Can Tottenham Win A Trophy This Season?

For now, Spurs have to stick with Ange...

Welcome back to The Overlap Newsletter! Rangers looked to have secured a point in the 88th minute against Manchester United in the Europa League with Cyriel Dessers’ late equaliser. But Bruno Fernandes cut those hopes short for the Scottish side when the captain got on the end of Lisandro Martinez's angled cross to the far post and drove a first-time shot into the back of the net to claim the win! Tottenham Hotspurs have been struggling in domestic football in what has been a difficult season. But last night James Maddison scored in the 3rd minute followed by Son Heung-min netting two as Tottenham Hotspur claimed a much-needed Europa League win at Hoffenheim to put them in a strong position to qualify automatically for the knockout stage. Tottenham play their final game of the league-phase at home against Elfsborg on January 30, while holding a one-point advantage on the teams looking to progress automatically, with Postecoglou stating it is a "great position to be in" after the game. Are Tottenham in with a chance of winning a trophy? Here is how the top 8 currently looks in the Europa League table:

Catch the latest episode of Stick To Football on The Overlap Youtube Channel where we’re joined by the legendary Denis Irwin as he sits down with Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher, Roy Keane, Ian Wright and Jill Scott for an in-depth discussion about his remarkable career and iconic moments at Manchester United. Listen to the latest episode of It Was What It Was following the link below as Jonathan Wilson and Rob Draper are joined by Steve Perryman, Tottenham Hotspur’s record appearance holder, to talk about legendary Spurs manager Bill Nicholson:

Quiz Question…

Which player could make their 350th Premier League appearance in the Brighton v Everton match?

Answer to follow at the end of the Newsletter…

Stick To Football: Denis Irwin

SPURS SHOULD KEEP LOVING BIG ANGE, WHETHER HE’S RIGHT OR WRONG

By Rob Draper, co-host It Was What It Was

It was a happier Ange Postecoglou who faced questions on Thursday night after Tottenham’s 3-2 win over Hoffenheim. There was no snappy “Great way to start an interview” that greeted the defeat at Everton, nor the thrice-repeated “if all things were equal and balanced” stonewall of three weeks ago after the Newcastle loss.

Suffice to say, Ange needed this. His promise of a trophy in the second season has hung by a gossamer thread through this dismal Spurs run of ten Premier League games with one win and seven defeats.

“People can keep mocking me about it but we will see.” he quipped after the 1-0 Carabao Cup semi-final win over Liverpool. Crunch time will be February when we will see whether Spurs can double down on that win in the return leg at Anfield and whether they are in the last 16 of theEuropa League, four cup ties away from a Champions League qualification. And whether, as an entire starting eleven of injured players start to wend their way back into the team, Tottenham improve. The latter is a near certainty.

Postecoglou pointed out that against Hoffenheim, for which he only named eight subs rather than the possible twelve, he ended up with five teenagers on the pitch. “We’re a Premier League outfit playing away in Europe and that's pretty much unheard of in an important game, not a dead rubber.” Alluding to the players he does have out there, a smaller squad than other Big Six teams, he said: “These players are exhausted, mate. They are professional footballers who are just 24-7 trying to recover. There's a lot of noise and in the Premier League there’s the most noise. But it's still just noise. We’re all copping some stick at the moment and that’s just the nature of the beast.”

But it is the Cups that have often been Tottenham’s salvation. League success is something of a foreign country to them. They have won it twice - in 1951 under Arthur Rowe and in 1961, a famous double-winning year, under Bill Nicholson. It’s a theme we explore in the latest It Was What It Was podcast here:

When you think of Tottenham, it's Ricky Villa, Glenn Hoddle and the FA Cup finals of 1981 and 1982… or Tony Parks, Ossie Ardiles and the UEFA Cup win of 1984… or Gazza and Terry Venables and the 1991 FA Cup final. For outsiders, the 1999 and 2008 League Cup final wins against Leicester and Chelsea don't linger as long in the memory but that’s all Spurs have. Their first ever trophies were the 1901 and 1921 FA Cups. This is not a club that historically has won much at all. Seventeen major trophies won in 140 years amounts to one every eight years.

In that context, the furore around Postecoglou seems absurd. Of course, the Premier League campaign has been a shambles of late, but it’s not as if there aren’t identifiable reasons for that. You could argue, as many Spurs fans have, that not adjusting your risky playing style when the team is as vulnerable as it now, is in itself a tactical misstep and a reason to remove the manager.

And yet Tottenham have been down that road so many times before. The knee-jerk response to a sustained period of poor league form, ignoring the bigger picture, is very Spursy. Sacking Jose Mourinho six days before a Cup final they might have won to allow Ryan Mason to take over the team is perhaps the most Spursy decision of all time. If ever there was a moment Daniel Levy lost the respect of players, that was surely it, even more so than Mauricio Pochettino’s departure. It was, as Hugo Lloris said, “unbelievable timing.”

Levy seems incapable of sticking to a plan, flip flopping between leaders and tactical styles depending on the latest whim. He is a man who repeatedly buckles under pressure and the responsibility for failure always seems to flow down to the manager and never upwards to the boardroom.

Which makes you wonder just why Postecoglou is still at the club and hasn't already paid the ultimate price? Certainly in normal circumstances this run would be enough to end his Spurs career. Could it be that Levy has had a moment of clarity and is prepared to wait this one out? (Or is he lining up an inexperienced rookie to take over for the Carabao Cup final should Spurs make it?)

For now, Spurs have to stick with Ange. They craved the high-risk, high-energy, highly-entertaining style that he brings, which is located within the “push and run” tradition of Rowe and Nicholson. They sung his praises, appropriating Robbie Williams's Angels, when times were good and they were "loving Big Ange...whether he's right or wrong." So they shouldn't ditch him now amidst an injury crisis just because the league form looks awful. Those squalls come and go. The point is that Spurs remain in three cup competitions with players to return.

Maybe David Moyes, whose Everton team so embarrassed Spurs last weekend, can offer some advice to Levy? Between 25th October 2022 and 24th February 2023, Moyes’ West Ham won just one Premier League game. That’s four months, a bleak midwinter if ever there was one. By the end of the season they had made history, winning the Europa Conference League final on a night that will never be forgotten by West Ham fans. Football is fickle. It changes quickly and sometimes you have to ignore the swirling currents to navigate a safe passage through storms.

Quiz Answer:

Danny Welbeck