Inside Spurs & Beyond: Q&A with The Athletic’s Jack Pitt-Brooke

33:46Jack Pitt-Brooke:Yeah, I was going to say Moutinho because they were, I forgot what the issue was, it was something ridiculous with Moutinho, like they didn't fax the did they not fax the details and the fax the stuff in time or something and obviously they'd had Moutinho in the 12-13 in the 12-13 season, that's Modric's first season, they've been mild, like they're actually pretty good that season because of Bale but they would have been if they'd had Moutinho in midfield like who do they have in central midfield? Because like Dembele wasn't even that good that year it was like Paulinho no Paulinho came in 2013 didn't he yeah who could have been Parker like the end of Sandro I kind of remember Sandro being wheeled out for some of those games is that Stambouli season I don't remember yeah the thing I found particularly triggering about that is when Wolves did bring Martinho into the Premier League when he was what 33 34 a couple of years ago he still looked absolutely brilliant and I was just like god what could have been man what a player he was almost almost like the perfect profile to just come in and replace luca modric just to kind of like a slight reduction on luca modric who is after all one of the greatest midfielders of all time um joe martino is just oh god what could have been um so huddleston played a bit in 12 13 yeah uh sandra actually sandra started 22 league games so Sandro played quite a lot.

35:12Jack Pitt-Brooke:Dempsey played a fair bit, 22 league starts. Dembele actually had 26 league starts, so he played more than I thought. So yeah, not bad players, but if you could have given those like Huddleston and Sandro starts to Moutinho, obviously they would have been much, much better. I guess the other one is, do you remember 13-14, so they sacked AVB, Sherwood was in charge, clearly they wanted a different manager. now if I remember correctly the two main things like the first thing that Levy wanted was Van Gaal right who obviously ended up getting Man United and replacing Moyes so they really wanted Van Gaal who didn't they have one meeting and they decided nah I just think when United came in but I think they also and I haven't got this wrong I'm sure there was a lot of speculation about Frank de Boer who was like the next big thing at that point and he'd been at Ajax for a few years, he'd won the league obviously not playing a super like Ajax-y style of play but they'd done well enough with de Boer that he was the kind of flavour of the month manager and obviously in practice he then winds up at Palace or he goes to Inter and then he goes to Palace and Palace is a total disaster uh inter is also a bit of a disaster and he's now kind of not really on the scene in the same way but i often think like if they'd got van hal or deburr instead of poch in 2014 like everything would be different everything would be different like they would the t you know they all i mean for a start all the kind of amazing poch memories people have you know the ajax obviously 2019 final getting 86 points but then even on a kind of individual level like would Kane be Kane without Poch?

37:11Jack Pitt-Brooke:Would Dele be Dele? Would they even have got Dele? Would Dele not have just gone to Liverpool if he didn't think Tottenham was worth him going to? There's like a million, I mean it's almost impossible to draw up that kind of alternative history of what would have happened if they hadn't got Poch. I mean maybe Poch would have stayed at Saints, maybe he would have I don't know, got on to Man United or Liverpool or City or somewhere. But yeah, it kind of doesn't bear thinking about. But yeah, things would have been insanely, insanely different if Levy had managed to land Van Gaal or De Boer or anyone else in that sort of April, May, June 2014 period, 11 years ago.

37:56Playing into what you were just talking about there, because I've spoken about my excitement for Frank and maybe what he's going to be able to do with a lot of these players, Gray, Bergvold, Odeber, whoever, the sort of litany of young players that Tottenham have. And we've had questions from at Howard Spurs and at William Gardner, but both sort of similar questions on Twitter or X, whatever you want to call it now. They're basically both asked, which players do you think are most likely going to thrive under Thomas Frank?

38:32Jack Pitt-Brooke:Yeah, it's a good question. I don't really know. I guess like, the question that I'm going to answer instead is which players are most interested in seeing? Like really, really interested in seeing how they do. And I think from that point of view, it's got to be Gray. Gray to a lesser extent, Berval, because these have been like the two huge bets that Tottenham have made in the market. I mean, like, Solanke wasn't really a big bet. Like, everybody knew that Solanke was a really good player. And he's come in and performed, I think, basically, as you would expect. I mean, watching him play for Bournemouth, and he's really good.

39:09Jack Pitt-Brooke:I'm sure he will be the centre forward this season. But Solanke's not really that interesting, right? And I guess, like, Kulisewski to an extent, because obviously Kulisewski moved between the wing, right wing, and central midfield. And I don't really know what Frank would want to do with him. so that's like quite interesting but I think a lot of the other players pit themselves whereas with like Gray, like nobody knows what Gray is best everybody, I think almost everybody can look at Gray and say there's a really good player in there but I've got no idea really what his best position is, I don't think he was yeah, I just don't know what the answer is basically, so I'm really curious but obviously like it's no secret Frank tried to sign Gray for Brentford in summer 2024 before he wound up going to Tottenham so I'd love to hear what he's got planned for him and then also Bergvau what sort of a midfielder is Bergvau going to be is he going to be, is he like the solution at number 6 or is he going to play higher up or?

40:06Jack Pitt-Brooke:I've seen some people say that as a potential you know which I think he's like one thing we learned over the course of last season right is he's actually a lot more physical than we thought he was at the start of the season so yeah I guess those are the two who I'm most interested in like I'm not like interested in whether or not he thinks van der Fenn is good because everybody knows van der Fenn is good. You know what I mean? So those are the two who I'm most interested in. Debs on Twitter, at DJLO3 says, how many new first team regulars does Spurs need to finish in the top six? Where do you think will finish in the league?

40:45I guess with the squad as it stands.

40:49Jack Pitt-Brooke:How many more first team picks they need?

40:57Jack Pitt-Brooke:I still don't really know who's going to start on the left. I think Son, Richarlison, Tell, maybe, probably not Kudas. They've got some good options, but I just don't know what. So I'm going to say maybe they could do with someone there, unless any of those options is the answer. Number six, definitely. And then they've probably got enough out of Madden. Then it kind of depends on the balance midfield, though, as well, doesn't it? Is he going to play two sitting and then a 10? Or is he going to have a number six and two number eights? Is he going to make anything out of Basuma and Benton Kerr?

41:39Jack Pitt-Brooke:So I'd say maybe one on the left and then at least one in midfield. So let's average it out as being two new starters. Where do they finish in the league? Oh, that's a really hard question. I think because it's like whoever was the manager balancing the Premier League and the Champions League is going to be so hard next season because remember that the eight game league phase is so difficult for managers I think because you don't really get a break at all and also remember the first it kind of flipped by the end of the season but the start of last season Ange would Ange would massively rotate for Europe like he would play Dragasin and Bergvau and Werner and Lancashire and more and he'd bring in all the fringe players for Europa League right so he could base Ang could basically focus on playing the best players in the Premier League but Frank can't do that you can't you can't rotate if you've got Real Madrid and PSG and stuff in the Champions League so like the Frank is going to have to go basically all in for the Champions League league faked games and for the Premier League and that's going to put a huge strain on the squad which isn't really that deep in key areas so I think it's going to be tough I don't think it'll be like flying but let's say let's say I think sixth would be like a solid I think sixth is like the right mix of attainable it's attainable but it's also a big improvement on 17 obviously I think we're winning a lot Jack personally winning a lot yeah that's it all of it all of it Alan Leslie on Blue Sky at Alan O Leslie says was there a specific moment where Jack thought that's definitely the start of the end of Ange and do you I guess the second part to this question is do you actually believe that we were all in on the Europa League or was it just kind of spin after the fact uh really good question so the moment that i thought and uh let me let me go back and think so the moment that i thought it was so can you just give me the specific wording of the first half of that again so can you sort of pinpoint the moment where you definitely thought this is the start of the end for ang well there were weirdly there were moments where I thought, this has to be the end, which in fact were not the end.

44:18Jack Pitt-Brooke:So I wasn't at the Liverpool 6-3 game in December. I was abroad, but I kept getting, from everything that people were telling me who were there, it sounded like it could be the end, right? Because they could have conceded 10 goals at home. I was at the Everton 3-2 defeat at Goodison Park on the 19th of January. I went to that. And the first half of that game, I sat there thinking this is what it looks like when Tottenham manages about to get us at this is like the 6-1 defeat at Newcastle which was Stellini's last game in 2023 or some of those games at the end of Poch it's just so so gone, this is so gone and obviously they fought back in the second half Kyrgyzki's called that great chip they only lost 3-2 and yeah like a totally buy they had 11 players injured for that game and they had to kind of he had to change the system for the first only time really just to because they didn't have enough players um but i just watched the first half of that thinking this is over this is totally this is totally over and it was only um and i still yeah uh clearly internally I think they made a decision which was we can't have another Ryan Mason we can't finish the season with Ryan Mason again we've done it twice now we can't just do a third time with this so I think it was probably locked in that Ange would see out the season or at least see out the European campaign for as long as that lasted for but yeah I think Everton was the one for me because Everton it actually felt like even if he kind of recovers from this point seeing as you say so much of a sort of soft underbelly for this kind of thing to happen because that Everton game I think we were all watching that thinking god this is going to be five or six before half time it should have been really and the thing is like Everton hadn't scored a goal in about six months it was a horror show so bad and then all of a sudden Everton are like carving straight through tottenham and having like massive chances all the time and you think how on earth has this happened this isn't like this is not like getting this is not like getting taken apart by a good team this is like just incredible dr tottenham levels it wasn't the last time it happened that season either you know that's that's no that's kind of the i mean it's still it's still kind of nuts to me that they lost at home to ipswich and leicester yeah and like when you look when you look at the list of like Leicester City's Premier League form and it's just like LLLLLLW LLLLLL that I think is obviously really bad oh yeah the second half of the question like do I think they really did prioritise?

47:18Jack Pitt-Brooke:Yeah I do like I actually I don't think that's a spin off the fact from Ange just because I mean you can kind of tell it in the team selections like or you can tell it in two reasons one is the team selection so van de fen obviously came back he came back for elvesborg then he sort of played 45 minutes and he was never seen again then he kind of went went away again for a while back but then he came back he didn't come back for the premier league he came back for azed outmar then he played that chelsea game and then he played frankfurt frankfurt they gave him one more premier league game which was forest and then it was Bodo Glimt and then Man United, so then he did play the Brighton game at the end of the season, so Van Defendt was basically almost protected specifically for Europa League games, whereas Romero, to be fair, when Romero came back he did also play the league games, but just looking at the team selections around then it was very common that terrible game at Fulham where they like rested where they rested Porro, Broughton's brought in Spence, brought in Grey midfield, brought in Bissouma back when Bissouma was like on the outside.

48:35Jack Pitt-Brooke:You know, they would kind of, or you know, the Wolves away game, the terrible 4-2 defeat where again, they brought in Grey for Porro, they brought in Spence for a doggy. Like they would, they brought in Tal for Son, like they would often, you could tell both at the time really that they were protecting players for the european games and the other and i so i think that brings me to my other point on this which is that so i remember going to the it's you know when they won 4-1 at ipswich in february yeah and they actually play i mean they played pretty well against a very bad ipswich team um but after that point i think they won one of their last is it 12 or 10 or 12 premier league games after Ipswich and the only one of those they won was Saints I think let me just double check that but and through all of those games and the thing is that's right so after Ipswich they played 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, they played 12 league games after Ipswich and the only league win was Saints at home and in those 12 league games I know that I'm not saying Ange has said this either publicly or even privately but it was very clear after ripswich they weren't going to go down like they had a sufficient margin over the bottom three that they were going to be okay and i just thought in every league game since then i felt it was it felt watching them a bit like we're on the beach we're going to be we're going to Ibiza tomorrow um we're going to get out they looked like they were all going to Obeach the next day to hang out with Wayne Lineker yeah and like in in almost literally every single one of their last 12 Premier League games.

50:17Jack Pitt-Brooke:And the only exception to which actually is Forest at home, which they lost, but they actually played quite well in that game. Yeah. But all the other league games, I thought they were, they just looked like they were kind of conserving energy. Now you might, you know, I completely buy the argument that that's justified, that's paid off by the fact they won in Bilbao. Like that's totally fair enough resource allocation, resource management from Ange. but I do think that does kind of tally with him saying that does like to me that does suggest that his comments in Bilbao about prioritising Europe were in fact true because Tottenham played like they were prioritising Europe and they played like they had been told the only thing we could win or something for example like ridiculous yeah they were really good in that game and they were really whereas like Wolves away, Fulham away that Liverpool game but that one all draw at West Ham is one of the worst games of football I've ever seen in my life they were just walking through these games both of them were abysmal that West Ham Spurs game it was shocking and at least Tottenham had the excuse of being in Europe whereas West Ham is like guys why are you here?

51:27Jack Pitt-Brooke:what's the game here? yeah god it's more of a fun one who is Jack's favourite player who has played for both Manchester City and Spurs. And the second part to that is, do you wish you had Paul Walsh's hair circa 1990? Yeah, I love Paul Walsh. He played for City when I started supporting City in 1994. So Walsh would be in my top three of players who played for City and Spurs. I think my top three would be Paul Walsh, Michael Brown, and gold medal, Vedran Chorluka. Yeah, lovely Chorluka. Pure class. I mean, it would be too... I mean, of course, I could say Kyle Walker, but then it's kind of too...

52:19Jack Pitt-Brooke:And then, yeah, I like Kyle Walker. He's had a great career, but I think I got Chorluka. He doesn't quite make my podium. I was so salty about Kyle Walker leaving, sort of especially after 16, 17 and everything like that. But he... And it's just how much of a simp I am that he won me over so much with his, it felt like a genuinely heartfelt admission that he would have given up one of his major city trophies to have felt what it was like to win the Europa League with Spurs. Yeah. And it really showed me he does still have a lot of affection for us. Yeah, clearly. And he just kind of understood what it did mean to the club and to the fan base and everything.

52:58I'm also gutted that we lost our Proclaimers chant for Kyle Walker as well because it was all my favourite. it's one of my favorite ones uh in in the ground that question was from uh chris clark at chris clark 1975 on blue sky um here's quite here's quite an interesting one jack and it's maybe quite deep um for this but i i did i did think it was interesting on blue sky as well from 1991 semi um and they ask how is ai affecting journalism and what will ai impact the most within football well uh that's a good question um yeah i mean i'm sure that you could use ai to

53:43Jack Pitt-Brooke:i'm sure i could use ai to write an article for me i mean i haven't i wouldn't i'd probably get fired but like theoretically um i'm sure i could uh i'm sure i could ask yeah ask ai to to say like could you write a write an article explain write an article arguing why tottenham should i don't know try and sign uh who's a player who tottenham might try and sign right jayden sancho write an article and that yeah i could put it into ai and then like send it the athletic and yeah i would probably get a sack but hypothetically that might be a thing that i could do um how's it going to change football um i'm i think probably from a kind of i mean i don't actually know that much about ai um but my guess would be i guess maybe from a sort of like if you're researching maybe from a sort of like player research standpoint i don't know like if you if you've got a database with you know if you're in recruitment you've got a database with like lots of players in and millions of different variables could you maybe use ai to to sift through that i don't know but then i don't know how i just don't know enough about like the intersection of ai and databases to know how useful that would be.

55:08Jack Pitt-Brooke:Or to what extent could AI fulfill functions that could not already be fulfilled by Excel? I'm kind of out of my intellectual element here, I'm afraid. It is interesting. I just, like you say, something like offsides or something like that, I wonder if that would just... Because it basically is, though, isn't it? Anyway, now the automated offside system is semi, I'm assuming is semi sort of AI powered to a degree. Yeah, I don't know. As you say, it's such a kind of, it's such a far reaching conversation, just in so much as AI has kind of been like a coverall blanket term for lots of kind of computer automation that has been in existence for a long time.

55:55um there are so anybody that uses something like photoshop for example will know there are certain things like content aware fill where you know if you've got a nice family picture of you on the beach and then just as you know if you've set a self-timer it's a nice clear picture of you on the beach and then just as the photo takes you see somebody step into frame on the right hand side of it with something like content aware fill you can highlight that person and just say take them out of the picture and what it will do is analyze the background all around that and generate you like a flat surface that essentially looks like the remainder of the beach and the sky that has been replaced by the person and that that's been a sort of a tool that's been available to to graphic designers for the best part of a decade now say um which is a kind of a form of ai um so i think i think like the main thing that like we're talking about and i i've sort of waffled on about this before when people were going on about um there was a film called late night with the devil um where there were certain elements that were ai generated within the film and people were saying this is a disgrace it's disgusting like we shouldn't be normalizing kind of the use of ai within cinema and it's going to attack the creative industries it's taking people out of jobs I mean the actual use of the AI within that film was a designer who had been hired to work on the film who was essentially just making some kind of still assets that existed within the film but my point is essentially that generative AI and kind of AI assistants are two very different things and it's a conversation that is going to develop and needs to happen over over the next years but this is this is a wild sidestep away from uh from football so what will it do for football probably something like offsides and you'll probably see um you know people may be using it in their articles to look at their grammar or something like that in the first place but i reckon i reckon if you try to it'd be quite an interesting experiment um just if you've got an article that you've written already preloaded try and get one past more i reckon um chuck an may I one past him to see if he picks up on it.

58:10Just delete a few of the M dashes that it likes to use.

58:16Let's do one of these crickety ones. Cause I hadn't, I'll say I probably wasn't as up on my Jack Pitbrook law as I maybe should be to realize that you are quite, I don't know, seemingly quite synonymous within the, within the Tottenham X cricket community. Um, so all killer, no filler at all kill, no fill on blue sky says, what's one thing from test cricket that you'd bring to football and vice versa? Wow.

58:49Jack Pitt-Brooke:That's a really good question. One thing from cricket, one from test cricket I bring to football. Um,

58:59Jack Pitt-Brooke:one thing I'd bring from cricket. uh like an appeal the one thing i bring from cricket to football is having video technology working on an appeals basis i think i mean look i'm completely anti-vair i would abolish it but if i can't get abolition i would go for the team captain because obviously in cricket like the team captain has a number of reviews that he can turn to over the course of the game and so if you disagree with a scission you like do the review signal and then they send it upstairs and that's better but the game is not being constantly re-umpired, it's only at specific moments at the discretion of the captain and that's good because firstly it means that there's not like a constant process and secondly it means there's pressure on the captains to use their reviews discreetly because you know if your review is unsuccessful you lose the review and you've got a finite number of reviews you can't just burn through them all the time um and like i said i'm completely full i'm i'm i support full abolition of var as everybody who follows me on twitter knows but in the if we can't get to full abolition i would rather have a review system um the one thing that i would take from football into cricket would be i mean the real reason i like cricket so much is because i don't write about it like like i kind of grew up liking the two sports the same and i always you know for a lot of my life i thought myself was at least as much of a football fan as a cricket fan but it's because i've like been a football journalist for 15 years that cricket is cricket is literally my safe space it's my retreat it's my it's my happy place away from football um like i like you know i find football very interesting and kind of yeah i find it very interesting and can be yeah occasionally I do find it like emotionally stirring but at the same time it has been my job for a long time and I quite like the fact that cricket isn't so for me that's like the special that's like the secret edge that cricket has over football in my heart I'll stay on the cricket one just for now at Daniel underscore Shat on Twitter asks which Spurs player would theoretically make the best test cricketer?

1:01:29I mean, I know he's not Spurs anymore. Surely Harry Kane's got to be up there as well.

1:01:33Jack Pitt-Brooke:I'm afraid there's a very boring but very correct answer to this question, which is Ben Davis. Ben Davis is a big cricketer. Ben Davis plays for... Yeah, Ben Davis has a cricket team in Wales that he plays for. Seriously? Yeah. He played cricket for his... This is really bad. You can find the name of it online. I'm not going to try and pronounce it because I can't pronounce it. It's a Welsh name. It starts with a Y. But yeah, Ben Davis is a big cricketer. Like he played cricket at school and he played for a, yeah, he played for a team in Wales. It's, I can spell it, I think, because I've got it in front of me on Google.

1:02:16Jack Pitt-Brooke:I'm pretty sure this is right. It's Y-N-Y-S-Y-G-E-R-W-N. I'm not going to it would be insulting I think for me to try and pronounce that and get it wrong so yeah Davis is the correct answer Davis is a big cricketer and before him so Kane likes cricket like Kane do you remember when Kane went to that London Spirit game I've seen Kane tweeting about like oh amazing Virat Kohli he loves Kohli doesn't he and Joe Hart do you remember that video from lockdown where they were playing cricket in the gym at spurs and heart was bowling to kane heart actually looked really good like heart played a lot of cricket as a teenager uh so i'd say of like recent spurs players davis at the top and then heart the davis and ben davis and joe heart the two who like definitely played a lot of cricket i think matt doherty is a big cricket fan as well a lot of those lads you sort of think had they been born in the victorian era you know you hear all these stories of like your wg graces and and the like who played rugby for england cricket for england obviously most famously but i think even played a bit of football dennis compton yep um there's a number of those sort of players nowadays that you think would be i mean kane 100 percent there's quite a lot of professional footballers or like not as many as used to but quite a lot of professional footballers still play quite high standard cricket sean longstaff um really jude belling yeah yeah he longstaff has, there was a clip of him going around the internet the other day of him bowling for his club team in I think called Tynemouth Bellingham, big cricketer Ben Chilwell, big cricketer I forgot his name now what's his name?

1:04:08Jack Pitt-Brooke:Elliot Anderson is it Elliot Anderson? yeah it's Elliot Anderson big cricketer as well so yeah it's like probably not as common as it was but it's also not unheard of but yeah Davis is the best I think best example I can think of right in the moment well you learn something new every day um this is a nice one and I I have a I think I would hazard a guess as to who you're going to say but I'll ask it anyway um sons of Anjaki at Silky at hang on at Silky Lovar on Twitter says which Spurs squad member do you have a soft spot for as a person not necessarily as a player and will be devastated and would be devastated if they left Spurs of the current lot which Spurs do I have a soft spot for would be devastated if they left I this is pretty boring because my aunts are like two of the best players like madison i really like madison i've always liked madison i um i interviewed him when he was a kid like when he was at coventry city no when he i think he just gone to norwich city from coventry city this is years ago uh and i i've always really liked him um and i like watching him play i think he's a great player and i also really like kilaseski i think kilaseski is a great player as well um i uh i just think he's I actually think he should be one of the best players in the Premier League, Kulisewski.

1:05:46Jack Pitt-Brooke:I think he's got all the tools. And I think he was kind of one of the best players in the league for the start of last season. But then he kind of sort of got run into the ground a little bit, obviously got the foot injury, then the knee injury at the end of the season. And he was playing in quite a bad team as well. But I think the ceiling for Kulisewski, the ceiling is the limit? That's not even a phrase. You know what I mean? the ceiling is the sky the sky's the limit the sky's the limit so yeah I think those are the two of the current lot who I like the most I kind of try not to have in a professional sense you shouldn't I'm not going to get a Kuluseski tattoo anytime soon because he's someone I write about but I think they're probably the two who I like the most of the current squad.

1:06:44Is it like, you know, when they sort of say that farmers shouldn't name their livestock and stuff and attach any sort of sense of connection to them?

1:06:54Jack Pitt-Brooke:And also, fundamentally, I'm just not a, you know, you know, there's sports players that I like, whatever, that I like watching, or that I might get to know a little bit, or whatever, but I'm, you know, I'm not a fan, and so I can't quite have that I don't really have that same relationship like a fan would do with these players. Who would it be for you, Jack? Sonny, I think 100%. Sonny. But I've not actually ever met Sonny. I don't know if I've met any of the current Spurs squads, actually. Ben Davis have. But only like I've met, like I've been at a thing where he was kind of thing. No, so no, it's kind of a bit out of my ear.

1:07:34I haven't really worked on like the front line of football in that way, where I've been near to any of them, but as a fan, it'd be Sonny. I think, I think it will hear. I know we're kind of caught in the here and now of his form and his perhaps physical decline and everything, but it's similar to like, you know, when, when Dele actually left and the compilations and everything started coming out and you saw his tweets and you're suddenly like, Oh, this is real. Actually, this is actually happening. I think when Sonny goes it will it will hit particularly hard um I'm just more than for Kane yeah yeah I think so um and I was I'm not just doing the like the revisionist thing I was gutted when Kane went and I I held a a level of affection for him as a player and for his kind of journey and that kind of thing but it was never weirdly it was it was always a sort of a one-way feeling of warmth in some ways from Kane whereas with Sonny he's so just fully a part of Spurs and I mean he's a bona fide legend that's the thing and I know that term is tossed around quite a lot but in the in the conventional sense he's up there with your blanche flowers and people like that like he is a he is a Tottenham legend Sonny.

1:08:50Jack Pitt-Brooke:My question for you is do you think and this is something that I've been thinking about but I'd be curious to hear your take on it is do you think that the fact that the fact that Son obviously signed a new contract during the 2020-2021 season, which was basically around the time that Kane decided that he wanted to try something else. And then Son obviously, and Kane eventually obviously tried to go to City in 2021, didn't happen eventually went to Bayern Munich in 2023. Son stayed and then won a trophy. Do you think that Do you think that the fact of staying and winning elevates on beyond Kane and frankly, beyond everyone else of this, of this kind of like our lifetimes, basically, as a Tottenham legend?

1:09:42I think so. Yes. I was pulled up on this when I sort of tweeted something to this effect before, which I think is fair in that Kane being the club's record goal scorer and the amount of goals he did score despite not winning a trophy does give him a legendary status at Tottenham as well. I think and I'm not saying you're doing this but I think because it is something that is spoken about quite a lot within Tottenham fandom, the fact that Sonny decided to stay and that Kane went on to seek past just new and everything, I think is it's definitely right to lift Son up for that and to say what a great guy he is and he is a Tottenham legend for doing that I think it's something of a if I'm being brutally honest I think it's quite an unfair comparison I think it's quite unfair on Kane because I think if we were to look into this I would say that Kane received a lot more of the ire from other fan bases and probably publicly for Tottenham's failures I think a lot of it got put onto Kane I think he almost became kind of like he was the figurehead of the club he was the face of the club and as such I think he was placed under a lot of scrutiny why doesn't he ever score in finals never usually a nod to the fact that Thierry Henry quite famously never scored in finals or anything like that so you know why did he never score in finals why you know is it something about him that stopped him like stopped Spurs from reaching the upper level and just the sheer the sheer fact of the matter that Kane was going to end his career potentially without winning a single thing at Spurs where Sonny had already won a major trophy with his with his albeit with his country but still a major trophy in South Korea so I guess there was some sort of room to relax there for him um but ultimately I'm quite like yeah I've always been like a big

1:11:43Jack Pitt-Brooke:Kane defender I think in all aspects and so I know that that framing that I presented is that's not especially like flattering framing for Kane but I have heard some people express that view so I was just kind of curious curious to hear how locked in that view is but but but equally you know on that on that he it's tough isn't because you know Kane is Kane is a ridiculous footballer he's he and has been he's what he's one of England so good yeah he's one of England's greatest ever players he's he's he's a magnificent player he's one of Tottenham's greatest ever players and it's it's it's very very harsh to to judge him in that way but equally I do have to say that you know he was off doing kind of come get me please on a golf course with Gary Neville a year or so ago before, well, a year or so before he left Spurs.

1:12:39You know, in pretty much every interview since leaving Spurs, and I understand it's somewhat complicated because he does play for Bayern Munich, but still, he's so slight and scant in his praise for Tottenham or his time with Tottenham. And it's down to petty things, but when he's talking about his favourite games or his favourite moments or his favourite goals, it's always England. he seldom ever highlights anything he did at Spurs so there is something of a disconnect there and I dare say that is partly stoked by and I think we do need to look at this the way in which the club treated him after he left you know whoever it was whether it was Lee Visset or Donna Cullens or whoever the guy was locked out of the club you know he wasn't allowed to come in and even collect his personal belongings and things like that you know there's there's bizarre stuff that went on behind the scenes that you know probably wasn't fair to a guy that had given the best years of his career to the club and everything so I don't know it's a murky and kind of bizarre thing um obviously the way in which Spurs fans went for Charlie Kane I don't think went very well you know Kane actually you seldom ever see something like this from Kane but I recall him literally tweeting something like the the the the attacks that my family are receiving at the moment aren't something that I would have ever expected from the fan base he said something to that effect on Twitter which is is kind of wild so there was there was it ended in quite an ugly way um could he have handled it better yes he probably could have done could Spurs have handled it better yes probably but we are where we are we've got Sonny Sonny Sonny signed Sonny loves the club he's always he's been like heart on sleeve with that.

1:14:25He seems like he truly loves everything about the club, is grateful to the club. And in kind of in modern football, it's refreshing to see from a player who undoubtedly as well could have signed for pretty much anybody. Jurgen Klopp is on record saying how much he wanted Sonny at Spurs.

1:14:46Jack Pitt-Brooke:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. At Liverpool, sorry. so it is what it is isn't it now let me ask I'll ask you one final one Jack because I think it will be there's a few more but I think this will be quite a good one to end on so Brett Nurse on Twitter at BR Nurse says being a Spurs reporter who isn't a Spurs fan what do you enjoy most about Spurs yeah it's uh it's a strange it's a slightly strange relationship being um uh being on the the way yeah reporting on a team for so long who you didn't grow up supporting the best way the way i increasingly think of it now is that spurs are like spurs are like my in-laws in the sense that it's not a family that i was it's not a family that i was born into but it's a family that I've kind of become I've joined and while I can and so I feel like on one level I can understand a lot of what I can understand a lot of it I can understand a lot of what goes on equally I know there's so much kind of backstory and history which is sort of lost to me even though I do understand a lot as an outsider and while I have some license to kind of speak freely about this new family that I've joined.

1:16:17Jack Pitt-Brooke:I also know that I'm doing so as somebody who has joined the family rather than being born into the family. And therefore, I don't have total license to criticize. And sometimes people on the inside will say, oh, hold on a second, we invited you in. So yeah, that's kind of how I see my relationship. But yeah, Spurs are like my in-laws, basically. They're the family that I've married into. uh or chosen to join let's say and then you know they will be very nice and say oh you know you're part of the family now and that's really nice and i appreciate that but i also know that i've it's something that i've there's a difference between joining something and being born into it we um we still do weird stuff at christmas that you uh you don't agree with yeah exactly yeah yeah um and uh so what do i like most about spurs oh that's a weird that's a hard question um because I guess I like I kind of like the sense of quest I like the sense that Spurs are on this kind of constant journey, this never ending journey and to be, you know, to get to where they're trying to get to and actually Bilbao Bilbao does not satisfy that fully but it satisfies it partially I think and that's why Bill Bowers and that's kind of you know to mention what you said about Carl Walker earlier that's why Bill Bowers such a powerful moment right because there were so many people there who had been trying to reach that moment for so long and I actually found myself getting surprisingly emotional like I kind of welled up in the press box when immediately after the final whistle seeing the celebrations because I'd never seen millions of finals lots of finals in the course of my career but I've never quite seen celebrations like that um so that was so yeah i think it's that sense of of quest which i think is makes the whole thing so interesting but also married to such a rich history and uh like high with really like specific high expectations of a certain type of football which itself brings a kind of like romantic element i think to the whole to the whole thing but there's a million things like i mean i could sit here and list like spurs players spurs managers uh that i like i actually like the new stadium i know not not everyone does but from a lazy journalist perspective and i am a lazy journalist oh at the end of the day i mean it's like being an airport lounge like from a media a media perspective so i like that the view from the press box is good um getting to and from there is i mean it's it's it's not great it's also particularly hard if you live in peckham but that's my choice um uh but you know i've got uh I don't think they get everything right, but in the rounds, I do really like Tottenham and I do enjoy covering them a lot.

1:19:19It's kind of one of the quirks of the ground. I've seen people highlighting, it's really quite funny, like Beyonce fans on TikTok and wherever sharing things where they're like, what the fuck is this stadium? Why is this so far away from any tube station or anything like that? As in they're all just laughing about the fact to have a good 70th of pilgrimage every single it's a good question I do think

1:19:45Jack Pitt-Brooke:you know you do it is it's kind of yeah it is worth thinking about this like isn't it even the old white heart lane you know go back eight years now it was everybody knew the transport wasn't good enough and now they've added another what 25 ,000 people and the transport is the same yeah what is it they said they doubled the amount of trains on the on the on the line going from liverpool street or whatever didn't they but yeah but they need um yeah it's uh we need like dortmund you know the tube stop under the under the westfalen stadium or expand the uh expand the victoria line yeah as in add another victoria line station on it's kind of like that happening wasn't there but it never came to fruition it's just it's just something every now and then it does strike you as like why like it shouldn't be a 35 minute walk for the nearest tube stop you shouldn't have to be like force your way onto an incredibly busy train force your way into an incredibly busy busy bus or walk for 35 minutes to get from the tube to tottenham hot stadium like a tottenham hot spot stadium is like clearly one of the best stadiums um for both football and non-football in the uk it should be easy to get there via the tube um and i'm kind of I think a lot of Spurs fans just accept that because it's part of your routine.

1:21:08Jack Pitt-Brooke:And on a nice day, the walk from Seven Sisters is class. Particularly if it's a nice day and good weather and I've got there early, I always do the walk and I love doing the walk and I love seeing the stadium appear over the top of the buildings and everything. I love walking past the Turkish furniture shops and sports direct and all the different denominational churches and all that stuff like i love it and i appreciate that's a privilege to do that because you know i'm able-bodied and it's not so easy for everyone but that's a good point like it also shouldn't be like there should be an easier way or at least and if and if you can't and if you don't want to walk for whatever reason it should be easier to you shouldn't have to like cram your way onto a train or a bus in order to get there uh so yeah i do think the transport is bad but that's a topic for another day i do reckon i think i think sooner or later we probably will end up striking some sort of a deal to look if the battersea power station can get its own bloody tube stop if you can get the northern line extended to facilitate a shopping center then i'm sure once spurs start building the towers the you know whatever they are hotels and office blocks and things um we'll likely get that that victoria line extension at some point sooner rather later but hopefully for everybody and that's a really good point about accessibility I hadn't ever thought about that so I will as people say check my privilege on that one Jack it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you today mate thank you thank you for having me can I just do a quick plug please do I was going to ask so you can find you can find me at The Athletic my podcast is View From The Lane which I do with James Moore and Jay Harris Danny Kelly and we're doing a live show in Wolfenstow, 29th September the ticket link is available on our social media on the podcast so yeah, if you want to check us out you can do, thank you very much and don't boo Danny Kelly this time as well boo I've got to say, I did howl with laughter when he announced that he was roundly booed the last time you did a live event so yeah anyway thanks a lot Jack have a good one thank you