Love is a nagging irritation
Causing my heart complication
Love is a growing infection
And I don’t know the correction
Got me rockin’ and areelin’
And I can’t shake the feelin’

Love is like an itching in my heart
Tearing it all apart
Just an itching in my heart
And baby, I can’t scratch it
Keeps me sighing, ooh
Keeps me yearning

Time to scratch that itch. This love affair gets stronger by the season and I’m in too deep to shake the feeling, even if I wanted to. Even got Saturday 3pm kick-offs.

There’s no debate about the key man at White Hart Lane this season. Mauricio Pochettino has become more than a fine manager. He’s a leader whose passion can inspire players and fans alike. We supporters hurt as the season disintegrated in May, yet no one felt the pain more than he did. He’s been extensively quoted on how his fury infiltrated his holiday and caused nightmares, not that you can imagine a man who spends 12 hours a day on Spurs business ever relaxing. No easy pre-season for the squad as they drifted in from the beaches. First team talk: “I wanted to kill all of them”.

At Everton on Saturday, the players may well have heard the same message at half-time. Spurs were flaccid, a limp imitation of the side that had swept away so many opponents last season with flowing football and intense pressing. Instead, old failings. A jagged, discordant pattern – slack tempo, conceding needless free kicks, Lamela lost, Kane isolated, players turning into trouble and inevitably losing possession. Seen it so many times before. Familiar and unwelcome.

Habitually I like my summer break and ease myself into the new season. This time, I couldn’t wait for it to begin. Not because I think we’re going to storm the league but for the pleasure of watching this fluent, fabulous, dedicated team play the game. Let’s take them all on, be proper contenders, make opponents skip a few fixtures ahead and say ‘we’re playing Spurs in a few weeks’. Let’s make them afraid of us.

No, mama can’t help me
No, daddy can’t help me
I’ve been bitten by the love bug
And I need some information
To help me out this situation

Help me Tottenham, help me. The mug’s free-kick, swung in, misses everyone, keeper by-passed as it plops inside the far post. Five minutes gone. Help me out this situation. Don’t give unnecessary free-kicks away. Put us under a lot of late pressure in games last season when we were on top but conceded the initiative. Wanyama has a reputation for this, he must learn to curb his instincts. A good buy though, value for money. He’s a defensive DM as opposed to players like Dembele and Bentaleb who are deep-lying midfielders and play from the back without being so certain the box. Second half, Wanyama twice made crucial tackles to cover Everton breaks.

More gloom. Lloris injured, a month out he says. Vorm the unlikely hero of the new season? Some guaranteed games might relax him and he could take responsibility in Hugo’s absence. There’s a proven PL keeper there somewhere….yeah, I’ll be holding my breath too. Made a fine save with his feet to stop a certain second, so that’s a confidence builder. Him and mine.

One advantage we have in this most competitive of PL seasons is a settled, established team to pick up points early on while our bigger spending rivals get themselves together. Last time out, the focus on the end of season falling away masks the draws we couldn’t turn into wins that cost us dear between August and October. On the evidence of the first half, that is a forlorn hope.

After the break Spurs picked it up, taking the game to our opponents. Things changed significantly however when Janssen replaced Dier and went up front. Lamela spent more time on the left. As a result, we were able to pose a threat in the box. Janssen had a couple of sharp efforts saved but his value could be seen in the way he rifted right and opened up space. Pochettino making changes here ten minutes into the second half rather than ten minutes from the end. Already Wanyama and Janssen give us more options for a Plan B, the lack of which has been a problem since MP came to the club.

 

Lamela took advantage, cutting in to hurl himself in front of a defender and on the end of Walker’s perfect right-wing cross. A classic diving header to equalise. Many have tipped Lamela to shine this season. I commend the effort he’s put into his game but to me he spends too much time looking lost rather than trying to impose himself on the game. However, if he can continue last season’s run of decisive contributions, whether goals or assists, he’ll prove his worth. The taker of sharp chances, the maker of sharp chances under pressure, that is what Spurs need.

You can’t, and shouldn’t, read too much into the first few matches on the season. Pochetinno’s intensity isn’t an act. It’s how he is, and he will convey this to his players. The disappointment of last season will make them stronger. A season older and wiser, the presence of mind to handle the pressure is the extra ingredient to keep us as genuine contenders in what could be the tightest title race for years.

There’s pressure wherever you look. Spurs played some breathtaking football last term, some of the best I’ve seen in half a century. Now to turn it on in the white hot heat of the crucible of expectation. We are targets and teams will go that extra mile to shoot us down. In April and May, teams sussed us out. Always happens in the PL, Leicester aside of course. Fall back, limit space, maybe concede the wings but reinforce central areas. It chimes with the message from Euro 2016 where teamwork trumped individuality and flair. Pressure to overcome that.

Pressure on our players to perform. We’re a top side, expected to win. Players like Alli and Kane are expected to deliver. The scrutiny will be cranked up, the media waiting to pounce if standards slip. It’s impossible to assume the five players returning from England’s ignominious Euro debacle can be unaffected, physically certainly from a knackering year, mentally too because they embraced failure. Young men like Alli have something new to learn. Pressure to expand the squad. I had hoped for more signings by now, pace up front, some guile behind.

Supporters have a role to play too. Let’s not plunge into this befuddled morass of instant gratification and overweening arrogance that serves as fan behaviour these days. Let’s be different, be Spurs. Let them play, get behind the shirt and give them time. The contrast between Spurs fans at Everton and the home crowd at the Emirates when their sides went a goal down this weekend could not have been more marked. And roll on Saturday. Always yearning…

And talking of Spurs fans (smooth eh?) A People’s History of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, the story of Spurs supporters and support, is already the best-selling Spurs book on Amazon and it only came out yesterday. More on the book in the coming weeks.

This is the ticket availability for Spurs’ three Champions League matches at Wembley Stadium, as of 9.30 on Friday morning. Never red? I’ll make an exception this time. It could prove to be one of the most significant pictures in the illustrious history of Tottenham Hotspur.

As of about now, it means that almost every seat available at the moment has been sold, not for one game but for three, without knowing the identity of our opponents. The screenshot doesn’t actually mean that Wembley is sold out. Yet. The club say they have sold over 41,000 packages to season ticket holders and members. Some tickets are being held back for sale for individual matches only. Assume the away allocation will fill up but there’s Club Wembley, UEFA seats and the ring of shame, the executive boxes. But any remaining tickets will be snapped up by Spurs fans, of that there is no doubt. 75,000 Spurs at Wembley. It will bring the house down.

It’s an uplifting affirmation of the loyalty and passion of Spurs supporters. Any lingering sadness that these games could not played at White Hart Lane as part of the final season there was dispelled when out of the navy blue, the club announced a three-game package costing £70. Even then people on social media were complaining, until it was gently pointed out to them that it wasn’t £70 for one game, but three. No, I couldn’t believe it either.

The significance of this goes way beyond August’s credit card bill. The club’s future revolves around the new stadium. It has breath-taking potential. 61k capacity, stands close to the pitch, an end, in N17, ours not the taxpayers. One thing obstructs progress – the price of seats. Tottenham On My Mind has consistently and vehemently argued that accessible pricing will safeguard Spurs’ future, not just this generation but generations to come. Young people and families now excluded will be able to experience the unique pain and joy of being there. That picture proves it. For the first time, Spurs put that theory to the test. Not bloggers, supporters’ groups, fan activists or serial whingers, but hard evidence that the club cannot ignore.

Drop the price and keep supporters happy. You don’t have to be Brian Cox to solve that equation, yet in the last two decades the Spurs board have struggled to grasp the concept. In that time they have disgracefully exploited the peculiar football laws of supply and demand as distorted by the loyalty of supporters to charge some of the highest prices in the league.

In our People’s History of Tottenham Hotspur, Martin Cloake and I contend that a major theme of our history is how fan culture and identity is shaped by the interaction between the club and its supporters. Organised supporter protest has been a feature of Spurs’ fan culture since the early 1960s when Spurs fans demonstrated against the unfair allocation of cup final tickets. With Scholar, Sugar and Levy, Tottenham fans were one of the first to take protest from the fanzines and the streets into the AGM, the council chamber and the media.

Long aloof and unresponsive, gradually the board have shifted their approach. Partly this is down to economics. The PL luxuriates in a floatation tank filled with the effluence of sponsorship, commerce and distant ownership, isolated from what affects fans’ day-to-day lives, like being able to pay to get in, or racism, or financial probity.

Partly though this is due to fan pressure – from blogs, social media, individual complaints and the tireless efforts of the supporters’ trust. Partly it picks up the national mood. Slowly, too slowly for sure but something is happening none the less, supporter organisations are getting the message through that fans need to be treated with respect. Away tickets are now capped at £30, some teams like Watford and W Ham have introduced highly competitive price tiers. Dinosaurs such as Hull – no concessions for kids or pensioners – will be in for a shock, although in their case they seem to think they can manage without players as well as fans.

Spurs being Spurs tried their best to chuck away the goodwill achieved by the CL pricing by ramping up fan frustration as they watched the Ticketmaster Wheel of Doom move as quickly as Tom Huddlestone on the turn. Dismiss the mealy-mouthed platitudes on the official site about ‘unprecedented demand’ (ask the fans, we could have told you) and time checking memberships before allocating seats. It’s down to money – Ticketmaster did not provide enough server space and/or peoplepower. The less they spend out, the more profit they make. Either it’s their fault period and/or the contract they have with Spurs gives them too much leeway. Either way, the interests of fans come second.

So there you have it. Next year, keep prices reasonable, fill Wembley. It makes the club money, fine by me if fans are looked after too. Year after, fill the new White Hart Lane. Ten, twenty, forty years after that, it will still be full because those fans will have become fans for life. The people have spoken. Great idea. Make it a permanent part of being a Spurs and write the next chapter in the People’s History.

 

 

Down to business. New season. Team. Players. In out. Go.

Something to build on. Tottenham made progress at a remarkable rate last season, both as a team and in terms of the individual players. This is Pochettino’s finest achievement – every one of them were better players in May than they were in August. As for the team, stratospheric improvement.  Some, like Kane and Dembele, made themselves indispensable. Others like Alli grew from boy to man. One, Eric Dier, came from developing centreback to the best English defensive midfielder. And the wonderful thing is, there’s still room to grow. Their potential is thrillingly enticing.

So first priority – make sure these players who the whole of Europe is looking at stay. Alli, Wimmer, Kane and Dier have all signed new contracts. According to the media, Eriksen is not keen on whatever Spurs have offered but my sense is that negotiations continue and it will be sorted.

By April, the first team picked itself, simultaneously sound and fragile. Excellent for team togetherness but it exposed the weakness in the squad – a lack of depth. Without Alli and Dembele we looked a level below our best. My ambition is the same as it has been for several years – I want Spurs to be real contenders, to give every competition a right good go. To do so, we must strengthen. I’ve heard it suggested that we need only a couple. No – we need more. This isn’t a moan, not being negative, it’s reality. Don’t want to break the bank but spending on players is an investment.

Priorities: cover up front and in defensive midfield. Poch knows, and he knew it this time last season. Whatever he said in public, he wanted this done a year ago. An injury to Kane would have destroyed our season. Dier I have heard suggested from a London based journalist that the switch to DM was out of necessity not desire and no one expected him to be that good. Who knows?

 

A People’s History of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club by Martin Cloake and me is the story of the fans from 1882 to the present and the future. Out on Pitch Publishing on August 15th preorder now on Amazon

 

Anyway, Poch is ahead of the game and has acted early to buy Janssen and Wanyama, good buys at good prices. Wanyama is ideal – DM is his natural position, sniping in front of the back four, solid in the box and able to knock it quickly to a teammate once he wins the ball. Trusts Poch, Poch trusts him. Can slot right in. Janssen, you should never look at youtube highlights so I looked at his youtube highlights, couldn’t resist it. Scores with both feet and his head, I particularly liked his ability to improvise. Balls at awkward heights, he’s falling over, whatever he gets it on target somehow. Like that a lot.

Cover at centreback will come from Carter-Vickers – Pochettino has said he’s not going to look outside the club. Dier can of course drop back there but he’s our best DM and I believe the best players should play in their best positions. Hope we do not get the injuries that leave us to rue that decision.

So I’d like some pace – N’koudou from France is the N’Jie upgrade in that respect – and another creative force in centre midfield. We could look for a hard-working up and down right midfielder – teams see a Spurs side with Lamela in front of Walker as defensively weak on that side. Not first choice but this is squad game.

That offers cover, flexibility and options. For instance, Wanyama could replace Dier to give Eric a much-needed rest but also they could play alongside each other when we need that extra protection, for instance away from home in the CL. Dembele is a DM as in deep-lying, instrumental in starting attacks from deep as well as winning the ball in the middle but he is less sure-footed in our box. Wanyama’s role is different. Also, maybe Dembele can play further forward, using his runs and unheard of ability to hang on to the ball to run at opposition defences. Or how about Lamela in a free role. I admire his effort but he’s not comfortable when defending, so there’s the option of freeing him up to make those quick 10-15 yard diagonal passes from central areas that have provided several assists. Release his talent.

We know N’Jie, Fazio, Pritchard and Bentaleb are on the way. Shame to lose Nabil. 18 months ago I thought he could become the best of all our young players, and I’m including Kane in that. Rangy stride, confident on the ball, always available and a great pass, what’s not to like? Rumours are that his attitude was poor last season but he was injured for an extended period. Pochettino gives players an extended chance if he likes them but if they don’t take it, they’re gone. Expectations are high at Spurs, rightly so, and if players don’t progress at the same rate as the group, they are shown the door, which seems to be Pritchard’s fate.

Of the rest, Tom Carroll seems vulnerable. Mobile, willing and another good passer, over time he doesn’t make enough of an impact compared with his team-mates. So too is Chadli, who has great skill on the ball and can take up good attacking positions but spends too much time waiting for other players to put in the work, not exactly the Poch way. Mason I would keep without question. Committed, very much part of the squad and playing for the most part out of position – he’s an attacking midfielder by trade – he was hampered by injury after a fine start to last season and I would not judge him on a couple of weak games at the tail end of last season when he was not match fit. Four competitions remember over the next months – we need squad men like him. I’ll leave you with the thought – why be in a hurry to sell anyone?

Another thing I’d like to see Spurs have is a Plan B, an alternative set-up to match the situation. N’koudou could be the pace to take the game to teams who are hanging back. And sides will hang back. Towards the end of the season less able opponents worked us out – everyone back and hit us on the break or at a set piece. We ran out of ideas – I’m thinking in particular of the crucial draw versus West Brom, two points dropped after being a goal up and momentum lost. Also, this style is the tactic du jour after Euro 2016. Tactics come in and out of fashion, and the lesson from the Euros was surely about how teamwork and a relative lack of attacking ambition is a potent leveller.

I wouldn’t mind seeing an out-of-character purchase of a man with experience at the highest level. Not so much Naybet or Nelsen, more Davids or Gallas, warriors with nouse and passion if not quite the bounce in their legs any more. Gallas the last time we were in the CL or versus Arsenal, if only he had come to the Lane a few years earlier….anyway, a bit of leadership never goes amiss and it’s not just the young men who have ambition.

Won’t happen of course, not how Pochettino sees things. I hope Levy gives him what he wants. Suspicion lingers that Levy has set a finite budget that includes sales from Pritchard, Bentaleb and possibly Chadli. If that suits MP, fine, but Levy has a history of not fully backing his managers. Surely Pochettino has done enough to inspire his chairman’s complete confidence.

So yeah. It’s July, Spurs are back and Tottenham On My Mind emerges from the darkened, soundless room where it has been recovering from last season, blinking into the light then striding purposefully towards the sun.

Pre-seasons are all about my rituals. Shiny pics of shiny players at the training ground, mucking about around like puppies. Paying little attention to the new kit, less to ITK. Fixtures in the calendar and already I’ve offended someone by declining an invitation because it clashes with a home game. It’s tradition after all. A whinge about ticket prices and lack of action in the transfer market and my pre-season preparation is complete.

But dangnabit Muskie, they’ve only gone and kept the Wembley prices affordable AND got the use of the whole stadium. What in the world is going on? The announcement was clearly too much for several people on social media yesterday, who blasted away at the cost of £70 for the cheapest seat only to be gently reminded that this includes three matches, not one. Frankly I had to re-read it a couple of times too.

Ticket prices are the single biggest problem in modern football, preventing a generation of young fans from coming to matches regularly, ending football as a family entertainment as anything other than an annual treat and excluding older generations who can no longer afford it in these straitened times. They have fundamentally changed the nature of being a supporter. At a time when gold, frankincense and myrrh is easier to get hold of than a ticket for a league match, Spurs have made the elite competition accessible. More than that, it’s going to fun. Fill the Western end, reach up into the top tiers, make some noise and give our grandchildren stories to tell about glory glory nights at Wembley.

Unreserved congratulations to the club. Notorious for being aloof and unresponsive to fans, I fervently hope this move is part of a wider culture change. The constant badgering by supporters and the Trust in particular, not just in the last few months but over the past couple of years, appears to be sinking in. Respecting supporters is in their interests. It makes them money, fine by me if they look after us in the process. Big crowds make Spurs a big club. Bring in the fans, at Wembley and in the new ground, that will secure support for generations to come.

Plus, new players. Wanyama and Janssen, welcome. A DM and striker a year later than should have been the case but they look just right for us now. Motivated, ambitious, keen to play for Spurs and Pochettino.

In symbiosis with the team, Tottenham On My Mind ground to a halt at the end of last season. I was all spursed out. Without dwelling on the past, couple of things to get off my chest. I wrote about my hopes for the run-in. One, give it everything we had, right to the end. I was disappointed because we couldn’t. Finishing third is a magnificent achievement. I had more fun last season than for many a year. Forming a bond with this team who were as committed to the shirt as the supporters, will live in the memory as one of the highlights of 50 years of coming to White Hart Lane. Shame we faded away just a bit.

Remember though that this was only to be expected. It was the rest that was the surprise. Until then, Spurs over-achieved, gloriously. This was a relatively inexperienced side new to the pressures of the title run-in. They had been stretched physically, emotionally and creatively over a log season. The self-destructive actions of two key men, Alli and Dembele, was a body blow. Other sides lifted themselves to play against us, whereas teams playing Leicester and Arsenal rolled over and had their tummies tickled.

Two, I wanted our story to be heard. Sadly, it was drowned out by Leicester’s underdog derring-do. Sincerely, well played to them. I study part-time at Leicester University so know at first-hand how success in football takes over a whole town. I envy that.

However, every good plot needs a villain. Never mind the pure white of our shirts, in the eyes of football we took to the field shrouded in black, hissing and spitting, kicking sticks from under old ladies’ feet and snatching sweets from the mouths of children for good measure. Spurs fell away and the nation rejoiced.

Yet this wasn’t the story of my season. I saw a young team sprinkled with young players getting a chance denied their peers at other top clubs, English players who carried themselves well on and off the pitch, who wanted not celebrity but to play. My story was one of surprise at this unexpected progress, one of attacking fluent football, of taking the game to opponents, all from a club living within its means.

I’m disappointed this story was not the best-seller it deserved to be. Spurs represented the best of the current game. I thought this was what people wanted, apparently not. There are other narratives. How about two teams fighting against the odds for the league, different styles but with both having much to admire. Those players deserved more respect in the end.

It was all a bit too much at the end. I burnt up all my energies thinking about Spurs, the fans, the delight, the hatred from fans of other sides and perhaps worst of all, Spurs fans slaughtering the team for finishing third. This is the way I am. Gets worse as I get older. Tottenham always on my mind, no point in fighting back so I just roll with it.

There is another reason why I was all spursed out. Martin Cloake and I have completed A People’s History of Tottenham Hotspur, the first book-length history of Spurs support and supporters. This story has the fans at its heart, from the marshes to Europe, how N17 is the focus for loyalty and passion that extends across Britain and the world. It’s published by Pitch Publishing, due out (we think) in the next few months. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, Tottenham On My Mind will carry on as per. Same simple format, once or twice a week, just me. And you, in the superb comment section. Apologies for not getting back to you but as you can see, I have been busy. Sincere thanks for your contributions, I’ve read them all.