Spurs face long road to follow Dortmund model

IF Dortmund are the blueprint then Tottenham now have a brutal indication of just how far there is to go. 

People can point fingers at the manager, the line-up and the fitness levels all they want but there was nothing that a few changes would have helped in last night's 3-0 drubbing at the Westfalenstadion - this was men versus boys. 

Our lads were outpassed, outpressed and outworked by a slick, efficient and endlessly fit Dortmund side that could have been out of sight by half-time.

It might feel like scant encouragement but this is the side that Spurs aspire to emulate - with possessive-yet-potent attacking football, homegrown talent and even a huge behind-the-goal kop. 

Who knows, maybe even reasonable ticket prices!

A bigger concern has to be the poor reflection it casts on the current status of the English game.

Yes, we are all enjoying a fantastic and unpredictable season in which any one of four, maybe five, teams could still lift the title.

Yes, we've had some incredible stories, upsets and seen some brilliant goals. 

But should a team second in the Premier League really be so comprehensively outclassed by their Bundesliga equivalent?

You certainly wouldn't back Leicester to give German leaders Bayern Munich a run for their money either.

Seeing our big sides flounder makes entertaining viewing but this was the biggest indication yet that those who have replaced them at the top this season are not raising the bar, just making the most of an opportunity.

On the night it was a painful defeat but at least those on the pitch, the bench, sat in the stands and watching on the box now have a yardstick.

This is what can be created if we stick on the path we have started. 

Mauricio Pochettino's squad are 18 months into a philosophy that Dortmund have had drilled into them since 2009. 

Their boss Thomas Tuchel joined last summer and is continuing the hi-octane, high-pressing work introduced by Jurgen Klopp seven years ago.

Interestingly enough, Tuchel also managed Mainz shortly after Klopp, quickly surpassing the now-Liverpool manager's success.

Where Klopp got Mainz promoted, Tuchel took them into the Europa League.

Where Klopp took Dortmund to back-to-back league titles and the 2012-13 Champions League final, Tuchel has them again chasing down Bayern at the top and they must now be favourites for the Europa League.

It all comes together for one nasty bump back down to earth for Spurs but an impressive lesson to go with it. 

The improved fitness levels, the demanding pressing game and the flowing attacks can all go up a notch. Our players now have first hand experience of it. For some, it will be an encouragement, for others a kick up the ass.

If this Dortmund side is a glimpse of where hard work and a well-drilled philosophy can lead you, then we should be very excited about our chosen path.

Tough week could help Spurs hang in there

ONE point from two huge games was not what everyone wanted but bear with me while I argue that it might do us a favour.

Wins over West Ham and Arsenal would have left us top by two points - but can a team that has not won a title in 55 years really be expected to lead from the front with nine games to go?

The pressure, focus and searing hot spotlight that comes from being frontrunners is surely too much for a club stalked by its own shadow of late-season stutters.

We have a history of easing off the gas from good positions, so let Leicester take the weight of responsibility for the time being.

With 27 points left to fight for, a five-point gap at this stage is hardly unassailable and 
there is no sense in making ourselves the team to beat at the start of March. 

We are safer riding Leicester's coat-tails as they attract the limelight and deflect attention. 

Apart from anything else, my blood pressure could do with a rest from the nerve-shredding tension of our last two games. How the players must have felt is anybody's guess.

If the Foxes do win the title from here then they damn well deserve it and we should all stand up and applaud rather than picking apart our own supposed shortcomings.

But to put that feat into perspective, they have never won nine top-flight games in a row in their history.

It's a nervy time of year and everyone is dropping points. City lost to Liverpool, United at West Brom, and Arsenal haven't won in four.

Leicester's final two fixtures are Everton at home and Chelsea away. That's a tough enough finish in itself but in the meantime, if panic does finally strike Claudio Ranieri's squad, then any match becomes a banana skin and five points can disappear very quickly indeed.

Our final two games are home to Southampton and away at struggling Newcastle. Although by then they could well be "relegated Newcastle".

With that in mind, the main aim should be to stay within striking distance of the top, keep your fingers crossed we can hang in there and give ourselves a chance come May.

But many Spurs fans are starting to bite their fingernails not just over whether we will be fighting for the title come May, but whether we will still be in contention for the top four.

In 2011-12 we surrendered a 10-point lead over Arsenal in barely a month, the season before we won just one league game in ten from late February, including a home defeat to Blackpool. 

Both seasons we had put ourselves in the driving seat with regards to a Champions League finish. 

Yet in 2009-10 we got it right and beat Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City in a run-in that saw us nick fourth. 

The difference being that season we were underdogs right until the penultimate game, where a shock 1-0 win at City sealed it a game early.

And that is why we shouldn't be too disheartened heading into another crucial week on the back of two disappointing results.

On Sunday it's Aston Villa away, followed by Bournemouth at home a week later. 

Both matches present sides fighting for their lives and, given our recent history at this stage of the season, I'm happier to be going into it with a little less expectation on our shoulders.

Same old Tottenham? What a load of nonsense

WHATEVER your interpretation of the defeat at Upton Park, one thing is for sure - it was not “same old Tottenham”.

How could it possibly be same old Tottenham when it is not even same old West Ham?

Our East London rivals are a completely different prospect this season - able to scrap like dogs with the grit left over from Sam Allardyce's reign and now able bamboozle defences with the added wow factor of one of the season's star performers - Dimitri Payet.

The 1-0 victory moved Slaven Bilic’s side just one point off the Champions League spots and you might remember they also beat Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City away from home as well as beating Chelsea at the Boleyn ground. All before Christmas.

Even so, our defeat had the doubters and naysayers questioning Spurs’ backbone, bottle  and character.

Well, Mauricio Pochettino's squad had already given the answers to those questions on a run of six league wins, 12 unbeaten away from home and rising to second in the Premier League table. 

True, Spurs have a recent history of blowing top-four hopes in the run-in and of allowing commanding leads over teams below us to slip. But this is a new manager, with new methods and a host of young, homegrown players.

They do not deserve to have their reputation brought under scrutiny it all over again just because they lost one game - away from home - to a side fighting tooth and nail to prove their top-four credentials.

What's worse, is that the accusations of a "gutless", "typical" and even "Spursy" performance were being bandied about moments after Michail Antonio had put the Irons 1-0 up - with just seven minutes gone!

"Here we go again," said some. "This is where our season falls apart", others panicked.

Remarkably people were willing to write off 83 remaining minutes even though we have fought back to win more points from losing positions than anyone else this season (17) - and it came just three days after we had recovered from falling behind early to beat Swansea.

Admittedly, it wasn’t everyone. Large numbers of Tottenham fans are displaying untold levels of belief and positivity. You can hear that just by listening to the crowd on matchday. The noise has gone up a notch and is really starting to rival some of those Champions League nights in 2010-11.

But if you are one of those belting the side’s backbone or fight, then you might take a moment to consider that maybe football is not for you. Just what will it take for the beautiful game to entertain you?

The worst thing for these folk who are just waiting for everything to go wrong is that if it is all downhill from here, then they will not have given themselves a chance to get excited about one of the most enjoyable seasons in Tottenham’s recent history.

Same old Spurs? Definitely not. But maybe it’s just the same old people making the fans look bad.

The rest of you: sing up and smile - we have a North London Derby to win.

A welcome return to form - and hopefully not just for Tottenham

Strange things are happening in the Premier League - and the best thing about that is some of them are happening at White Hart Lane.

It’s March. Former title favourites Chelsea are still in the bottom half, former relegation candidates Leicester are top of the tree and English football’s former rulers Manchester United are still lurching weekly between progress and catastrophe.

Manchester City’s mind is already on next season, Arsenal are suffering severe deja vu and Tottenham, well, let’s just say things are looking up.

The maths started to stack up a few weeks ago. Then we beat City and the media - plus the teams around us - took notice. Now, having come from behind to beat Swansea on Sunday, even the fans are starting to believe. Some fans anyway.

That’s where I come in. My last blog post was just over two years ago before a new job sapped my spare time and, regretfully, this website fell onto the dreaded backburner. Now a proud dad of a newborn, I’m even busier than ever.

But with this amazing season taking twist after turn, week after week. And the faintest hope that maybe, just maybe, it might turn into something very, very special indeed, I just had to have my say.

There is a long way to go and a lot of tough games - each one of them our own Cup final. We have to go to Liverpool and Chelsea, not to mention West Ham tomorrow. Then there is what must be one of the biggest North London Derbies in a generation at lunchtime on Saturday.

However unlikely or difficult you see the possibility of us lifting the League Championship come May, Spurs fans would be foolish not to be getting just a little bit excited. 

Many in my generation (born 1983) would have felt that the club’s existence nowadays was purely geared at the top four and that resting on the summit after 38 games was for the real rich kids and oligarchs. To find ourselves in this position at this stage of the season was unthinkable, a pipe dream. But what is the point in football if you can’t dream once in a while? 

This run of form, this focus on the Academy, this brand of football has all come together to shake even the most miserly of fans from their slumbers and, as for me, well I wasn’t going to let it pass me by without getting my thoughts down. 

I will endeavour to keep the blog up do date from here on in and see where that takes me. Whether you savour it, snub it, comment on it, condemn it, rave about it, rant or even recommend it, I’m not concerned. I suppose feedback is always nice but as long as I've got something on record to show another little Spurs fan sometime down the line, then that will do for me. 

Although a Premier League title would be nice as well.

Krul result is no need for Spurs to hit the alarm button, yet

MAN the lifeboats, pull the emergency cord and take up your allotted panic stations immediately.

Spurs have lost at home again and no matter the performance, the number of chances or the opposition keeper, we must be at crisis point.

Why? Because this is what football fans do.

In the grand scheme of things, Spurs lost 1-0 to Newcastle and are three points off second place but you would be forgiven for thinking the banks had crashed.

The frustrated and popular outcry is that this profligacy in front of goal can not go on and something has to change.

And those clean-and-efficient 1-0 victories that started our season are now being painted as a barren wasteland of goal-starved good-fortune.

Those who praised the arrival of Roberto Soldado are screaming for Jermain Defoe, and even Emmanuel Adebayor, to get a chance.

This is despite the fact that everyone spent last season panning Manu's attitude, and despite the fact that Defoe scores for fun until he reaches the Premier League squad and, as against West Ham, he curls up in a ball like a hedgehog.

The nail-biters do have one thing right, this can't go on. But change is not the way forward, change is the cause - patience is the way forward.

Spurs' display in the first half against the Toon was nervy, reserved and verging on impotent - certainly lacking verve and urgency.

But the second half was driven and creative with an abundance of well-worked chances that either weren't finished well enough or somehow clipped Tim Krul's outstretched appendages and bounced clear.

We had 31 shots. 

Some of those we're a waste of time, possession and ticket/Sky TV money.

But some - like Soldado's first-half header from a Christian Eriksen free-kick, Jan Vertonghen's header that rattled the woodwork, and the clever Townsend-Soldado-Defoe move that led to Paulinho's must-score chance late on - were inspired.

In flashes- albeit all too rare - Spurs' football is a joy to watch. It just needs an end product. The longer these players play together, the better it will get and the goals are bound to come. 

If they don't, and come christmas we're languishing around 14th, then panic permits will be issued.

But this is an unpredictable season where anyone can beat anyone at anytime. Newcastle, more than anyone, have proved that.

We just hope the performances in front of goal turn before the fans do.

Spurs v Sheriff is more important than some think

TONIGHT is the very reason many folk question the size and worth of the Europa League. 

Spurs host not-quite-Moldovan FC Sheriff in their fourth consecutive game against European minnows having already clocked up three straightforward victories and heaven knows how many air miles.

The crowds will start dwindling as fans realise they only need to work out the channel number for ITV4 in order to watch it at home with a beer (UEFA rules prevent sale of alcohol in the ground for Euro games).

But, regardless of your take on Europe's second tier, it's nights like this that can ultimately help us towards sustaining a Premier League challenge.

That sounds bonkers, but bare with us... after the 3-0 defeat at home to West Ham, Mousa Dembele highlighted the importance of raising our performances for the "small games".

Bad choice of words, but he's right.

It's all very well if we can go out and hold Chelsea to a draw or beat Manchester United but if the first team is not motivated for every single game, no matter how easy it is on paper, then there is no point in fighting on four fronts for trophies.

Even the Champions League can be a squad-juggling exercise as clubs play a similar number of games to us.

So if that is our aspiration, we need to be well used to the workload. 

But most importantly, our football is nothing like the finished article just yet. Any chance to refine it in a real-match scenario should be welcomed.

While AVB tries to get the new players used to his ideas, it is vital that games like tonight are treated the same as any others, so that his controlling style becomes second nature.

There is also a fair bit at stake tonight. Jermain Defoe can break Martin Chicers' Euro goals record and we can make the knockout stage with a win - and that should all be ample motivation to see off Sheriff.

Will AVB's comments come home to roost?

ANDRE VILLAS-BOAS last week pointed a finger at Spurs fans claiming the tense atmosphere made it easier to play away from home.

The fans upped the ante for the repeat fixture against Hull in the League Cup on Wednesday but it made very little difference. 

While we took an early lead, the team again sat back and found themselves having to come from behind to draw before winning 8-7 on penalties.

We face Everton this afternoon and Spurs fans are all hoping that AVB's chickens aren't about to come home for a good roosting session.

Whatever happens at Goodison Park, it shouldn't be seen as make or break - we don't have a particularly good record up there lately anyway.

But after two unconvincing displays at White Hart Lane and AVB's verbal rocket still ringing, a lot of supporters will be thinking, "Come on then, show us what you can do away from home."

And it hardly helps that Arsenal are sitting pretty five-points clear at the top when many of us were swept away in the "shift-of-power" talk at the start of the season.

New Toffees boss Roberto Martinez likes his teams to attack, so at least we should not come up against a 6-4-0 wall of defenders.

Even penalties have a habit of deserting us at Everton, although at least now we seem to have a team that's more than capable of taking them!