Spurs are out of the Champions League, and not for the first time this season the way in which they lost was as much of a problem as the elimination itself.
Has there ever been a team pitch up as ill-prepared for a major European match against a club with a rich history in this competition as Spurs did for their Champions League round of sixteen second leg against seven-times winners Milan? The problems have been mounting for weeks, and now they’re out of this, too. With no silverware to play for there now only remains a battle for a place in the top four which it already rather feels like they’re losing.
They’d escaped from the San Siro with a 1-0 defeat that might have been worse and followed that up with consecutive league wins against West Ham and Chelsea. But since then the yips have returned again, with a league defeat at Wolves and an FA Cup elimination at Sheffield United.
Of course, in the case of this particular club there’s more to it than what’s going on with the team on the pitch. Antonio Conte had his gall bladder removed, came back, was sent back home again, and now is back again. It’s still completely unclear whether he’ll still be with the club by the summer, and the issue of his contract has now been dragging on for so long that it feels as though the inaction over it says more than any public statements on the matter would.
And of course, opinion has been divided over Conte. The return of Pochettino might not work, but it’s what many want. In a broader sense, this season has felt sour at Spurs, and in a way that previous seasons haven’t. Spurs supporters can hardly be accused of being impatient. It’s been 15 years since they last won any silverware, almost 40 since they last lifted a European trophy, and more than 60 since they last won the league.
But this level of unhappiness feels different to previous seasons. Perhaps it’s the Arsenal effect. Perhaps it’s the soporific football they’ve played for much of last three years. Perhaps it’s a feeling that the new horizons implicitly offered by the new stadium have simply failed to materialise, now that the multi-event leisure complex has been completed. Perhaps it’s all of these factors, and more.
In an impressive display of pathetic fallacy for the recent mood of the club, it was a cold, wet evening in North London at kick-off, sleet mixing with rain in the air and the temperature not far above freezing, the wintry conditions matching the mood of a…
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