Summertime madness
By ARLombardi • Jul 11, 2014 • 5 Comments
Everyone seems to be spending money and strengthening, yet we haven't signed anyone. Has your heart beat risen, has sweat started to form on your brow, do you need to strangle someone? If the answer is yes, take a deep breath and relax. It is July. The World Cup hasn't even finished. Chill. It's just a case of Summertime Madness. Things aren't that bad.
Whoever created us was having a giggle at the time. In each and everyone of us, hidden deep amongst our algorithms and personality settings, the same default stance was programmed. You know what stance that is, some of you are already ramped up to the 5th level, whilst others are slowly pottering towards it. It’s the Spurs stance. It’s the “lets blow this thing out of proportion” setting.
July is less than two weeks old. We have a manager in place, we have a few players making their way back from Brazil and we have had the first team squad in training for a week. Personally I am happy nothing has happened. Stability is the word that we have tried to tattoo into our very existence all last year, therefore why do we need to dive nuts first into a bubbling vat of transfer speculation?
In all honesty I think very little needs to be added to our squad. Of course every squad can always be improved, but the reality is we are suffering the affects of not building from a position of power, or a semblance of power. The players we crave are unobtainable, they are nothing more than a fantasy, a wet dream.
This doesn’t mean I am writing off our season or we will be unable to “bridge the gap to the tap four,” a phrase I detest, it just means we will have to find more subtle means of improving from what was, points wise at least, an OK season last year.
For now transfers are something I can now live without. If we go into our first game having only added a left back, I would be quite happy, which is strange considering how exciting I found last summer.
Those warm months of July and August 2013 were some of the best moments to be a Spurs fan. It was a nuclear boom period, followed by a Peter North bust all over our faces. As great as the boom was, the bust was disgusting. AVB fired, losses to West Ham, thrashings and divisions in the changing room, on the bench and in the stands. I felt like a little boy taken to Disney Land, only to witness his parents hissing and swearing at each other on the Tea Cups.
This summer we should be cartwheeling with joy that there are no major sagas on the horizon. Our lack of England internationals and players in general at the World Cup, means we have our core rested and ready to right the wrongs suffered last season, whilst our neighbours have players returning late, some of whom will carry the scars of their failure for decades.
Fortunately for Spurs, our only player to have suffered that night in Belo Horzionte, actually played rather well when he came on, and is well versed in sucking up a thrashing. If anyone can survive the fallout that will linger with the Brazilians for the next 50 years, Paulinho can.
One announcement that set some of us off-kilter was them lot reaching into their piggy bank and splashing the cash on a Chilean star, who is surplus to requirements at Barcelona and unwanted by any other major team in Europe, bar who he just signed for. This signing is not the green light to panic.
I agree that he is a great established player, but so is Mesut Ozil and his affect has been negligible. Even his national team has evolved beyond him and from a central role, he has become a marginalised wing man. The Sanchez signing means very little other than their manager admitting defeat and binning his whole belief system. Its like Abu Hamza shaving his head, wearing an orange robe and dancing through the street. They have become the Aldi of the free spending Premier League elite.
Instead we should focus solely on the good things, such as Hugo Lloris’ penmanship.
As the season drew to a close last year, I was concerned over the future of Lloris, but he has signed a new contract. This is a monumental moment, yet many have failed to comprehend this fantastic news and are passing it off more than proof he is off next year. If he is then so be it, personally I am happy to have the second best goalkeeper in the Premier League for one more year. Anyway since when did Spurs fans start thinking long term?
There is also the forgotten man, the butt of countless jokes and fake deaths, Erik Lamela, who can be seen running, smiling and looking rather toned. Its seems, admittedly from looking at pictures, no ITK here, as if along with his affliction to clothes, he has settled. Its a cliché, but he will be like a new signing, he hardly played last year, so he is pretty much a new signing.
It’s quite easy to forget that until he signed for Spurs, Lamela was a regular in the Argentina squad that has made it to the World Cup final. Had he not suffered a string of injuries, he may have even started in place of the injured Angel Di Maria and become possibly only the second player to win the World Cup whilst being a Spur. Football giveth and taketh away.
All of this means overreacting because they spent £30mill is an unnecessary distraction. Instead focus on enjoying the last few days of the World Cup and a peaceful preseason. We have enough quality in our squad to have a good season.
However with expectations always changing what can we define as a good season? Personally I am setting the bar no higher than playing decent football, making White Hart Lane a happy place and perhaps a Europa League win. No top four, but still pretty ambitious and if all three of these objectives are achieved we would be a heaving, cross-eyed and sticky mess.
The new season is coming, we have an autumn, winter and spring where we can overreact. For now enjoy the summer and stability, let’s try and work against our very fabric to overreact.
