Tottenham Hotspur vs Manchester City: Who Should Take the Blame?

Daniel Levy is happy playing hardball with Chelsea over Modric while Harry Redknapp is plain incompetent, leaving Tottenham in utter disarray

I have finally got over yesterday. Well kind of, I’m still pretty angry. Another weekend absolutely ruined by the disgrace that currently pretends to be Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.

For 35 minutes we competed with the nouveau riche of Manchester City before capitulating like we did against their more illustrious and infinitely more classy neighbours. It’s a strange turn of events where for years public sympathy used to rest with City, the people’s club of Manchester whilst United supporters were mocked for being plastic glory hunters with no links to the city. It was a generalisation that always sat uncomfortably with me as anyone who has visited Manchester or seen United’s away support would agree that United have far bigger support in Manchester than City and when they travel away, the support is predominately Mancunian.

City to me were a myth, bitter fans jealous of their neighbours. As Arsenal‘s star started to rise during the Wenger years they were precisely the type of club that I feared my beloved Spurs might become, bitter and twisted, hating our neighbours more than supporting our own club.

Luckily Tottenham Hotspur and her glorious fan base are far above that level of small time bitterness and in fact in recent years that accusation is easier to throw at Arsenal even with the emergence of the Jonny come lately brigade there.

So let us not forget that even with these new money and an amazing team this is still Manchester City, a team from the edge of England and there is no way Tottenham Hotspur should capitulate to these northern monkeys. Apologies to everyone from the North of England but football is tribal. It’s my home town against your home town and it just so happens my home town is the greatest city on the planet so that’s just the way it is. In fact I take my apology back, just deal with it.

It says everything that my disgust with Spurs and possibly football in general means that sitting in a boozer down In Spitalfields Market slowly sipping a pint and watching the second half of the Woolwich game, I actually felt sorry for Wenger and Arsenal. Exactly Spurs are so bad that even The scum getting tonked 8-2 doesn’t register the briefest of smiles. In fact at the boozer there was a mixture of Arsenal and Spurs and chatting to an old Arsenal boy there there was almost some sort of weird solidarity thing going on as we North Londoners realise that in this money driven age of football, the two titans of North London football, our football teams, are struggling to keep up.

What price history, tradition, huge fan bases when some oil rich Russian or some Sheikh from the Middle East can blow us out of the water. Something has to be done because as I have alluded to before people are losing interest rapidly and our game is dying.

Do we all want to be in a situation where in England everyone only supports one of two or three clubs because that’s where we are heading. Sky started this, Abramovich continued it and the Sheikhs are well on the way to finally destroying our national game. People with no understanding of the unique culture and community based nature of English football are slowly sanitising our game and sucking the lifeblood out of it to serve their own egos.

I realise I went off on a tangent there. But yesterday was soul destroying, to watch my hometown team get humiliated by this rich Arab’s plaything meant I had to leave the ground with ten minutes to go, it was far too painful to watch. In the long term I struggle to see how Spurs can compete for anything other than fourth. United are the last guard against the march against New Money and we at Spurs have to now accept in modern day football our club is nothing but an also ran if the current trend continues.

What annoys me though is that whilst the external factors are out of our control, the hierarchy at Spurs did nothing to maximise our potential when our stock was highest. Levy’s brinkmanship and Redknapp’s incompetence have meant we are now going backwards. Unfortunately for the businessmen who run Tottenham as long as they keep making money they will happily let the club meander along, slowly killing this great club.

Ultimately ENIC (English National Investment Company) have failed in delivering a new stadium and in getting us to compete at the level Tottenham Hotspur should be. They have shown they have no ambition aside from squeezing every last penny out of the club. Whilst I applaud the fact they won’t bankrupt the club, they can’t deliver the glory that this club was built on.

Redknapp??? What more is there to say about this clown, yesterday he failed to play a holding midfielder against City. He then again decided to fan the Modric flames by claiming his head is not right. One thing I did agree was that the Modric saga has destroyed the pre-season but if managed correctly it didn’t have to. Redknapp, the media whore that he is, is feeding titbits to the press and has intensified the situation. The man is ridiculously out of his depth now. Please just get rid of him. Ancelotti is available, just get him in.

There is a cancer at the heart of the club, football is dying slowly, Tottenham Hotspur and all she stands for is dying even more quickly.

Oh yes I quite forgot there was a match yesterday. What is there to say about it? It was an abysmal performance, Crouch again showed that he should never be seen in a Spurs shirt again. Friedel showed that he is an bumbling old fool, please bring Gomes back. Dawson showed he wasn’t good enough and Modric showed that he’s already mentally at Chelsea.

Players to come out with any credit, probably only Benny, Livermore and Defoe.

I despair for Spurs,I think things will get worse before they get better. Luckily we aren’t playing next week and I’m on holiday in Italy anyway. Wolves away next and I can’t see us getting anything out of that. It seems Redknapp has lost the plot totally and like Ramos before him could be sold down the creek without a paddle by our cretin of a chairman.

There is a banner on the Paxton Road end that uses Blanchflower’s great quote

The Game is about Glory

That quote used to define Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, that was our trademark, we were football’s aristocrats. Sadly in this day and age :

The Game is about the strength of our balance sheet

is a more apt description for the modern day Tottenham Hotspur. Heartbreaking ain’t it?

As for player ratings they all get a big fat zero aside from Benny, Defoe and Livermore who I’ll give a 5s to.Oh yeah and Crouch who gets minus 10. The best way he can help the team is by not turning up.

Tottenham – Manchester City 1:5 by FootballKing1892