On days like Sunday, it’s natural to wonder whether Tottenham Hotspur will ever beat the “Spursy” accusations. Losing at home to previously winless Ipswich Town? It’s just who they are, mate.
Tottenham’s 2-1 defeat to the Tractor Boys was simultaneously shocking and not shocking in the slightest. The past few weeks have neatly summed up the Spurs supporting experience: statement wins against Manchester City and Aston Villa, bookended by abject losses to teams currently positioned 17th and 18th in the Premier League. Let’s not even get into last Thursday’s debacle in Istanbul.
Ange Postecoglou’s team should be rebranded as Missed Opportunity FC. A victory over Ipswich, deemed the most likely result across the division’s 10 games last weekend by data gurus Opta, would have sent Spurs third in the table, ahead of rivals Arsenal and Chelsea on goal difference. Instead, they are 10th heading into the international break and 10 points worse off compared to this stage last season.
This was Tottenham’s third defeat in their last five league games and somehow worse than the preceding two: a bruising 3-2 beating at Brighton after establishing a two-goal headstart and a 1-0 loss to Crystal Palace which gave the Eagles their first three points of the campaign.
An aspirational football team doesn’t concede three goals in 18 minutes against a top-four chasing rival or falter against two relegation candidates in a row. Or fall 1-0 behind in 13 home games out of 15 as Spurs have done in 2024.
“I love you, but you are not serious people,” quipped Logan Roy to his blundering children in Succession. Tottenham fans probably feel the same about their fallible heroes.
Perhaps it is time that the club replaced its Audere Est Facere (To Dare Is To Do) motto with something more appropriate. Inspiration for an alternative can be sourced from one of the player’s Instagram accounts after any disappointing setback: We Will Come Back Stronger.
All of Tottenham’s worst traits were on display on Sunday.
Radu Dragusin’s dreadful header that led to an Ipswich chance after 90 seconds set the tone for a painfully slow start. Cameron Burgess was the width of a crossbar away from scoring from a corner. The defence was sloppy when playing out from the back – Pedro Porro alone lost the ball 26 times. They were vulnerable to the counter-attack and gave away stupid free-kicks. They failed to create enough good chances (Ipswich had a higher xG from nine fewer attempts) and spurned the ones they did have.
It was a nightmarish display from back to front.
Previous Spurs managers would have hurled their players under the nearest double-decker after that kind of performance but, to his credit, Postecoglou fronted up and accepted the blame.
“That’s my responsibility,” he said. “The inconsistency we’re having this year, ultimately it comes down to me and my approach and something I need to try and fix and see if I can help the players in that area.”
At their best, Tottenham look like a top Champions League-level team. At their worst, they resemble a middling Championship side. There is no shortage of possible explanations for their tendency to veer so frequently from one extreme to the other, but an alarming lack of leadership feels like an obvious place to start.
Outstretched arms and pointed fingers followed both of Ipswich’s goals as Tottenham’s defenders took turns to abdicate responsibility. With the possible exception of Rodrigo Bentancur, nobody looked able or willing to drag their team back from the brink. Is Son Heung-min, brilliant as he is (was?), really captain material? Is the out-of-form Cristian Romero a worthy vice? James Maddison is third in command and can’t buy a start at the moment.
Postecoglou and his players warrant criticism for the team’s inconsistency, but when the club routinely falls into the same win-or-bust pattern season after season regardless of who is on the pitch or patrolling the dugout it suggests that there is a wider inherent problem.
Tottenham have won just one trophy – the League Cup in 2008 – during Enic’s 23-year ownership. Before 2001, they averaged a trophy win every seven-and-a-half seasons.
The idea that Spurs are historical bottlers is a myth. They were the first club to win the league and FA Cup double in the 20th century and the first English team to win a European trophy. Only Arsenal and Manchester United have lifted the FA Cup more times, despite their last success in the competition coming in 1991.
Their diminishing returns over the past two decades have coincided with the influx of oligarchs, hedge funds and Gulf states into English football, but it has also happened under Enic’s watch.
The pool of clubs with a realistic shot of winning a major trophy has depressingly shrunk, but still, Portsmouth, Birmingham City, Wigan Athletic and Swansea City have all won one more recently than Spurs have.
Many fans believe that the ownership is more concerned with hosting making money – the stadium brought in £106m in matchday revenue alone during the 2021-22 season – than, you know, actually winning stuff.
The F1 and NFL logos fixed to the exterior of the club shop on Tottenham High Road are slightly smaller than the Spurs cockerel but still large enough to offer a permanent reminder that the football club is no longer the only priority.
If you didn’t know that Catfish and the Bottlemen are playing at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, you obviously haven’t set foot inside it lately.
In his recently released autobiography, Hugo Lloris revealed that chairman Daniel Levy gifted every Spurs player a luxury aviator watch with the words “Champions League finalist” engraved on the back before the final against Liverpool in 2019. It’s an anecdote that reveals much about the club’s mindset and ambition.
“When I returned to my room on the night of the final, I think I had the same feeling as Mauricio [Pochettino] and Harry [Kane]: does the club really want to win?” Lloris said.
A series of bad decisions and head-in-the-sand communication has exacerbated the rift between the board and the fans. Tottenham are by no means the only Premier League club to slash concessions and hike up ticket prices, but they have even less justification for doing so than most. The decision to charge £60 for the upcoming Europa League fixture against Roma, almost double the cost of other group games, is the latest in a long line of PR own goals.
The Ipswich result rankled supporters so much because Spurs should be comfortably good enough to beat a struggling, newly-promoted team in their billion-pound home. The fact that they didn’t is proof of a soft mentality that has seeped down from the top.