Spine
With a cup final a month away it's still easy to point towards where our current struggles continue to fester. This being Tottenham most of our difficulties have historical context. We are Billy Murray and the transitional season is another ground-hog day.
If you take it all into consideration and try to detach yourself from the expectancy of wishing to see attractive free-flowing football and convincing performances then you're left with what exactly?
- A flawed and inherited side that has no defining balance or shape based on the money invested in new acquisitions, all for a coach that walked away from the club
- Deep-rooted psychological mind-set relating to the highs of expressive, rampant football to more controlled, deliberate modern possession play that has sucked the clubs footballing essence into limbo leaving us without identity
- A head coach that is half way through a season which to be fair is more aligned to a combination of damage limitation and personnel auditing as he attempts to work out the ones with longevity and the ones that will need to be moved on
- No funds for new players until we shift some out of the club. Success of sales will be heavily influenced by the clubs estimation of said players, what with the policy to profit competitively. That and the fact that when you spend near enough £100M on seven players, if most are deemed to be failures then does the responsibility befall the chairman or the director of football and if so who watches the watchmen?
So in short, it's a bit messy. Mauricio Pochettino has fought through it and there is more than enough evidence that he has something in amongst the doubt and confusion to reanimate our ghosting soul. Spirit is one of the traits. It's got us to a cup final.
The other positive?
The spine.
Hugo Lloris.Jan Vertonghen. Nabil Bentaleb. Ryan Mason. Christian Eriksen. Harry Kane.
The three youth players are developing with discipline and confidence. Eriksen remains our singularity in a system with few shining stars. The defensive trio our bedrock to push forward with confidence. Bentaleb and Mason might not offer us experience but their tenacity puts to shame those they've disposed.
Yes, we all want the accustomed style of Spurs that our tradition demands. I'd imagine an attempt to delivery this with the players we have currently will not be pretty and supporters would still complain about erratic results.
This remains a transition. Even though you might think we have a chance to compete (because of other clubs in flux) that shouldn't distort the fact that our mistakes have inherently cursed us to always fight against the problems we create for ourselves.
Pochettino's Tottenham Hotspur is fledgling. We're just about walking. We won't start running until he's able to truly inject his own players in positions that are key to supporting the spine he's inherited.
Until then, I can only hope the players make the tenuous journey an exciting one by occasionally turning up and giving us that little bit extra to inspire hope. Staring with Wembley.
