I haven’t watched a single premier league game this year. I refuse to until Tottenham win. I can’t stomach watching us squander leads and flounder around in mid table.
I’ll apologise now for using ‘we’ when referring to Spurs, I know I’m not part of it, but I dearly want to be. I want to have a say and a voice that is heard, just like every other fan. So I’ll do everything I hate and pretend that I have. I’m not a pundit, I’ve never played professionally, my opinions are as irrelevant as anyone elses.
I know the season has only just begun and I know that the transfer window isn’t closed yet, but year in year out I get that sinking feeling that we’re just going to do the same thing over again. The defenition of madness, doing the same thing and expecting a different result. I suppose the missing line from that partiular cliche is that ‘if you’re mad then being defined as mad is neither relevant or interesting’.
When we sold Bale and stocked up on Lamela, Paulinho, Soldado, Chadli, Capoue, Chiriches and Eriksen it felt wrong. We traded in a Porsche and bought home some Nissan Cubes. From the right angle on a given cloudy day they can look ok, then you get up close. Oh my.
Don’t get me wrong, Eriksen has been a good signing, the rest have played a part but they aren’t really world beaters are they? Through no fault of their own over the course of the last season past we’ve watched them struggle and fail to perform.
Take Soldado, watch his show reel, looks good doesn’t he? Then we spent months giving him no service and wondered why he didn’t score. He looks to me like he thrives on crosses from the byline and being in the right place. So what we do is run down the wings, cut inside and try to channel 5 players through the center of the opposition defence. He had no chance.
It’s like wanting a bottle of Coca-Cola. A proper glass bottle, that first taste of fizzy sugar that hits you and then just tastes great. Instead of that we bought 7 plastic bottles of Panda Cola for the same price and wondered why we had that slightly nauseous feeling after drinking the lot.
So again this year, we sign 4 relatively unknown quantities. Yes, Son is an international, but he’s up against it in our current squad. What happened to marquee signings? What happened to competing? I’m referring to the series of draws against average clubs this year, and I mean no offence to Leicester or Stoke, but really?!
We can’t get Champions League, we can’t get players. Why aren’t we signing up some of the hand-offs and building a proper team or better still signing some proven quality. Years of swapping managers and last minute swoops for average players has taken it’s toll, we’re a top 10 team at best. It hurts but we aren’t good enough.
If you’ve read ‘The Secret Footballer‘ the transfer policy makes sense. I recently spoke to an exec on the board of one of the Premiership clubs, he explained that you start with a list of wants, your A-team players. You have two subsequent lists, your second choices and then your ‘oh shit we need someone’ players. As you get toward the end of the window, guess which list you’re choosing from.
With luck, I’m wrong and this week I can start watching us play again. Either that or I’m going to have a lot of free time this year with the Sky Sports subscription going to waste.
Fubar@Forty 