Review of the season and the Leicester City game (5-4 result).
As we left our old White Hart Lane stadium our thoughts quickly turned to our temporary home – Wembley – and what it would bring us.
The critics said that we wouldn’t make the top-four and that because we were playing in a larger, but unknown, ground, we would struggle. And to reinforce that perception we didn’t have a terrific Champions league outing when those matches were played at Wembley because of WHL’s ground capacity and building works.
To add misery to those predictions we were drawn - in the Champions League – in the League of fire or death - as some would call it. So; there you have it, the experts had spoken, so we might as well have buried our heads and hope the pain was quick and that at least we might get Europa League football the following season.
We did have a friendly to warm the cockles (against Juventus) to settle us in. We won that 2-0, but that was only a friendly, and nobody really tries just before a new season.
Our first match was away to Newcastle United where we won 2-0. But that wasn’t Wembley, so we only postponed the inevitable.
On Sunday the 20th August, we face our old foe Chelsea (league champions), and we didn’t let the critics down as they beat us 2-1 (never mind that we had the better of them). Seven days later we faced Burnley, who held us to a draw. “Wembley was jinxed for us” the press shouted. Only two matches and we were jinxed at Wembley. Should we just give up now and go home and hope that a good night’s rest will cure all ills? The press dug in and were enjoying writing conspiracy theories and other clap-trap. Never mind, Everton will be our next match and we can leave all this voodoo behind for another Wembley outing. We beat Everton 3-0.
Still, in December our next match was – oh, no!!! – Dortmund in the League of death. The press and the boys in red (Arsenal) all tried to rub salt in the wounds. “Oh, it was hilarious, Spurs are going to be humiliated… and they are shit anyway,” I heard one Arse-wiper say. But the fans were optimistic and came in their droves to cheer the team on.
But what went wrong? It didn’t go to plan… humiliation, eyes dropping, testicles rubbed by both sexes. The non-Spurs supporters were flabbergasted. “It was a fluke” they shouted. Even-so, we played well and deserved our 3-1 win and the crowd went home dreaming about possibilities. Others nodded their heads and said, “They’ve got to play them on their own ground, then Real Madrid… they’ll be shitting themselves at the end of it all. Poor bastards!”.
“Was it the calm before the storm?” As some suggested.
Anyway, let us dream for a while… back to Wembley and the jinxed ridden pox hole and Swansea. And low and behold we drew that match. Well, it just goes to show you that the Dortmund game was a quirky result anyway. The fans started to get jittery and thought that those critics and fan-abusers might just have something.
Wembley up again, but this time, in the League Cup and we managed to scrape by with a 1-0 win. Well, whatever way you look at it we had more wins at Wembley than defeats. At least that is something. But did we really believe it… too much listening to the critics/ press and shit wipers, methinks.
A trip to West Ham’s favourite ground and a 3-2 win for us. But it was away, at least we could count on those matches (the critics cried).
Back to the Champions League and our first away match. This time we were up against lowly APOEL Nicosia. We won 3-0, but then again we should have, shouldn’t we? They were regarded as chicken fodder for the big boys. If we can’t beat them, then we shouldn’t be in Europe.
Huddersfield Town we beat away 4-0 before returning to Wembley and facing Bournemouth, who we beat 1-0. But as the critics pointed out, not very impressive for a home win. Still, under the jinx, they postulated. Bollocks, we collectively replied.
Now the real test was on. Real Madrid away and this is where we would get a good kicking, according to those in the know. Our testicles will be shoved so far up our arses that we won’t know what hit us. Real Madrid are the Kings of Europe, they cried, so a win was inevitable for them. And who were we anyway?
As we arrived in Madrid, their fans were buoyant and sure of the result. After all, we were newcomers and we didn’t know one end of our arsehole to another. To them, this was a preliminary match. So... After we went ahead in an intensely fought game, we battled and battled, only allowing them to slip in with a mistake on our part and before giving them a penalty, making the final result 1-1. We were bloody floating. We were on cloud 9, we were flying with the eagles and shitting on heads, and sticking two fingers up to the so-called experts. The trip home with the other supporters was an exciting place to be.
“If we can draw against them,” we cried,” is there anything we can’t do? After that match, we faced Liverpool (one of the top-four favourites), and guess where we were going to face them? You’ve got it, Wembley… the jinx hole for dead parrots and constipated penguins. And what happened? We stuffed the Reds 4-1. “What jinx,” we roared?
Sadly, a quick trip downs to earth in the League Cup. We took our eyes off the ball when we faced West Ham at Wembley. After being in a leading position, we dropped our guard, even though we only put out a weak team. Nevertheless, we were out of Micky Mouse’s pet competition. What a bastard, to be flying so high and then suddenly falling from such heights. Shit does really happen… but we soon picked ourselves up and reminded ourselves that Micky’s competition was actually that, we had bigger and better fish to fry. And we liked a bit of cod anyway. West Ham can have their flash-by-fifteen minutes of fame, they’ll get their comeuppance. Why worry about the fallen coins when we’ve got our eyes set on the gold bars.
A trip to Old Trafford and a 1-0 defeat after our League cup exit. But could we redeem ourselves in the first match of November when we face Real Madrid at home? Obviously, they wanted revenge, and of course, they were European football Gods. But we were having done of it. They were coming to our territory, even though it was only a temporary one. “We’ll put a performance on for them… we will… you’ll see,” we cried.
On Wednesday the 1st November, the hoards turned up in their thousands to get a glimpse of Real Madrid’s great team. People flocked for souvenirs, drunk plenty and got their match day programmes. They wanted an evening to remember. And they weren’t disappointed. Two goals from Alli and one from Eriksen gave us a 3-1 victory. Cristiano Ronaldo scored their solo goal in the 80th minutes, but it didn’t help or dent our victory. We were the masters of the night and still undefeated in the “league of fire”.
All this happened in our temporary home. The jinx home where no angel would dare to tread. We were supposed to be lambs to the slaughter. The headlines were going to bury our manager and us. But it didn’t entirely go to script… some bastard cocked it up. Oh, well… another day, another European match to follow where we could get our comeuppance. Then there is the league failure at the end of the season… still, time to prove the critics right that we would fall away from WHL into that dark hole they dug for us.
A Wembley win over Palace, followed by a defeat away to Arsenal set us up for a trip to Dortmund and revenge night for them. After all, we were away from home and going into the lion's den. And we were terrified, so much so that we came away with a 2-1 win. We were so terrified that we sang all the way home back to good old Blighty and dreamt the dream for days, weeks and months ahead. They showed us, those poor old Spurs boys, what real football was all about, and we never stopped smiling… It just goes to show you what fear was bespoken by our opponents. We ended at the top of the Champions League table with Real Madrid poorly second.
Back to Wembley and a bump down to earth when we face eventual relegated fodder WBA. They held us to a 1-1 draw. That is what happens when one gets too cocky. Somebody tries to break it off. Even worse to come was a 2-1 defeat at the King Power Stadium (Leicester City). It is games like these that we must win if we want any chance of challenging for the title.
Back to European football and a Wembley home match against Apoel where we comfortable won 3-0.
Two Premier league home games in quick session, Stoke and Brighton where we won 5-1 and 2-0 respectively. Then a trip to Manchester City’s ground where they were moving further away from everybody else in the league. We lost that 4-1 to show us who was king and who were the pretenders. Our most significant defeat so far. There was still a lot a work to be done on the old girl yet.
Two more games before we saw the New Year in and two victories, Burnley 3-0 (a) and a 5-2 win over Southampton at home. That done and dusted we could settle back to New Year’s festivities and blind drunkenness and resolutions before visiting Swansea in Wales and winning 2-0. A good start for the year ahead.
We went through January without a defeat in the League and FA Cup. We were alive to fight another day. The same with February, no losses and the Spurs continue marching onwards and upwards. We were SMOKING, but with little flames.
Into March there were victories over Huddersfield Town and Bournemouth in the League, and then a trip to Swansea in the FA Cup where we came away 3-0 winners. The biggest shock for that month was being knocked out of the Champions League by Juventus, by 2-1 in a good tactical move from our hosts, while we didn’t really have anything to show in return. But we had a good run and there was always another day to fight for such European Glory’s. As for whether it would be next season, well… maybe… if we could get fourth (we got third).
April saw us knocked out of the FA Cup Semi-Final at our temporary home by United, while in the league we were beaten 3-1 by City, the only club to do the double over us. Apart from that, we had victories over Chelsea, Stoke and Watford, while drawing against Brighton.
The game against Chelsea was significant as they were the team that beat us in our very first game in the league at our Wembley home. This time we did it on their ground, winning 3-1. This was a magnificent victory for us as we hadn’t won there for some years.
With our Chelsea win we thought it was a formality that we would be in the Champions League, but no, it wasn’t that easy. We were beaten by struggling WBA on their own turf. That set us back a bit, I can tell you and the fans started talking about the possibility of Europa League football. Chelsea and Liverpool were on our tails with Liverpool in third place, but we had a game in hand over them. Then the crunch match came. We faced Newcastle United, while on the same night Chelsea faced Huddersfield, who needed a point to stay up. The Chelsea game was regarded as a formality, while we had memories from a few seasons ago where Newcastle beat us – on their ground – 5-1, even though they were relegated. Shit really does happen, but will it repeat itself?
We started off nervously but managed to score two goals to bury them. While we were watching that match our eyes were also glued to our phones and the Chelsea game, where that score was 1-1 with the seconds ticking by. Finally, Huddersfield Town made it, and with us winning we were guaranteed Champions League football. Was it going to be third or fourth, we had to wait for the last game of the season. The Newcastle game was on Wednesday, before we could even get a good night’s sleep it seemed that within a flash it was Sunday and the big day was upon us. Our last Wembley League appearance.
The morning was straightforward, even though Spurs fans were nervous and didn’t really know what to expect from an occasional misfiring Spurs team. We arrived, had a beer or three at the pub, got something to eat, chatted to each other and then we made our way to the stadium. I made my way to the press area and listened to the gossip and talked to some close Spurs friends about what was what. Then I settled downs to watch the players enter the arena for their final match. Leicester City had previously beaten Arsenal 3-1 and was buoyed up.
We started off nervously and they scored first. We seemed to get into the swing of it and equalised, they quickly scored another two goals and the score was 3-1 to them, oh crap! The fans held their heads in their hands and hoped it was just a bad dream. Then we got three goals and the count was 4-3 to us. They equalised and we thought… oh, no! Then finally Kane popped up to score his second goal to make it 5-3. The drama wasn’t over yet as Leicester tity came close to equalising, but with five minutes added on that didn’t even help them as the final whistle was finally blown and you could hear the relief throughout the stadium. We made it, we were third, even though Liverpool had won their match, they stayed where they were. Chelsea was thrashed 3-0 by Newcastle and Wenger saw out his last game as manager of Arsenal. It all worked out well in the end and now with a new stadium, we can dream of new possibilities and new goals. For the third year in a row, we were in the Champions League. What more can one say?
Conclusion: Even though I and other fans were a bit harsh over the season on the team, more so near the end, and considering that we played all our games away, we didn’t really do too bad. We did manage to beat Arsenal, United and Liverpool at Wembley while drawing with Liverpool on their ground. Chelsea, we beat at Stamford Bridge, but lost at Wembley. City was the only club to do the double over us, and they ended up as Premier league winners.
If we had beaten teams like Leicester City, WBA, Chelsea, Burnley, Watford, West Ham and Brighton, where we either drew against or lost to, then things might have been different. We just didn’t have the killer instinct and weren’t cynical enough where it counted. Experience and fresh blood might solve that problem, and obviously,
So that is my assessment of how the season went, you might not agree, but that is the beauty of life; differences of opinion, which makes the world that bit more interesting. If it isn’t compelling enough just being a Spurs supporters! COYS!
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