If the game is about glory, and it is, then glory comes in a variety of guises. In Bilbao, it shapeshifted into a physical, mucky, grafting, sweaty, shithousing delight. Barely recognisable as such, but glory it was. Exactly what is needed to win a European trophy.

At last. This was one for the fans, the players magnificent in their application and commitment. Playing for the shirt has become a cliché, but for our lot, this meant everything. It was astonishing. I freely confess that 6 weeks ago, I would not have remotely believed they were capable of playing with such intensity, focus and resilience. Frankfurt away carried a seismic force that tilted everything on its axis. Then Bodo Glimt, now this as its culmination.

Huge credit to Ange for getting this through to his squad and in the process going against the attacking instincts he holds dear. This formation was right for the situation and perfect for the players, who took to it readily because these patterns and positioning in defence were familiar and comfortable. Turn round and they could see their mate, right there, ready to cover, rather than a vast expanse of green as sadly has been the case so frequently this season.

Credit to the players. Countless post-match interviews articulated their togetherness, a bond forged and fostered by their manager’s inspirational team talks. If you can catch it, Brennan Johnson speaks with touching respect about how Ange got the players to share their individual stories with one another and how this brought them closer.

If you’re here for post-match analysis, my apologies, absent partly because I watched the game on the big screens, partly because throughout the game I was in no fit emotional state to make any logical judgements, partly because, who cares? We won, that’s it. And VDV’s goal line clearance is the stuff of legends, to be spoken of down the generations.

What did come over to me were the interpersonal dynamics of the game, all the more important because there wasn’t any good football to distract us. Beforehand, in a rare moment of insight, I named Romero as the key. His performance became the touchstone for our success. Before kick-off, he took the players into the United half to perform the huddle in their midst and in front of our own fans. Then down came the mask. Rugged, muscular, devious, Argentinian they-shall-not-pass-do-not-yield-a-millimetre penalty box defending. He knew the potential influence of Maguire in that same role for United. That was his target, and reduced the United man to a whinging ineffectual lump. Every player took their inspiration from their captain, fulfilling their role and winning their individual battles, with Richarlison and Bissouma outstanding in this respect.

Anyway, what’s football got to do with it? Football fans are born shamen. We seek omens in the everyday configuration of events, or give fate a nudge by sticking to the same routine or wearing our lucky pants. A good Spurs pal of mine reconstructed his day in 1984 when we won the UEFA Cup by spending Wednesday evening repairing his van and listening to the match on medium wave radio. Lucky ring spanner anyone? While I wouldn’t go that far, in the build up to the game, my son and I weighed up the merits of the two teams but ultimately were reduced to begging that please, just this once. Just let the ball roll our way, just this once. So fate dictated that the cup would be won when two players both failed to properly connect with a cross and the ball bobbled into the goal. Just this once, it did roll our way.

With son and granddaughter in Bilbao behind the goal, I met good friends in the Antwerp then watched the match in the stadium. Fans chanting and screaming at television screens; I would call it bizarre except that watching people kick a ball around is inherently bizarre. The collective experience never fails to deliver. The second half was utter mayhem throughout. Perhaps fans wanted to make up for the artificiality of the situation, as if driven to generate  the emotion to make it real, but the noise was deafening at times. I still managed to shout at Darren Fletcher when he mentioned Champions League qualification. They never get supporters, these people. It’s about winning, and nothing else.

Full-time and a pitch invasion, not with my knees though. Dad dancing with strangers, as uncoordinated as those giant inflatable figures with absurdly long arms and legs. Inflatables, flares, a Brazilian flag. Supporters flat out on the grass, star-shaped, ecstatic beyond words. Climbing on the screens. Why do fans always climb up structures in celebration? Such existential questions are for later. Meanwhile, consider why a fan schlepped a big speaker on a trolley to play Ossie’s dream by the portaloos near Northumberland Park station.

The club has a grip on me and my psyche, and I don’t want it to end despite the problems that follow. My match preparation consisted of lack of concentration, feeling sick and shortness of breath. I’m delighted that pushing 70, something still moves me as much as being a Tottenham fan does. I sobbed my heart out at full time, in public. I was sitting on the end of the row and a young woman steward came over to give me a reassuring hug and say how pleased she was for me. I mention her age and gender only because I assume she does not make a habit of cuddling male strangers of pensionable age. My granddaughter messaged her mum (my daughter) at full time simply to say, ‘this is the best day of my life’, and you know, it probably was. I’m proud and moved to go to the Lane with her and my son. Two days on and I’m still welling up at videos of celebrating players and fans. The one with the kids in the local primary has done for me today.  Football eh, long may it continue to make idiots of us all.

Football, especially at the top level, has earned itself a bad reputation in many ways. Those who run the game both in this country and across the world abrogate their responsibilities towards the game and its supporters in favour of self-aggrandizement and financial gain. In these columns, I have consistently criticised our board for wilfully creating and enlarging the distance between club and fan.

The lasting and permanent impact of this victory is not, as countless pundits insistently intone, entry to the riches of the Champions League, but the bliss of sharing the moment with loved ones and friends. It rekindles our passion for the game and reminds us why we are so committed in the first place.

This win feels as if a burden has been lifted from our shoulders. I’m not so fussed about the reactions of fans of other clubs to my support of Spurs but this is a reward for years of loyalty despite the disappointments, which left me weary. Be a Spurs fan with confidence and swagger. See me wandering down the street, queuing in the chemist or shopping in Tesco’s, see that smile. You know why. Life is different now.

Talk to supporters as they celebrate, and watch the many videos doing the rounds. Note how many people say first, how overwhelmed with joy they are, then recount their family history. What sustains their pleasure is the faces of loved ones, often parents, sometimes as in my case, those of children and grandchildren. Skimming through social media, in this moment they connect the present with their past, how they are three or four generations in as Spurs fans, or how they reconnect with their fathers. Happy for themselves, happy for others,  because of this shared joy. Only football does this as profoundly.

Spurs are by no means unique in this respect. However, family ties hold particular value for our support. We don’t have any gloryhunters among the fanbase, self-evidently because that particular quality has been in short supply for a generation. Those young fans seeing instant gratification have gone elsewhere and wear blue or red. Neither are community links part of our identity, as the fanbase is spread far and wide. Hence the value of family ties, with the flame being passed down the generations.

In the Palace game, returning to my seat from the busy concourse and straggling queue for the gents, I expected to eavesdrop on chats about how dire we were in the first half mingled with plans to reach Bilbao. Instead, I found a stadium uncharacteristically hushed in awe and respect as fans gazed at the screens sharing the names and photos of Spurs fans who have died this year, the first time I believe the club have organised this.

It was the best of tributes – simple, unfussed and moving. Words were superfluous, the faces said all that needed to be said. Young and old, each photo told a story. Every smiling face, proud in that frozen moment to be wearing a Spurs badge on a scarf, hat or t-shirt. It touched us all, because they are us and we are them, an unspoken bond that football creates like nothing else can. Rest easy, one and all. We are all Tottenham, forever. My one and only club, my undying love.

I’m still basking in the afterglow of Thursday night’s wholesome and wholehearted performance. Such warmth and serenity has been in short supply this season. It feels like meeting an old friend you haven’t seen for many years and discovering that you still get on.

We needed that. A semi-final holds the tantalising prospect of a trophy, sure, but what we craved, and what will last, is the manner in which victory was achieved. Under pressure, Spurs didn’t fold. They raised their game, showing teamwork, intelligence and commitment that sadly has been a rare sight for much of this campaign.

Frankfurt, a classy team playing at home in front of their fans baying incessant support, but we took the game to them. We became the disruptors, partly through our threat on the break but mainly through our combative attitude. We wound them up, basically, epitomised by the slight figure of Brennan Johnson, who without having a great game was in opponents’ faces, skirmishing down on the touchline. Not much going on, so let’s get a little agitated. Others rushed to join in. Teamwork. Unsettle them. Exploit their visible tension.

Second half, backs to the wall, brought out the finest qualities in our defence. VDV had already saved us early on. Not mere pace – he timed that challenge to perfection even though he was hurtling along. Romero shone in adversity. The cold, blank stare of this ruthless defender returned. I love to see this. Tackles, niggles, shoves, any and every part of the body in the way of his opponent, it was classic penalty box at-all-costs defending.

Udogie better now his fitness is returning – we underestimate how much recovery takes out of a player. Bergvall the star, the maturity and intelligence of his positioning, tracking attackers. Hard to believe he’s just 19. We have a real player on our hands. Solanke tireless and uncomplaining up front, lacked support but never gave up. Plus handy that their two best chances fell to a right-back

So our best back four were able to play together and we’re better. Of course, but what really impressed was our shape. Minimal space between the back four with the midfield cutting out space in front of them and Bergvall and Bentacur dropping back to cover and mark. Turns out Ange’s all-out attackers can defend like demons after all.

I freely confess I was not expecting this. Little in recent matches provided any clue that the side was capable of such a transformation. In the post-match interviews, Vicario shared that the team were determined to show this side of their character, for the fans and manager. Usual stuff – what’s Italian for blah blah blah? A keeper I like a lot, and who has been unfairly criticised in the past, he’s been so shaky of late, nerves radiating out from the goalmouth in Hugo-esque fashion to weaken the resolve of the entire team. But like the rest of them, he found something extra. Never mind the late save with his feet, more about coming right out of his goal to catch a deep cross. In charge of his box again.

If we look back, this is not totally out of character for Spurs teams. We rightly revere our proud history of cup success, which usually came alongside the inability to challenge consistently for the league over a 42 game season, although admittedly when winning stuff we didn’t fall as far as we have right now. In 1984, for instance, we won the UEFA Cup but finished 8^th, in 72, 6^th and won the Cup in 81, 10^th. The difference between then and now is that those teams were full of big characters and experienced players who led by example and whose ferocious will to win was evident in these big games. I would not say this applied to the current team. In fact, on the field leadership appears, from the stands at least, to be largely absent, but full credit to all of them to find something deep down to rise to the challenge and be the best they can be.

These defensive hold-outs have a lasting positive effective on team morale, more so in my view than a series of thumping victories, because qualities like determination, organisation and togetherness are abundantly obvious. Perhaps the players needed convincing that that could play like this, and proved it to themselves. Whatever, the scenes of jubilation in the stands and on the pitch as the players and manager piled in on each other were heartwarming and genuine. It’s been too long. Ange even smiled. Players, fans and manager, we all needed that.

On Monday, Spurs published their latest financial results. Revenue was down, and the word of the week was ‘sustainable’, as in Daniel Levy’s insistence that the club’s investment in transfers and salaries had to remain within sustainable limits dictated by income. Time flies – it’s Friday and it’s all about Ange’s ear. The team took the chairman at face value – losing at Stamford Bridge is eminently sustainable.

Over the years, I’ve said how this fixture should not be used as the benchmark to judge the team. I wish it were otherwise, that we could rise to the challenge and out-perform our bitter rivals, but for the moment at least, it’s beyond us and we move on. However, last night’s weak, insipid excuse for a performance sadly was indeed typical of how Spurs have been playing lately. Players drifted around the pitch without making any significant impact on proceedings, going through the motions of worn-out tactics that long since ceased to work on motivated opponents ready and prepared to exploit our predictable routines. There was simply nothing there. Nobody achieved anything. Nobody tried to change anything. Maddison was good for five minutes or so near the end. That’s all I’ve got.

I’d describe this as shocking, except I wasn’t shocked. First five minutes, they have a quick striker, long ball down the middle and we’re nowhere. Comedy moments as the ball bounces around and clatters against the post. I shrugged rather than shouted. Such calamity has become the norm.

And so supporters enter that state of purgatory all too familiar to Spurs fans, where we all know the manager will go but we continue to suffer until we can move on. The myths of religion suggest this is to a higher plane, except for Spurs fans it is more likely to be another state of suffering, but I shall cling on to the fragile hope of salvation.

I can’t envisage any scenario where Ange holds his job into next season. ‘When not if’ seems inescapably to be the only question. I take no pleasure in saying this. I wanted this proud, motivated man to succeed. He was right for my club, so I hoped. I applauded his brave, attacking football and his value-base of teamwork and support for his players, plus his passion for the game, a beacon of authenticity in an increasingly dreary, cynical football world driven by greed.

Except it hasn’t worked. Granted, we will never truly know what he could have achieved if not blighted by injuries. However, the benchmark for any manager, at any level, is whether they can create a team where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and in this respect Ange has failed. Indeed, we often play as a group of individuals with little connection or cohesion, and certainly the players’ confidence and ebullience of the early months has become a distant memory.

He’s done nothing to deal with our problems in defence, with too much space in front of the back four and our penalty box defending is shoddy, as was shown last night with their goal, where a midfield player can lurk unnoticed near our 6 yard box. Udogie should have come across but no midfielder tracked that movement. We constantly, predictably give the ball away. Players are easily isolated on the ball and concede possession. This has been going on for a season and a half.

Some of the players are not up to playing to the level he expects, especially in that central midfield area, and we’ll never know why the club did not act to plug those gaps with a different type of player, one who could also release some of the pressure on talent like Bentacur and Sarr, and enable them to flourish. Our attack, once fast and threatening, is now leaden and predictable.

Ange is rattled. He knows that it’s not working and has to face the bitter reality that he has failed. He cuts an isolated figure on the touchline and, as I understand it, within the club itself. The cupping his hand to the ear gesture will only serve to alienate supporters, bearing in mind that broadly within the ground he’s not been subject to significant negativity. Away matches may be different. I hear from good people who go away that at times the atmosphere has been hostile, which includes abuse directed towards the manager and players, some of it racist.

It is hard and I don’t condone personal abuse in any form, but he like any other manager has to understand that it’s not about his personal vindication, it’s about the team, about fans and team together. He’s created them and us, and it’s not on.

Managers come and go, the hierarchy that runs the club, dictates policy and shapes the ethos where at one of the wealthiest clubs in the world, winning something is a secondary, minor consideration, remains the same. Tottenham are a club devoid of ambition and self-belief, and this comes from the top. For the board, failure is indeed sustainable.

Two home games to come including a European quarter final yet optimism is at rock bottom. The mood among supporters is desultory and doom-laden as we watch yet another iteration of our team decompose then disintegrate before our eyes. It’s horrible, it’s a mess, it’s Tottenham.

Business is bad for the jerk chicken bar-b-ques in the Park Lane. It’s raining, and the crowds surprisingly sparse even though kick-off is only half an hour away. The aroma of succulent curried goat is tempting, the warmth and dry of the ground more so and fans scurry past. The speakers blast out Bob Marley, singing songs of freedom, but there’s no redemption to be found for Spurs fans in the shelter of the stadium.  

I concluded last week’s piece with the ominous comment that there may be trouble ahead. I take no pleasure in saying my prediction for Sunday’s game was on the money. Vardy scores on a breakaway, Spurs are disjointed and directionless and the atmosphere is more toxic than a nuclear waste dump. More telling perhaps even than the chants directed at the chairman was the lack of enthusiasm in the stands, the absence of any concentrated vocal support for the team a grudging acceptance of the inevitability of this outcome. People have had enough.

Protected by the thickest skin in English football, impervious to criticism, even our chairman must be feeling the heat through his cloak of invulnerability. Yet in response, the club have thrown out a couple of titbits that won’t sate our appetite of some robust, overdue and utterly necessary urgent action. Ange is safe, for now, and we hope to sign at least one player before the window closes, something Ange referenced in a press conference. These reports go on to say that we’re not after a midfielder.

I’m struggling to work out the strangest aspect of this. Is it ‘one player’ when the squad is on its knees? Strong competition from, ‘before the end of the window’, when they’ve had 28 days to respond to an urgent need. Both trumped for me though by ‘not a midfielder’. I realise we need reinforcements up front and at the back, but our defensive midfield is a tumbleweed void, a canyon of nothingness. There’s more material in the vast and endless vacuum of space. We’ve recruited some talented young players, no question, but this is at the expense of, rather than alongside, a search for experience, resilience and leadership, qualities essential for success.

For Leicester’s second, the bloke was out for a Sunday stroll, ambling across vacant grass, a touch here, another one to get it right, hold up a finger to gauge the windspeed and direction, pull up his socks and clean the mud from his toecaps before slotting into the corner of the net. He put more effort into his endless celebration than he had to do to score.

Spurs now have a managerial infrastructure to run the club. Yet their current strategy in the face of crisis is to let Ange carry the can as the only public face of Tottenham Hotspur. Daniel Levy – nothing. Donna Cullen – silence. Scott Munn – schtum. Johann Lange – shh! The whole operation geared, at enormous expense, to not carrying the can.

Ange to his eternal credit is prepared to front up, and all he gets for his troubles is, this week, media snark for being occasionally snippy with them. As if no other manager ever has taken umbrage with the media. One paper suggests that one reason they aren’t sacking Ange is that although that will be embarrassing for the board, appointing Mason as caretaker for the third time looks even worse. This is the stage we’ve reached. This is how one of the richest clubs in European football is being run, judging degrees of embarrassment.

The idea that Ange doesn’t have a plan B has been thoroughly debunked, although many pundits still trot it out because cliches and second-hand opinions are good earners. What he doesn’t have is a plan to tighten up when we’re under pressure from player exhaustion and a make do and mend team. For me, the big worry is that we don’t have the players with the skill-set to offer this option.

On Sunday, Bentancur had a poor game but he was essentially left to police the back four on his own, as well as build attacks when we get possession. Sarr was awful but we hear subsequently that he wasn’t fit. I admire the fact that he wanted to play, it shows the commitment the players have retained, but Ange should have been stronger and left him out if fitness was the issue. Then again, this reveals the real problem, there’s nobody else to play there. And so we’re back to the fundamental problem of a manager having to work with a squad not fit for purpose.

My dire warnings of the consequences of the board’s baffling negligence stretch back on this blog for at least a decade. The media have finally caught up. It is a football club and football clubs should be geared to performance. The board have their heads in the sand, refusing to fully invest in the team at a time of crisis and denying any responsibility for this, a crisis that was waiting to happen. 24 years of making the same mistakes, of a wilful inability to understand how to create a successful team, of denial that it requires substantial, sustained and strategic investment in top class footballers.

Or indeed investment in their support and supporters. They have created a vast gulf between themselves and the fans. Get behind the team. The Spurs family. The game is about glory. No wonder there is so much anger around. And it impacts adversely on the team, another deleterious consequence of the board’s attitude. They simply do not get us at all. As one banner said on Sunday: ‘Our game is about glory. Your game is about greed.’

This week, inconveniently for the board, figures around the wages/income ratio for the Premier League have been published. It’s a table that Spurs top. The opposition fans I know read this blog can insert their own joke about our trophy cabinet at this point. The only thing I want to add now is my continued bewilderment that in his own terms, Daniel Levy and the board have been hugely successful. Wages to income the lowest in the Premier League. The ground brings in an estimated £5m per game and the club is in an excellent financial state. This includes our position on PSR. Good. Well done, genuinely. This is the springboard to success as promised when plans for a new stadium were discussed nearly twenty years ago, yet we’re fast sinking to the bottom of the pool.

Spurs are not so much sleepwalking towards a relegation battle as zombie marching resolutely towards it, eyes wide open as if on some speed-fuelled bender. I’m old enough to remember the relegation season, and subsequent years that we spent near the bottom of the table. There’s something here about drift, about how a team with decent players but not strong enough as a whole internalise a defeatist mentality and can’t find a way to win, teams that wanted to play open football the Spurs way and got punished for it. This team isn’t ready for a relegation fight.

The idea that everything will be ok once the injured players come back is a fantasy. Before they return, best estimates still mean several weeks of playing two games a week. The glory glory nights of European football at the Lane now reduced to wanting a win on Thursday to avoid further fixtures. It takes time to get up to match fitness, more time still to reach the athletic intensity our tactics require, a period when players are vulnerable to further injury due to over-exertion. We’ve lost to Leicester and Everton, with Wolves, Ipswich and Southampton still to play, plus all of the teams at the top apart from AFC.

In response, on January 28^th, no new outfield players. The world famous Hotspur, rotten to the core.