Proper Tott’n’m
Oh, the whistle goes, the cockerel crows,
And now we’re in the game,
It’s up to you, you Lilywhites,
To play the Tottenham way;
There’s many teams from many towns,
And some are great and small,
But the famous Tottenham Hotspur
is the greatest of them all;
La-la! La-la-la! La-la-la-la!
*
I couldn’t believe my eyes. Tottenham Hotspur, my Tottenham, pressing again: hounding the United defense, passing crisply, speeding up and down the flanks, under the direction of (polite gasp) Jose Mourinho, against (to top it all off) the scourge against football and all humanity that is Manchester United. I’m not a superstitious man, nor much of a spiritual one - but ever since I texted and then published casual threats to go on loan to Leeds United, the universe has re-aligned itself in my football club’s favour.
I can’t recall a moment when I last approved of everything Tottenham did, on and off the pitch. I was not at all convinced by an excellent first half against Newcastle, a fixture we ended up retrieving only one point from - no thanks to the sheer insipidity of the new handball rule. I was even less enamoured with the gaffer’s decision to blame his players for losing the season opener against Everton, and for proceeding to ostracise Dele Alli in consequent interactions with the media. These are all Mourinho hallmarks - to position himself as misunderstood by players who refuse to master his concepts, or to blame God for breakdowns in super-specific passages of play … But behind the scenes, something curious and unexpected was happening.
Mourinho, most significantly, was dogged in his pursuit of positive football players. He was still constrained by Levynomics, the tight-pursed approach to transfer business that has established itself as legend - and that we, Tottenham fans, have learnt to live with. Forget who was rumoured to be coming to the club, and what fell through at the last moment because Tottenham ‘never spend any money’. That Sergio Reguílon kid will bomb forward at a moment’s notice, and repeatedly. I don’t think we’ve witnessed such kinetic energy on any Tottenham flank since Kyle Walker did the business for us, and I’d even dare to summon the memory of Steven Carr: a proper Irishman with proper Irish zip. Speaking of proper Irish zip, what cunning to prize Matt Doherty from Wolves, who occupy our general competitive periphery, and who (wink wink) are the other football club super-agent Jorge Mendes has tasked himself with monetising from scratch.
Alongside the addition of Carlos Vinicius, who we appear to have signed for SPEED, these are definitely not anti-football signings; they are a tantalising promise that the Mourinho Way is capable of some revolution after all.
My football politics do not jive with men like Mendes (the others occupy corner offices in football federations) controlling the distribution of talent in club football - and controlling, therefore, club football. But perhaps, in my quest to cure myself of romance, I don’t quite care anymore. I didn’t even want football, or baseball, or the NFL, back on ’til Western governments had figured out a consistent, single-minded approach to dealing with Coronavirus. But now that I’m complicit, delivering clicks, tuning in, my needs are simple: I want Manchester United to know the taste of suffering; I want Harry Kane to experience happiness; I want Arsenal to be good enough to collapse in exquisite style. I want to watch decent football.
I wanted Gareth Bale home. On this criteria, it’s Christmas in North London at the moment.
