For me that is not his bet to make
Any relationship that ignores the foundations that it depends on, but then tries to sprinkle on great moments as justification is a bad relationship. An absent parent who buys and expensive gift for a child is still a brick parent.
The fan base was in no way united, I was at the Brighton game after the cup win, the mood went from celebration at the start of the game to frustration at the end of it. Mainly because putting the cup final hangover to one side, it was the same old brick. It was only a mountain to climb cause we had fallen that far. I don't really consider vibes and motivation to be foundations that anything long term should be built on. They are both finite, and when they aren't there is when the lack of foundation is exposed. The board have done more than there fare share, but being a team that doesn't know how to win at home, or not lose eventually becomes part of the identity.
The players wasn't told last season didn't matter, they were told that a club of our size and players of their apparent ability should expect to go deep into the cups without being that low in the league. It was last season I stopped going to every game, because I personally found the football a poor watch, it hasn't got any better this season, but it hasn't got any worse either, the quality of football much like the club doesn't generate any emotion in me one way or another, I'm just numb to it.
I totally respect your point of view on this. Clearly the decision Ange made was not the right one for a lot of people. I accept that. My personal view is, once the season became a write off in the league, I completely understood that the way to bring some success to the club was to win the Europa, and to do whatever it took to win it. And to be clear, the reason the league became a write off was a horrendous injury crisis like nothing we have ever seen, not because of bad management. But each league loss didn’t bother me as long we were in with a shot of winning the Europa. It was water off a ducks back to me, because I didn’t see how a slog back to 12th was going to do anything for anyone, but I appreciate it wasn’t like that for a lot of other people.
I think though that it’s really important to think about what the players felt about last season. And about the image of Spurs in their minds eye. This is the thing I probably haven’t articulated well enough, but I think it’s so delicate and the reason that we’ve struggled, and the reason that any club struggles when they lose it.
Last season was a ‘thing’, an idea that everyone bought into. Every bit of motivation, every bit of preparation, every bit of self talk that the players gave themselves was that as long as they stick together, they could be winners. It was the theme of the season. To basically say we know we are going through horrible times, but we can come out the other side as champions. They were in the biggest hole, and ended up climbing a mountain that no other Spurs side had climbed in over 40 years. They did it by sticking together, by fighting for each other, and never losing faith. It was faith in what was possible that season, but also why they joined Spurs in the first place. They wanted to become legends for the club, and do something no team in their lifetimes had done. To get their pictures on the walls and live on forever.
And they did that. It was a monumental achievement. And I think it is genuinely still under appreciated how big an achievement it was. To not only do it, but to still be together and never lose faith in each other, the manager, or the entire idea of what being at Spurs meant to them. They actually went and did it. And every decision Ange made was that so he could ultimately ask the players to climb mountains again in the future, but to do it their way, with a set of cultural foundations they all believed in.
I simply think that by sacking Ange, the club put those foundations and that togetherness at massive risk. If they were to sack Ange, the next appointment had to be as close to certain to working out. Because, just like with Poch, the togetherness and the ‘idea’, the belief and the faith, that was the thing that allowed us to compete. And they put it at massive risk. I think that Ange deserved to start the next season, and if by November he was struggling, sack him then. The achievement needed time to breathe, to be recognised. I think the players needed to be allowed to come to terms with the idea that Ange was a moment, but long term something else was required, if that was the decision to be made.
As it was, we made an utterly atrocious appointment. And whatever idea the players had about Spurs, about why they were here, about what they were building towards last season, it was all blown up. They were told that at Spurs they would always be able to be brave, to play football the right way, and they believed in it. And I genuinely believe that is the reason for the struggle. We’ve become a squad with no reason to be here, other than to earn kind of good but not the very best wages. There’s no idea, no identity, no reason for unity.
And that all might not be so bad, were it not for the fact that 1 year ago we so clearly had it. That is the issue. The players went through something together. They had faith in each other. They became winners together. That idea, that thing, was their reason for being united, for being at Spurs. And we willingly destroyed it. We told them that they had to climb a new mountain, where they didn’t have to be brave, where they had to play the percentages, where they will definitely lose games. It’s not justified but is it understandable that a lot of the players probably realised that Spurs was not actually a serious proposition. That we didn’t actually care about progress, about winning things, about competing at the highest level. Or even doing things in a way that most of them buy into, because the idea creates the unity.
Thomas Frank in isolation is not a bad manager. But to appoint someone so uninspiring, as a communicator and as a manager with that style of football, after what the players had before, I think was one of the dumbest decisions a football club has ever made. It is dumb because it’s a symptom of what we have all always known, that our squad is a Frakensteinien mess built for multiple different managers and sporting directors. But also because he was so blatantly uninspiring compared to the last manager. And was therefore unable to create anything close to the unity we had previously benefitted from. He had no ideas to get behind. He was not a good motivator. He was careful, safe and risk averse. And our squad did not buy in.
