Season 2013-14

In The End, Levy.

/ Alan / 24 Comments

In recent years there has been something about Spurs that causes opinions to become polarised. Harry Redknapp is the prime example of this phenomenon. It seems you can be either a Harry lover or an ‘arry ‘ater, there’s no middle ground. It’s the same for Daniel Levy. No sooner than someone dares to stammer out the merest possibility that there’s both good and bad in his reign at Tottenham, they will be shouted down and cast into one or other of the camps, Levy Luvvers or Levy Loathers. Martin Jol’s time at Spurs provoked a similar split between those who rated his achievements and wanted to give him more time and others who believed he did not have the ability to work at the highest level, although he was never surrounded by the degree of vitriol and bile attached to the Redknapp and Levy debates.

It wasn’t always this way. It makes you long for the good old days when everyone agreed that Graham, Gross and Francis were rubbish. We could all moan together, as one. There was limited acrimony around Hoddle because the realisation that he couldn’t take Spurs to the top was, and still is, mitigated by the fact that he is one of us, the finest Spurs midfielder of modern times. This affection was coupled with the almost desperate hope that he would succeed.

It’s summer and flaming June is named not after the weather but the flaming transfer window with its infernal mix of hope and frustration. We all know that even just a couple of players could enable us to become genuine contenders. The stakes are high but it’s a combustible cocktail, with emotions running high and focussed around Levy’s performance in the market.

This summer has created a new set of divisions, this time between those who frequent social media and those who manage to resist. The mere fact you are reading this blog online and have probably reached it via Newsnow or twitter means that you are in the former group. I think we can all agree it has been a ghastly nightmare, except that at the moment there’s no prospect of waking up and finding it was all a dream. On top of the Bale saga, we also have the bid for Soldado, the mythical striker to lead the chosen people into the promised land, come down to earth in human form. Or was that Benteke? I forget…

If you receive an unsolicited e-mail from a kindly African gentleman congratulating you on your lottery win or cutting you and you alone in on a cast-iron business deal, it’s safe to say that you don’t immediately forward your bank details as requested. So why then believe anything that an ITK says on twitter or on a messageboard. It’s just as unverifiable, yet by rapid repetition it becomes ‘fact’. Lies, misdirection, absurd over-interpretation, there’s no escape. I yearn for predictable tabloid sensationalism in the red tops and on Talksport. You know where you are with that muck. Those of you without a twitter account have missed the endless lengthy debates on the significance of Bale’s picture on the cover of FIFA 14, Soldado’s picture on the club website or the arrival of a Spurs player (Bale) at the training ground of the club he plays for.

As in previous seasons I have sworn not to get into this debate, a sort of evil footballing Seinfeld, famously the sitcom about nothing. However, bloggers write and my pages are empty. Check out Spooky’s excellent series of articles on Dear Mr Levy, a perfect take-down of the whole sorry mess in all its gory detail. The level of expressed anger does worry me. I see perfectly well the reasons for discussion and disagreement, especially in the light of Levy’s record in the market. I am not in favour of him being a spendthrift but he’s failed to bring in those couple of players that could have made (and could still make) a huge difference.

However, the way this debate has been carried on it’s set Spur against Spur. My fear is that this is a consequence of success in the modern era. Demands are stratospheric, competition has never been fiercer and it is instant gratification or nothing. I don’t want us to be like that. We’re different, better.

I don’t want us to spout the vainglorious entitlement that characterises the world-view of any Ch**sea fan who began to support the club since Roman took over, people saying they have washed their hands of the club because we’ve finished fifth and something might, repeat might, happen in the market.

The reality is more basic and familiar, which I suspect readers not hotwired to twitter might better grasp. Step away from the 140 characters, deep breath and this is what I see.

Much of what is going on in this window is normal and unavoidable. We may not like it but that’s the way it is. The most significant change is a positive one: Daniel Levy is backing his manager. Over the last year I’ve criticised Levy for not spending big to buy top quality players at market prices. I admire his prudence but felt he missed a golden opportunity last summer to invest in the team. If it’s money he’s after, the CL could have brought it. Also, with all the top earners like King and Keane having left, he had the freedom to raise the self-imposed salary cap without upsetting the good atmosphere in the squad or destroying the club’s hard-won financial stability. Yet at that crucial moment, he took the risk on Villas-Boas then adopted a ‘wait and see’ approach, in particular cruelly denying him Moutinho, AVB’s man. Our Andre has far exceeded expectations so now at last Levy is getting to work. It remains to be seen if it is too late but the support is there.

The other point I always trot out during windows is that we have competitors. Good players, especially strikers, are popular. Supply is short, demand high. I would have liked to have got the squad sorted for pre-season but these days that is impossible unless you are Manchester City who can pay what they like and chuck their bank statement in the bin without opening it. Arsenal, United, not even Chelsea have got anywhere near concluding their business.

We are no different. Shame but that’s the way it is. This isn’t Football Manager. You don’t put in a bid, have it accepted and fly home with the player. It’s a tortuous and lengthy negotiation, further complicated these days by third-party agreements, medicals and agents’ fees. If we come in with a bid, any self-respecting agent is going to tell his guy to hang on a bit and see who else might be interested. Look at Huigain: Arsenal were ready to spend over £20m, it all looked done and dusted then Napoli trumped the offer by ten or twelve million. The agent takes his cut but the Argentinian and Madrid are delighted they waited. It takes time. At least Levy has put good money on the table.

Bale has only ever been about one thing – Daniel Levy. Doesn’t matter what agents, Real Madrid, Marca say. £60m, £70m, £80m, £85m: hot air. Bid or no bid: irrelevant, we know Real want him. Doesn’t matter if Bale makes a statement or stays silent: agents, managers, chairmen and players misdirect and mislead. Statements can be retracted. We know he’s tempted and frankly who wouldn’t be, but in the end, Levy.

If by this time you are remotely interested, I would keep Bale, at least for another season. Don’t sell your best players. Always been that way, always will, this is no different whatever cash is on the table. If we had the money, we would still have to spend it. We need to avoid the slow starts of recent seasons and get going from the kick-off at Palace and this would delay team-building for another year.

Finally, Bale is no different from any world-class footballer. Transfer gossip will dog his entire career from now on. I intensely dislike the income-generating fabrication and sensationalism that surrounds all this but even without that it would still be in the papers because it’s a real story. One of the world’s best clubs is interested in one of the world’s best players. Unavoidable, especially as he plays for a team outside the Champions League. Even that would make little difference, given his age and that talent. There was talk of PSG putting in a bid for Messi, for goodness sake. Don’t like but that’s the way of the world. It’s in the papers because it is a real story.

Tom Huddlestone: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up

/ Alan / 19 Comments

We are all Brazilian now. As Spurs fans luxuriate in the knowledge that Paulinho, one of the world’s best up and coming midfielders, will grace White Hart Lane next season, spare a thought for Tom Huddlestone. Himself a highly touted prospect once upon a time, it’s likely that he will leave Tottenham this summer. Whilst he hasn’t progressed as fast or as far as I hoped when I first saw his raw talent, it is more the case that the game itself has moved on and left him behind. Tom Huddlestone is a relic of another era.

Tom has a childlike quality about him. He’s the big kid in Year 7,  the body of a man head and shoulders above his peers but in his eyes the innocent unworldliness of a boy. His mum had to bypass the school uniform suppliers and instead shop for mansize trousers. She still makes him a packed lunch but he’s eaten it on the bus. He struggles with muscles that haven’t quite grown into his oversized frame, hence his awkward stride as if he’s uncomfortable in his own body.

It’s through fondness rather than derision that I describe him this way. He’s a fine player who wears the shirt as a privilege not a right and has always tried his best. I wanted him to succeed, to respond to our nurturing environment that values skill, touch and pass, but sad to say, his best has not been good enough.

Over the years in so many matches he has been a bit-part player, unable to grasp the midfield and make it his own. At times, he’s proved a liability. However, the real problem is that the game itself has passed him by. It’s about pace, speed and quickness of thought. Tom can see the openings ahead of him but often toils to get on the ball or to get rid of it when he is closed down. When he first arrived at Spurs, Sandro, another big man, learned to his and the team’s cost what happens if you dwell on the ball in British football. He adapted, Hudd never quite got the hang of it.

When opponents have the ball, he’s more than willing to defend but reacts too slowly to what is happening all around him, fatal in this day and age when so many goals are scored by midfielders or late runs from deep, where mastery of that zone between the back four and midfield frequently proves decisive. England caps came his way, one against Brazil if I remember rightly, and he was in the final 30 for the 2010 World Cup.

The shock of the new: enter Paulinho. One of the best players in the Confederations Cup, an integral part of Brazil’s future and now of Spurs’ future too. It’s a remarkable piece of business, a hefty price but the fee is less significant than the value. I have said for some time that in this phase of Tottenham’s history we stand or fall by our ability to buy and then develop younger players, men for whom Spurs is a step up.

Paulinho is a big guy too. Otherwise he’s everything poor Tom is not. Athletic and alert, he demonstrates a voracious appetite for the ball, is highly mobile and can both tackle and pass. These days defensive midfielders are much more than muscular destroyers. They must be relied upon to turn defence into attack, the vital transition as the jargon would have it, and Paulinho has the skill and speed of thought to fill the role perfectly. He gets forward too and scores goals, whereas as Huddlestone waits for a goal until he cuts his hair, his afro is so big, it blots out the sun.

In a bygone age, Huddlestone could have been lord of the manor. That was Glenn Hoddle’s title in the eighties, his sweeping passes cutting defences apart. Hoddle wasn’t the most energetic either, but in the Boys From White Hart Lane, several members of that team describe how they willingly did Glenn’s running for him. No such luxury now. The peerless Hoddle would always have been a master but there is less space and the game much faster. Remember how he was severely criticised at the time for his lack of workrate, as if that mattered when set against his masterful talents. Hudd has no such protection.

We can look forward to the mouthwatering prospect of Sandro and Paulinho in midfield. Our Andre can relax knowing that he can play 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, or variations thereof. Incidentally, Paulinho has played in Europe as a young man so has both the experience and the build to settle in the Premier League.

Even more importantly, Villas-Boas knows that this close season, Levy will back him. No more cruel ‘wait and see how he does’ that undermined our bid for honours last time around. Villas-Boas has proved himself and has earned support in the transfer market.

Injury has held him back recently but it looks like Tom Huddlestone will move on. I’ve always thought a continental club would suit him, where he could lie deep and have a fraction more time on the ball. His passing is a precious talent – on his day he pick out a man at range like no other in the League, a beautiful sight to behold. I hope he finds a home where finally the big lad can finish growing up.

Bale’s Trademark Isn’t All Gold

/ Alan / 10 Comments

Plenty of words on the net bemoaning the close season and anticipating the start of the next. Not round these parts. I enjoy it, look forward to it in a perverse fashion. It’s part of the natural order of things, a time for regeneration before the hopes and dreams of a new season come into bloom. Summer is a time for cricket not just because the sport is so quietly and unobtrusively compelling but also because it’s not football.

Not so much like the close season as need it. Take a break from the pressure. I can’t hack it for 12 months straight. Even this week’s announcement of the fixture list caused unwelcome flickers of anxiety rather than anticipation. Palace first game, newly promoted teams always up for it in August, play them in the darker days of December or January when it’s beginning to fall apart for them.

Tottenham On My Mind in the summer is resolutely a no ITK zone. Which is why the page views are so low. A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece about ITK – summary: it’s all lies. It had the phrase ‘no ITK’ in the title, yet scored more hits than almost any of my articles over the last four years, I can only assume because ITK was mentioned and the moths were drawn to the flame.

Anyway, this is modern football. If you want to really know what’s going on, head for the financial pages. You have probably seen the news this week that Gareth Bale has applied to register his heart-shaped hands goal celebration as a trademark. These days I get all my ITK from the Patents Office.

It won’t be a surprise to regular readers that I’m not a fan of choreographed goal celebrations. The defining moments of the game are somehow devalued if the only thing in the goalscorer’s mind is to gather with his team-mates by the corner flag and do the St Vitus dance. Rushing to the crowd is fine, although of course badge-kissing is strictly prohibited. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Gilzean’s single raised arm or Greaves’ shrug – yes, I am that good, shouting about it won’t make it better. Or as Bale himself demonstrated to touching effect with the winner at West Ham, a heartfelt dash to the bench and his manager’s welcoming arms, because that was so obviously genuine.

If Bale’s application is successful, I’m not sure what it means. If he runs to the Shelf after a goal, can I wave? Or publish a photo here? Yesterday one of Brazil’s goalscorers did the heart thing – Bale was rubbing his hands in anticipation of the royalties.

So I’m looking forward to my Christmas present of a necklace with ‘Alan’ in gold inside the heart-shaped pendant. What bothers me is what it means for Spurs and for our finest player. What was a childishly irrelevant gesture has been transformed into an absurdly pretentious, manufactured act, and if there is one thing that football fans do not like, it’s pretension. If it is in pursuit of more cash for highly paid sportsmen, so much the worse. In short, he will get massive stick from opposition fans as soon as he touches the ball. Top professional players have to learn to take the abuse that comes their way but I can’t see how this will help his performance or that of the team. It’s avoidable, something we don’t need.

Bale already gets the bird because of his so-called diving. He does go down easily sometimes and I don’t appreciate that. In reality, he is discriminated against, having been booked for simulation at least four times last season when he was clearly fouled and was denied two penalties. In other words, the public’s perception of Bale has been irrevocably harmed by poor refereeing.

That annoys me because it’s unjust. I’m not naive but I may be hoping for too much. I remember times when we used to look forward to seeing the great players of our opponents, unless they needed taking down a peg or two or we had a genuine grievance. These days it seems to be the way of things that at every ground they get pelters just by being good. But the ones who get the worst are those with airs and graces, and they deserve it.

Part of Bale’s charm is that he seems so grounded. With his rustic cheeks and sticky-out ears, despite being built like a welterweight there’s more of the schoolboy and less of the superstar about him. His huge transfer valuation has never gone to his head. He’s a footballer not a celebrity, and because of his refreshing humility there’s a fair degree of goodwill in the game as he progresses.

It’s a shame to throw that away, partly because it will provoke unwanted attention, partly because there’s a danger that his attitudes are turning him into the same as every other modern player, chasing the cash. Bale, he is different.

Ironically, this deal could keep him at Spurs. In my end of season piece, I suggested that his sudden rush of appearances in adverts for home consumption could supplement his income to the point where it was worth his while to stay at home.

Whatever, I guess this is what happens when a player has the eyes of the world upon him and I will have to get used to it. We didn’t find him but we’ve watched him grow and he’s part of the family. It’s natural that I should try to protect him.

More pieces over the summer. I should be taking a rest but it’s in the name of the blog… In May I was about to write my usual detailed post-season summary but when it came to it, that last piece said what I wanted to say about the club, more so than tactics, formations and strikers.