over the past decade. Add the Blades to the list – Middlesboro, Norwich (through Vorm’s hands! Worst penalties ever! At home! A goal up!), Everton, Palace – these pathetic efforts blur into one ghastly vision, a changed team failing to be cohesive or determined. Take a match report from any of those games and copy and paste for the others, just change the names. Insipid, braindead performances by a team weakened by squad rotation. Frankly, the only surprise is that I’m surprised.

Earlier this season, our chairman was blathering on about the Spurs DNA in a ‘could do better’ message to us. Apparently, our genes have mutated in this generation to breed out the ‘winning stuff’ gene, the cup runs that I was brought up on, that tempered the frustration of never being able to be consistent enough over 42 league games to challenge for the league. So I can only conclude that Spurs don’t want to win things any more and that the messages has got through to the players.

Last night, we began well enough. The wing-backs pushed up, as did Dier into the midfield to take advantage of the space United vacated as they pulled back. The front three looked busy but the warning signs grew more pronounced as time passed. Fancy flicks intercepted, direct runs blocked by determined tackling and covering. Son, Moura and Richarlison repeatedly caught in possession.

Ten minutes into the second half and it was clear that rather than this being the base for improvement, it was actually the best we could come up with. Shots were either weak and straight at the keeper or ended up closer to the corner flag than the goal. Moura hasn’t lost his ability to run down blind alleys, and if they don’t exist, create them. Son even at his best is a receiver of passes rather than someone who can hold it and move it on, but he’s not at his best, nowhere near it, so he provided tackling practice for eager defenders. Richarlison’s mind was all over the place, as was his shooting, he had a awful match.

I suspect Spurs fans recognised this pattern before the United players, but once they caught on that we are vulnerable, they swarmed all over us, took control and deservedly won, putting us out of our misery with a late goal that Forster, who has done well so far, failed to save at his near post with an almost imperceptible but fatal shift onto his left foot milliseconds before the ball went to his right.

Spurs are not good enough to make several changes to the team and overcome determined, organised opposition. How many games do we have to lose in this country and in Europe before we learn the lesson? It is yet another downside of having so many changes of manager, as each one has to find out for themselves, then express bewilderment in post-match press conferences. Partly it’s that the squad could be deeper, but essentially this is a failure of the collective. Stellini said that a front line of Moura, Richarlison and Son should have been enough. There’s some truth in that, and as individuals they were woeful, but any Conte disciple should know better than most that it is all about the team. Those three have never played together before and their talents do not complement each other. Neither were they supported from midfield by Hojbjerg or Sarr.

Kane needs a rest, except we can’t play without him. His presence forms the shape of our attacks. Someone else could do that in theory, yet we’ve not planned for that eventuality, so there’s no alternative.

My wife’s family are Hammers, so their match was on the TV. Manchester United changed their side for this game and found themselves a goal down at half time. Even after bringing in internationals to replace other internationals, it wasn’t working. Their recent enviable development under a manger who depending on which version you believe, we didn’t want to appoint or turned us down, comes through shape and familiarity, so they made changes to bring in key players, found their balance and won the game. Even with their deep squad, right now, where they are, they depend on a few key players. They must be as tired as our key men, except they have learned how to win and want to win again, so the tiredness recedes.

As an aside, a goal down and they brought on Martinez, their Argentinian, aggressive, front foot defender whereas ours stayed on the bench. It’s not just about throwing men forward, far from it.

United have momentum. We threw ours away, what little precious little we have. We won’t ever win stuff if we make it obvious that we don’t really want it enough. Pochettino was guilty in this regard when it came to domestic cups. He said he was told that Champions League qualification was his priority, and it still seems to be the case. Try telling that to the 5000 plus who were up for the cup late on a midweek night. It won’t wash. A winning mentality comes from winning things. We looked at the great opportunity of a long cup run offered by this competition with only a few other PL sides still left, and we said, nah, not for us. Not for Tottenham. It’s in our DNA.

The celebrations extended beyond the final whistle as people wanted to stay in that feeling, partly to honour one of our own, but before that, to savour a win for its own sake and the manner in which it was achieved. Players giving everything, digging in for the shirt, and the fans responding. It was like rekindling the pleasures of a long-term relationship with a date night. Just the two of us, fans and the team. There are other implications, for the league table, the team’s progress, but blank all that out and savour the win and the performance for its own sake. 

We needed that. Let’s be honest, many performances this season have hardly been inspiring. Yet here we were, defending that goal as if our fate depended on it, that feeling of anticipation crackling through the crowd as we broke on the counter, where all things were once again possible. That feeling near the hour mark, goal up and we’ve suppressed any post-half time City revival. The players need us so get behind the lads. The involvement, the shared passion.  I’m leaning forward (getting a foot closer will make the difference), cursing each error, sensing the judder of every challenge, cheering the slightest success. How I’ve missed that at home games this season.  

Congratulations and plaudits all around. Every individual gave everything they had. I confess I’ve not seen it when people say Emerson would be a decent full-back, as opposed to a wing-back, but he proved me wrong with a top-level performance. There’s something irradicably frantic about him, the ball’s never quite under control, but from his whirling limbs emerged a top-quality game, limiting Grealish’s effectiveness and eager to burst forward when he could, taking up some unusual positions that posed extra problems for the City defence. His work at the far post as City stretched us was potentially match-saving, in particular a header under pressure in the first half. Booed cruelly by his own fans, slated for replacement, to come out and play like that against one of Europe’s best sides deserves my utmost admiration. Praise too for Hojbjerg, born for this sort of midfield confrontation, and the underrated Davies. We need a dominant centre half, sure, but here’s Davies, toe in, tidy up, be there first.  

Romero always treads the fine line between imposing himself on his man and going too far. It’s part of his game, something we mere mortals cannot fully grasp, how he and other top defenders can get booked then back themselves to play three-quarters of a game knowing one mistake is crucial. But the first tackle was reckless and unnecessary, I said so at the time. Against City, you have to keep a booking or two in reserve for the last 10 minutes.

At the other end, we should have scored more, given a fraction more composure with the final ball. Harry always a danger, Kulu not quite at the top of his game right now but working hard to link up and Sonny finding his touch again.

It comes on the back of two less spectacular but important wins against Preston and Fulham, where we successfully defended a one goal lead without playing noticeably well. We stifled Fulham, a well-organised, front-foot side, and made sure they never got going.  After the crushing defeats versus AFC and City away, Conte and the players met to get a few things out in the open, notably a search for our lost defensive form and questioning our sluggish efforts of late. Yesterday’s match is a sign the reboot is effective. We were determined in every challenge. The back three stayed tight, whereas in the away fixture, we were easily distracted by Alvarez‘s movement and the gaps opened up. The wingbacks were fearless in attack, while Harry was able to drop deeper when needed (he’s been staying further forward lately). We played as a team, a team that wanted to win rather than one that hoped to win.

Perhaps Conte took his own words to heart. His fierce ebullience has been noticeably absent from the touchline of late and like our defence, his press conferences have been all over the place. He’s had a hard time of it personally with the loss of two close friends and contemporaries, and now his operation. We need him to return refreshed and reinvigorated. I wouldn’t wish his condition on anyone, but the enforced peace of bedrest may help his healing process and refocus on the future

This augers well for the future but a note of caution. City’s style suits us because they leave space to play in midfield and they get men forward so the counterattack, one of our strengths when Son is on it, becomes a potent weapon. Our problem lies with teams that close us down and outnumber us in midfield. Also, in these three games, we went a goal up and fought to keep that lead. Will we continue with the tactic of hanging back early on? I hope not. None of the other top sides do, after all. We look like a team ready to defend a lead to the last, rather than one better at fighting to chase.

Harry’s wonderful. I haven’t said so enough lately, but never take him for granted. His true greatness will be evident only with the passing of time and the perspective of history, but stay in the present and relish every moment.

All great players have something special and unique about them. Harry’s isn’t immediately apparent. He lacks the grace, style and presence of other top-class footballers. But watch as he contorts his entire body to get the optimal point of contact with the ball, head or foot. You may not notice because he makes it appear straightforward, but watch. It’s born from a total focus on doing it right and being the best he can be.

Without question he has a place in the best Spurs XI of my lifetime, ahead of the revered Gilzean and Chivers, and alongside the finest of them all, Jimmy Greaves. Close your eyes and imagine that partnership up front, Kane and Greaves. I am blessed to have seen them both. The roar from all round the ground as he trotted back to the centre circle after scoring, that was something to treasure. Time for a considered appraisal when he retires. For now, I think of the goals still to be scored.

I’m drawn to the words of the great Francesco Totti, another one-club man: “I definitely could have won more trophies elsewhere but my greatest triumph is my loyalty to Roma.” An entire generation of younger fans have no idea what that means, but we do. We are Spurs, we feel it, and so does Harry.

Last season’s home north London derby was a triumph, and not just because of the 3-0 scoreline. Driven on by relentless fervour from the stands, Spurs matched the supporters’ passion to blow our rivals away. Under pressure, we flourished as they wilted before our eyes, a spirit and confidence we then took into the next couple of games, thumping wins, exuberant football and a place in the Champions League. It was a corner turned: our manager’s ferocious will to win was now part of the team’s collective psyche too. 

How times have changed. In the space of not more than 25 league games, the red side of north London have become utterly dominant. In the first half, yesterday, Spurs were pitiful. It was nothing short of humiliating. Harsh words but that’s what it was, and I say this advisedly as a fan whose loyalty over 55 years remains cast iron and who has seen Spurs lose 5-0 at the Lane and was there as they sealed two league titles. 

Under pressure, we produced gutless, banal and inept football, riddled with unforced errors. For extended periods, we were barely able to get the ball into our opponents’ half, let alone mount a challenge on goal. At times, it reminded me of a cup game between an elite team and a League 2 side, aimless long balls that were easily and gratefully gobbled up by quick defenders, and that may be an insult to League 2 sides. I’d say we were fighting for the scraps of second balls, except we weren’t fighting. 

The foundation of their win was pressure, the very quality we learned to overcome not so long ago. We simply could not play out of their press. Time and again, they won the ball through our errors.  

Hugo, there was a time when I admired you with warmth and affection, one of ours. And no doubt that’s how I’ll feel when you return in 5 years, rounded out a little but looking well, to have a cosy pitchside chat with Coytey. Right now, I think of you and slump in my seat. Say nothing, that doesn’t help the team and that’s what matters most, but his jitters vibrate through the whole side. Clearances put teammates in trouble and the ball’s coming back our way again. 

The goal from one such moment, keeper and two men on the near post, easy to block, then there’s the ball, dropping into the net like a table tennis ball bobbling onto the floor. The Park Lane was stunned into silence. No howls of anger, just disbelief. The bloke in front turned round to me. I told him ‘it’s gone in’. He saw it but didn’t believe his eyes. It took another moment for the away fans to react, like the delayed sound from an event miles away, light travels faster than sound. They couldn’t believe their good fortune. 

When Conte tells them to create space, he doesn’t mean for our opponents. The second, their best player, again stemming from a turnover, proverbial acres at the edge of our box. Partey had earlier hit the woodwork from a similar position, and of course he scored from there in the game at their place. We don’t learn our lessons.  

The players were all found wanting, save for Harry who was head, shoulders, knees and toes above the rest of that shower. Sarr has real potential but this was not a day about potential, while Kulu was dangerous in the second half when allowed to come forward. 

Conte had a terrible game yesterday. These problems stem from tactics and shape that allow teams into the game. AFC do their business at the edge of the area – we leave it wide open. Teams create ways of beating a press and Conte is known for inculcating set patterns into his side to move from defence to attack, yet time and again those patterns failed and we were trapped. Conte is known to like a week to prepare for games. And this is what we came up with. Subs in the last 5 minutes usually come on to waste time, not attempt to win a north London derby.  

I say this without excusing the players. There were several occasions at the end of the first half when a player tried to play out from deep and his 10 teammates were virtually standing still. And Son, dear Sonny, have you ever seen a player so out of touch for so long? Even his teammates moan at him.  

To make things worse, as I write this I’ve discovered hope in Spurs’ second half revival. The pessimism I carried with me as I left the ground remains, but we really had opportunities to score without playing especially well. We pushed Kulu further up and immediately made chances. So it didn’t take much, and that’s the point, do that earlier why don’t we, but we couldn’t score. Their keeper was on good form but a couple were bad misses. So actually, we could have got something from this. Just makes it worse.

The muted reaction in the Park Lane felt at odds with the stakes of the NLD. There was no concerted uplifting let’s get at ‘em come on! that typically goes with games like this. We were only two down, after all. Maybe it was louder elsewhere but the resignation and hopelessness born of despondency spoke volumes.  

I’m proud of being a Spurs fan but there are times when that cast iron loyalty is a dead weight pulling me down. Where to from here? Losing the derby is bad enough, but that despondency is more than just about this match. As I touched on in my last piece, it’s the cumulative effect of years of permanent transition without ever reaching our destination. Hopes raised then dashed again as we discover that we have changes without any club strategy, where the fit between manager, recruitment and finance is always, always found wanting. Of high seat prices with diminishing returns. I am weary with it all, this state of institutional disfunction.  

And – we have to face up to this however unpalatable it may be, because it is real – look at them lot. Appoint a club man but one without any experience as a manager. He’s paid a fortune to essentially learn on the job. He makes mistakes, money wasted in the transfer market, there are grumbles but he’s given time, as are the talented young players he’s brought on or bought. Maybe it was because they couldn’t spend that much, but he and they had time. Turns out, last year’s derby was their turning point, where in their reaction to adversity, they got it all together. 

This is the point where I should insist the manager shakes things up, tries something different. Except that’s not the Conte way. Past experience suggests he sticks with his formation and tries different players. Except we’ve run out of options. He’s tried everyone and this is where we are.  

These problems won’t be solved by a better right wing back. Having a fully fit squad will help – Bentacur’s return is much anticipated. Given this long-term gloom, our fanbase, I suspect, will not have the patience to wait two or three years for a younger guy to learn the ropes. One vital difference between our experience and theirs is the context. Arteta comes in with twenty-odd unbroken years of success integral to recent collective memory, including titles and cups. That gives him some leeway, however much some of their fans complained. Anyone coming to us carries the burden of unfulfilled promise as well as that of a board who don’t know what they are doing.  

So support the manager in this window, let’s see what happens. Hardly a ringing endorsement but it’s all I can muster right now. It’s irrelevant, Conte will walk in the summer if this carries on, he’s got a reputation to think of. There may be trouble ahead. 

Some questions deserve more than a straightforward answer, but working out where to begin and what to include can be a complicated business for me. So when our friendly builder casually mentions that he’s none too enamoured with the rail strike, immediately this creates a dilemma for me. They have a legal right to strike but, in my head, that sounds inadequate. I want to say, well, they are working people trying as a last resort to protect their income as living standards fall, that the right to strike goes back to the nineteenth century and working people had to fight every step of the way to earn the basic rights that you and I take for granted. Would my finely honed and tellingly evidenced analysis of class conflict grounded in history and political theory be a bit much at this point, especially as he’s just come over to put up the shed?

In the end, I paused, said that I hoped the government would settle it soon and we both got on with our respective jobs, suitably unenlightened. And it’s the same with regard to Spurs. The reason many Tottenham fans are frustrated and angry with the manager, the board and some players is about tactics, or underperformance, losing comprehensively against a Villa side who defended stoutly (the nerve!) and who capitalised on two pieces of atrocious defending. But that doesn’t seem enough either. It’s not about that really. Fundamentally, it’s something only a Spurs fan would understand, that this failure to achieve our potential is yet another in a long line of disappointment, a never ending cycle of hopes raised then expectations dashed and opportunities squandered. New manager, new players, same outcome.

In the mid and late nineties, it was frustrating but easier to deal with. We weren’t getting any anywhere much because the players weren’t good enough. Now, to my mind at least, it’s about potential unfulfilled, watching Spurs a series of brutal reminders that we are never going to be as good as we could be. Some fans’ booing of Emerson has become audible. Is he as good as we want him to be? No. Will booing make him play better? No (because he tries hard already). Will booing him make the chairman transform his transfer buying policy? No, so why do it? I don’t and I don’t condone it but it is also true that through this scapegoating fans are projecting a broader, deeper frustration onto someone who to me is an honest player who tries but is not what we need. The scapegoating of any player is wrong but the underlying exasperation and anger is real.

There’s a huge problem at the heart of everything that happens at Spurs. The club does not know what it wants to be, a success or an also ran, and Levy is the only Spurs fan who hasn’t worked it out by now. It’s not about throwing money around. It’s about planning and leadership, and our chairman provides neither.

Success in any organisation needs a vision that is shared and is achievable. Levy is by all accounts a successful businessman. As CEO, he’ll set that philosophy out and choose key staff to carry it out. He will take enormous care in getting the right people, but he appears unable to do that at a football club. At no point have Spurs created the lasting alignment between manager, recruitment and finance that is the foundation for success. There have been moments but one of those three elements is almost always out of sync.

Succession planning is non-existent, especially so with Levy’s vanity project choices of big name short-termists like JM and Conte. Constant changes undermine continuity so we end up with mismatched squads made up of players bought by different managers for different reasons and for different tactics. This is not the first time I’ve written that in this blog and it probably won’t be the last.

Conte doesn’t want the long, complete answer. He won’t be around for that long, whatever happens in the next year or two. He just wants to know if he can get what he wants, now. I was unable to get to the Villa game, but television revealed the most significant concerning aspect of that dreadful game, Conte’s face after the second goal. The blank expression, eyes staring into space. He did not know what to do. Powerless in the face of his team’s ineptitude.

His reaction fanned the flames of supporters’ anger, already white-hot. Searching for coherence within the verbal quagmire that is a Conte press conference is a futile exercise, and it’s best to sidestep his tedious posturing. The content is all about his anxiety, projected onto the board and lack of transfers. It’s a message to the board that he wants better players, and only that. He is not speaking to us even when he mentions the fans. He cares about us or the club only if it reflects his own glory. That’s ok, provided that you know where we stand with that.

We back Antonio from the South Stand and I join in, it’s a message he needs to hear. Managers and players for that matter can give their all without being emotionally attached. Professional football, the clue’s in the name. But maybe we get more if players do value our heritage. Kulu and Bentancur have clearly bought into the pride and passion we as supporters express and both have raised their games accordingly. Kulusevski has listened to the long answer and taken to heart our history and what the club means to supporters. Conte probably hasn’t but success will come because of his ego, just don’t expect anything more. He never stays around, we knew that when we appointed him.

I hope the board give him enough of what he wants and of the players we need. I think they plan to respond, although it may not be enough. At some point, the financial stability offered by income from the stadium and the CL must give us more to spend. Conte has said it will take three windows – we know he could have 23 available without getting who he needs if history is our guide – and he may not have the patience to wait until next autumn, which even if we buy the players he wants is the earliest they can be fully integrated into the system. 

Spirits rose after thumping Palace, led by Harry as his most magnificent. I was delighted for Gil. His positional play has developed, evidence that coaching does exist at Spurs after all and hopefully his headless chicken routine is a thing of the past. Getting used to the PL is not just about the physicality, it’s also about passing quickly and decisively rather than holding on the ball.

The derby is a chance for a new beginning but I’m a realist too. If we defend versus our north London neighbours like we did against Palace, we’ll get slaughtered. Fans are running out of patience. The mood could turn ugly. There may be trouble ahead.