Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
The end of an era was witnessed last Sunday as Tottenham said goodbye to White Hart Lane after calling it home for 118 years. Thanks to their 2-1 win over Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United they gave the ground the perfect send off but no sooner had the demolition balls come crushing into N17 then talk was already focussing on next season and just how the club would deal with their transitional season at Wembley.
Transition seems to be the buzz word when mentioned in Tottenham circles as of late, with a best ever Premier League finish of 2nd place now securely under their belts the question now is whether or not the same heights or perhaps even higher can be reached next season at the home of the England national team.
Tottenham certainly have the players at their disposal in which to mount another title tilt but previous performances at Wembley in its new guise have not been impressive, in fact it has been the complete opposition. You only have to cast your mind back a few weeks to their defeat to Chelsea in the F.A. Cup Semi Final and that is in addition to their ill-fated Champions League campaign which saw them fail to qualify from the group stage.
Although just what is it that means Tottenham are a different beast when making the short journey across London? Some say that it is down to the dimension of the pitch being different to White Hart Lane. They may well have a point as their previous home is a lot tighter and compact and allow Tottenham to play their high pressing game in a more confined area. With the Wembley pitch being far more vast that is something that it perhaps stopping Mauricio Pochettino from deploying the same kind of tactics that he has used to such good effect over the past couple of seasons.
From an outsider looking in you would probably raise the point as to why can’t a team of highly tuned professionals make the simple migration from one pitch to another. After all it is still the same game which is fundamentally being played but as we all know Footballers are creatures of habit and the slightest change to their routine can end up having somewhat of a detrimental effect to performances. Something that we have already witnessed from Tottenham in their previous Wembley run outs.
With the Summer around the corner and more importantly no major international tournament to call upon it means Tottenham manager Pochettino will have ample time to work with his players and try and put the stadium issues to bed once and for all. One is for sure though they will have to start strongly as with the competitive nature of the top six a few too many points dropped in the early weeks and Tottenham’s season could already have a very different complexion
The key for the club next season is certainly to keep themselves in that top six bracket and set themselves up strongly for their move into the new stadium which is currently undergoing construction. Tottenham fans have no doubt tasted the highs this season that a runners up place brings but they may well have to sacrifice a year of being truly being competitive for the promise of what lies ahead.
A big component as to whether they can truly challenge once they are settled into their new home is whether or not they can keep hold of the nucleus of star players which are deservedly earning more interest from rival clubs both here and abroad. There are undoubtedly exciting times ahead and the club are going to have their work cut out in making sure this group of players is still at the club by the time they have given the keys back to Wembley.
You could say that this Summer there is no real need or desire for any of their biggest names to leave, perhaps Kyle Walker is the one that you could make a case for walking away from it all but the likes of Harry Kane, Eric Dier and Dele Alli seem well placed to still be wearing the lilywhite of Tottenham by the start of the 2018/19 season. There are a couple of pertinent factors in all of this though. The first is winning trophies and the second is their wage structure.
If Tottenham truly want to break the glass ceiling on the pitch then they need to deliver a first trophy since their 2008 League Cup win over Chelsea. For a club of this size and more importantly for where they want to be then the fact they have only won an F.A. Cup and two League Cups in 26 seasons is frankly nowhere near good enough.
The Tottenham squad is a young one and with that youth brings a hunger that perhaps other clubs do not have, to make sure you feed that hunger you need to make sure that trophies are being won, otherwise players will soon begin to question their long term future at this club. It is quite apparent that Tottenham’s youthful cabal of talented players buy into to the long term vision of the club but that only comes with a limited time frame, should the trophy drought continue then their key men will look elsewhere to earn the trophies that their talents obviously deserve.
That is one area that Tottenham need to improve in but the other is their wage structure. As I mentioned above it seems more than likely than Kyle Walker will be the only major exodus from the club in the Summer. That will come as something of a blow but over the past few weeks Kieran Trippier has been a more than competent replacement in the absence of the England international and in turn showed that Walker is not irreplaceable.
But at the same time you cannot blame Walker for eyeing up a move elsewhere, with the former Sheffield United player earning just a reported £70k a week he could quite easily double his money elsewhere should he make a move to one of the Manchester clubs that he has been so heavily linked with in the past few weeks.
And it is here where Tottenham’s wage structure begins to hamstring their ambitions, it is a problem that is two fold. On one hand it creates the kind of scenario as above where players can still be picked off by the truly biggest clubs and on the other it means that they will be unable to bring in any truly world class players that would give them a massive push in regards to getting over the line and finally earning a Premier League title.
Ultimately though a new stadium has to be paid for and by and large that means that corners have to be cut elsewhere. We saw it with Arsenal when they settled in at The Emirates and were restricted in the transfer market by having to pay off the stadium costs. Since the move they have failed to deliver a league success and that in part was the main reason as to why they moved from Highbury in the first place.
Therefore success after moving into a new home is not a given and if Tottenham have to cut corners themselves then it would mean that players wages will not be kept in line with that of the teams that are also competing for the European places at the end of each campaign. If that continues to be the case then just how long can they keep players such as Harry Kane at the club while trying to ward off interest from the likes of Barcelona and Real Madrid.
There are very exciting times around the corner for Tottenham but there also needs to be cause for optimism in the short to medium term, just how well they deal with this transitional period is going to be the key to where the club end up in the next 4-5 seasons. They really are on the verge of something special it would be a shame to see this Wembley stint derail their progress.
