Charles Jackson
It was a unique night at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The Premier League crown was at stake and Spurs could be its kingmakers. Tottenham, with anything meaningful to say about the title race in May? No wonder things got weird. And little was stranger than Ange Postecoglou’s post-match press conference.
Tottenham may have been defeated, their hopes of finishing in the top four ended with a 2-0 defeat, but their players gave Manchester City a real run for their money with a diligent display that did not lack fighting spirit. Postecoglou acknowledged this, but his assessment of Spurs’ situation at the end of his first season in charge was bleaker than one might have expected.
“I think the last 48 hours have revealed to me that the foundations are quite fragile,” he said. Naturally, when a manager makes such a scathing criticism of the “outside [and] within” his club, questions about the tactical adjustments he made, Rodrigo Bentancur’s impressive first half or even how things might have been different if Heung-min Son did what Heung-min Son usually does, have become secondary.
Postecoglou never explained what exactly he saw over the last two days that made him so worried about the state of Tottenham – “you can make your own assessments about what happened” – but it doesn’t require much analysis. Arsenal’s victory over Manchester United on Sunday put Spurs fans through a nightmare. Aston Villa’s failure to overcome Liverpool the following day did not get them out of that situation.
The state of the table meant that at least a section of Spurs fans wanted little more than an earful for their team, anything for a dose of sadness at Arsenal’s expense. At the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium the picture was a little more complicated. After all, when you’re paying some of the highest ticket prices in England, or have traveled halfway around the world to see your team in action, there’s only so much pleasure to be gained from your team’s suffering.
The ground was hardly the cauldron of energy it could be on the day of the North London derby, but there wasn’t much to get the fans going either way. The first-half breakaways almost roused a crowd that chanted loudest against Arsenal, but could also have been lulled by an impressively conservative display from their team. Spurs have completed 17 sequences of nine or more passes in the first half, a figure they have only surpassed in four Premier League games this season. Its direct speed – the distance the ball advanced towards the goal per second – was the lowest in a match under Postecoglou. Tottenham held firm, positioning themselves so well that it was to be expected that they would seek victory in the end.
That opportunity never came, Erling Haaland’s touch to put City on the right path. That’s when the strange things happened, at least after a moment. Once it became clear that this could be it as far as Tottenham’s season was concerned, the cries of “are you watching Arsenal?” were hit hard. Some supporters went further. There was a handful of Poznans. In the seats in front of the press box, two fans dressed in sky blue shirts appeared to be overshooting the Gunners’ bow. Those around them ensured that, with the help of the stewards, they were pulled from the ground.
Clearly, cases like this hit Postecoglou in the chest. From his bench he was seen furious with a fan, apparently an individual who had made clear his desire to see Spurs defeat. He was no less perplexed after 90 minutes of mixed feelings from his fans than he was before the game took place. “It’s been an interesting exercise,” he said, barely suppressing what seemed to be a deep dislike for Tottenham fans who had failed to get on the ‘Tottenham win a game’ bandwagon.
Almost the moment the words left his mouth, you could see them being inserted into that familiar narrative about this club. The story of Tottenham, as Giorgio Chiellini would say. A team for whom the game is no longer a question of glory. A team that lives up to its (perhaps unfair) reputation of being insignificant and insubstantial, a small club in the stadium of a big club.
Postecoglou will know better than anyone whether the social media landscape was reflected in Hotspur Way on Monday and Tuesday. He also recognizes – like Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta – that a project to transform Tottenham into winners requires the driving force of fans who demand nothing less. “I can’t dictate what people do,” he said. “They can express themselves however they want. But yes, when we have late winners in games it’s because the fans helped us.”
Perhaps, however, tonight will be out of Tottenham history. The conflicted feelings of the fan base, even those rooting for the loss, are natural. The prize on offer is hardly the kind that fans would rip your hand off. Another season of Champions League revenue, Champions League ticket prices and little chance of winning the Champions League (although Borussia Dortmund’s charge at Wembley is a reminder that an average team can often crash out of the group ).
Spurs fans are fed up with not winning trophies without handing them over to the other group on Seven Sisters Road. They’ve had enough years of “we won the league at White Hart Lane” without feeling like they were reluctant accomplices to Arsenal’s glory. If their season offers nothing to celebrate, at least their rival’s doesn’t either.
Of course, Postecoglou and his players, who showed no sign of wanting to ruin things for Arsenal, couldn’t see that. They would do well, however, not to see this strange occasion as anything more than it actually is.
