Tottenham Hotspur: Standing On The Edge Of The Abyss

25:43Phil:You know, I'm not going to tell anyone what they want to do, but in terms of celebrating, I think I'm just going to sit back in my seat and be thankful that it's all over. We didn't go down and then figuratively shut the laptop, you know, and just listen to your pod on the way home. If you do, I'm sure you will if we stay up and then kind of just take a break from it a little bit, you know, just to kind of because there's no real positives to come out of this. Not yet. Yeah. You know, things could fall into place next season where we're in a bit better shape and we certainly do better than this.

26:19Phil:That's great. I don't have the energy for thinking about that. So that's where I'm at. I'm not like, oh, good. Now suddenly I can start thinking about who we're going to sign because question marks still remain over who or if anyone we do sign or how we go about doing that. So all that sort of thing, I think, is what's playing on my mind. but I'm just going to be like, thank God that didn't happen because this club, it could have been the starting point for the downfall of the club for a decade. And you can say that's overzealous with it, but we've literally seen it happen with other clubs. So I don't think it's that huge a thing to say.

26:51Phil:And then just let it be, mate. Not celebrating the group chats necessarily. I mean, maybe a little bit, but, you know, I think my thing, underneath it all, underneath the worry and the concern and the stress i'm furious that we're in this position and i that is my underlying emotion to it all right so i can't suddenly be like yeah well done well done that's the thing right who am i saying well done to myself and charlie who will be with well done us for putting putting for getting through this because it's it has been horrendous and people might not understand i don't don't mean people listening obviously everyone listening completely understand but people outside of football might not understand how much of an effect it has on you it has had a massive effect on me and well done us for getting through it if the players don't botch it up in that one out of nine scenarios so yeah fury go home forget football exists for a few weeks i'm not watching the champions league final i've ignored the fact that liverpool won it when they beat us i've seen maybe one clip of it by accident again on like a bt sports at the time promo even to the point where i was like oh when did jordan henderson and lift the trophy.

28:01Phil:And I was like, oh, right, yeah, when he beat us because I just ignored it completely so I can do that. I'm lucky that I don't work in football. I don't use Twitter. I'm pretty good with my social media stuff and that's it. And I'll just blissfully walk through not knowing what happens. Like people who don't know Spurs are even getting relegated or that whole thing about Stuart Lee with Pep Guardiola. Do you see that bit of his special? When a guy's wearing a Pep Guardiola T-shirt and he doesn't know who he is. Imagine that. I don't know, maybe Stuart Lee does know who Pep Guardiola is, but just the idea that you can go through life and none of this, you know, none of this encroaches on you at all.

28:37Phil:There's a way of doing it. You just don't have to look where it's being talked about.

28:41Jack:I mean, Stuart Lee, never, but to me, there's a bit of intellectual grandstanding behind that. There's that kind of, there's that inbuilt snobbery. Who's that? I wouldn't ever know. But still, people, you know, might... Was the bit, who's Pep Guardiola? Who is he? Who's Pep Guardiola? Pep Guardiola? Stuart Lee's let himself go. Yeah, good to say on the soapbox.

29:05Phil:So you just watch that rather than football.

29:07Jack:It's much better. Anger is definitely a lot of what I've been feeling. And I feel that, like, it's funny, De Zerbe's post-match was pretty prickly in a way. I feel like he's been like, you know, the tone a few weeks ago was, I'm big brother, I'm going to put an arm around them, right? They don't need a boss. they don't need a father they need a brother all that type of thing now it feels like he's like right you little gimps like you know you've got to play for a bit of pride now um what he said the dignity of themselves and the dignity of the club um i i didn't see it at the time but there were apparently a few minutes a few moments i think kilpatrick was talking about it where he was furious on the sidelines against Chelsea.

29:55Jack:I think it was Pitbrook actually and was just talking about the fact that, you know, every time they were sort of knocking the ball about, he was saying, we have to play, we have to play, we have to play and they'd fluff something and he'd be spinning around on the touchline like with anger. And I feel like it's funny, isn't it? Because you've got to, you know, I think he's played it well. The transformation in Spurs has been, and I said remarkable in my post-match and that seemed to ruffle the feathers of a few people. But I think if you can't see the sort of form and the way Spurs were playing for, you know, since the turn of the year and how sharply that's kind of changed under De Zerbe, you know, I don't know what sport you're watching, to be honest.

30:38Jack:And I'm coming at this from a place of being a massive De Zerbe skeptic, like, and I have been from the start, right? But you have to give him his dues. And I guess, you know, he has played this well to a point. he has played this where he's put his arm around them and everything and i guess maybe as he's earned their trust more and they've earned his some more maybe he feels like he can be a bit more frank with them and maybe also he just feels that the occasion now warrants it because i am annoyed at enic um but i'm i'm fucking livid with these players mate i really am and i can't i can't escape from that and i've tried to as best i can especially my post matches and all this type of thing keep the the positive vibes going right as best i can right the all together always mantra and all that type of thing but i think it's suddenly just it's honestly it's blown my head off the romero stuff the romero our club captain our fucking club captain sat in argentina watching his boyhood club and i get it people will say well look they're doing a leicester city like belgrano they're doing a leicester city and all this type of stuff and it's like but you're a cup you're a cup captain for a team that pays you what 200 grand a week like grow up grow the fuck up and it's just like is this is this the mantra of this is this like if that's the captain is that what this team is because it feels that way and it has felt that way from the outside the fucking little mutiny on the on the center circle at half time we're gonna show the fans all this sort of stuff grow the fuck up like all of you grow up you know like as people have always said do your fucking jobs like i i refuse look they they've had a hard time this year i get it there's been a lot of injuries the squad has been threadbare the squad has been poorly prepared all of those things but i i simply cannot have somebody make the case to me in good faith that this group of players the players that we have are as bad as we've seen them for the majority of this season and this this isn't about the Chelsea game Chelsea Chelsea are not as bad as they've shown at parts this season I think that was put into stark contrast in that game when you're looking at players like Palmer, Caicedo, Enzo Fernandes and you're thinking well look it's Spurs did all right there but I'm talking about the Forest at home I'm talking about Palace at home before that you know I'm talking about like eking out a last minute draw against Wolves at home you know that that type of thing where i just think we're just being taken for mugs here we've been taking for mugs again the the fact that they feel they feel emboldened enough to feel that we are the that the fans are the problem in all of this when when three three hundred fucking thousand of us lined the streets for you last year all waving you on all pouring our fucking hearts out for you and they have the they have the temerity to act like we're the problem and it's and it's it's a it's a flame that has been fanned by Ange Postacoglu and by Thomas Frank and I've bitten my tongue on Ange Postacoglu a lot but he fucking did usher this stuff in he ushered in the us against the fans shit from these players a lot of that Bilbao victory was done in spite of the fans not for us and I feel like this mindset has just permeated into this sense where it just feels like this group have this idea that it doesn't look I'm talking like we've already been relegated but like like I say I'm just I'm so livid that we're in this position and I'm so livid that our club captain doesn't feel like it's important enough to be there that Mohamed Koulous is apparently throwing a hissy fit because of you know whatever it is that has happened behind the scenes with the thing you know with the club it's just it's just so frustrating and like you say like we've been talking about like be it the media be our own manager be our own players it feels like everything comes back down to this is the fans fault it's the fans fault that spurs are in this position no it fucking isn't no it fucking isn't because for 20 plus years we've all been the ones fucking parroting the to dare is to do shit getting excited about the roger lloyd pack thing filling out the home filling out the ground every home game filling out every single away game always being pretty much in full voice for most big games that come our way and at every single point either the club or the players or the managers have let this club down consistently never the fans and i'm like really tired of this angle that it's that it's us and if if if the final whistle goes and change for tottenham's protest goes ahead whether we stay up or whether we go i implore anybody anybody like that may be listening to this that writes about football for a living or anything right don't make this about the fans don't make this about the toxic atmosphere look further look why that atmosphere is being created look why there is this hostile divide between the fans and the players now because i don't know i feel like i am i am losing my ass here but like i've been trying to keep this in for like quite some time in post matches in these pods and stuff and i just feel like there's a lot that needs to be said now and it doesn't change like that doesn't change whether we stay up or whether we go i'm not going to be sat here if we stay up and say oh you know maybe i've got all these players wrong all along fair enough to them madison was fucking out there after after the game the other day talking about what a disgrace it is that they're in that position you know people people like him know players like him know probably what the what the what the environment has been like what it's been you know kane always said that stuff of us for years um and you can see that he's much happier now it just it's it's it's it's so frustrating and it's good that we've got all these

36:43Phil:podcast to get all that out yeah i'm sure everyone listening will absolutely love that rant or impassioned speech that you just gave unrehearsed of course um because it's true it is true it is it is as you say and as madison says it's a disgrace the romero thing couldn't actually believe what i'm seeing to be honest you know we've got a poor opinion of him anyway and you think am i being fair or whatever that is an absolute disgrace what he's doing and it just speaks volumes to everything that our captain would do that to have just not even the kind of respect to be in disguise you know to absolutely flaunt it to the point where he's spotted doing it and you know he's going to be there celebrating that you know we're potentially in a timeline here where there's pictures of Romero celebrating his boyhood club winning whatever it is they're going for and us having gone down this is it's absurd and you know you're right it speaks to an absolute massive problem in the middle of the club or inside the club even which is why, you know, as I say celebrate I'll be happy, of course, that we didn't go down and then I'll be shutting it off for a bit and I'll think about what needs to be done after the World Cup because, you know, you talk about these players and the injuries and that, yeah, fine it's pretty much the same set of players that were being absolutely dog dirt during, you know, January February, March that deserve he's got a hold of and you know i don't think he's done anything necessarily over the top in terms of preparation or ways of playing he's just kind of got their heads heads straight a little bit so the fact that they couldn't have done that before that we've seen them have such terrible performances you know certainly under tudor more recently to just be like nah not gonna bother not not not not having this bloke so i'm just not gonna you know i'm not gonna do anything no, Thomas Frank, he's a nice guy, but he's not motivating enough for me.

38:39Phil:It's embarrassing for them. And it's them. They're the ones who are getting Spurs relegated. Because what is the club? The club is different portions, right? You've got the ownership and all the financials and that sort of thing, which you need a PhD to be able to get your head around. You've got the fans who are there, you know, their whole life, they go through changes of the ownership, the players, the management, everything. And then you've got the players who actually do the work. and all right you got to set them up to to succeed but they're the ones it's them who's gonna who's who's in a relegation battle not us it's them who's done it so you're absolutely right to to to turn the fury onto them and you know again this idea about doing it doing a welcome to the bus which is how we got onto all of this that's what i'm just i'm just sort of a bit surprised that we're kind of thinking about doing that, frankly, given how disastrous it was last time and how much, you know, we've had evidence from Deserby as well, I think, saying, you know, he didn't want it because it's a distraction and it's not a thing.

39:38Phil:And people saying it to then kind of flip round and say, we need that again. It's like, there's a contradiction in there somewhere and it doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence.

39:46Jack:Does it worry? And I don't want to be a complete doomsayer about everything. Look, we can flip it and say that maybe he felt that like it needed to, we couldn't do it every single game because it cheapens the effect of it but on the flip side there's also my head goes to the place where i'm like has he seen that this lot have got nothing left and he needs to magic up something else from somewhere you know when because so much of the conversation and i think it's it's almost borderline irrelevant at this point to a degree but you know so much of it is does he start color more only does he not and it's like you know what's the net difference going to be between starting Kalamuani or starting Pedro Poro further up and having Spence behind him in reality probably not an awful lot because games aren't won or lost just on our right wing do you know what I mean like it's it's it's the sense around the group it's the spirit amongst the group it's the where their heads are at collectively right because I'm pretty sure Randall Kalamuani has been playing out right wing when Spurs have been getting decent results as well maybe against Villa and stuff like that right I mean I happily stand corrected but it's you know it's it's more about where their heads are at I didn't I think what I take what I take kind of goods I can't think of you know what I take what I take as a positive sign is that I didn't look at the Chelsea game really and feel like they'd given up or their heads had gone I just in truth felt like Chelsea are just better than us have better players and quite simply they won it a bit of a canter and that's that's football that's what happens right uh so if if they can hold on to some of the sort of spirit and the whatever it is that they showed against like brighton despite not winning against villa um and against leads in in you know in in patches then i sort of feel like we we should be okay i just yeah i just it's just it's it's a curveball it's a curveball for me the whole bus thing the fact that he sort of brought that back from the from the brink and it just makes me wonder it makes me run through different sort of reasons as to why that may be um but as we always say to each other mate like occam's razor it's a big game they want the positive energy from the fans they want it to be exciting they want to build that excitement for both the players and the fans why wouldn't you do that point you know so what yeah so so whatever um i guess like on the uh if we stay or if we go thing if the worst does happen and we go i mean it's such a complex issue and i really do think it is complex on many different levels um that you know this will be an entire series of pods that will be done over the summer but just sort of like the top line of it all mate like what do you think will be going through your heads in the immediacy people like vinai people like langer do they keep their jobs can they keep I mean people are talking about them can they even keep their jobs if we stay up um I feel like they will probably against you know people's wishes um but if they go down is that is that also a thing does it all need tearing up but I guess just more on the human level on the fan level like what the fuck do we do what do we do if Spurs go down the year that Arsenal win the league and have a Champions League final in a few days time yeah that's why I can't these things off right

43:26Phil:in terms of thinking too far ahead because I was doing that and I was getting myself into a right old state. So I had to kind of, as I say, break it up into the smallest chunks of time. On the Vinay and Langer question, as much as I feel like they, we need changes at pretty much all levels, right? My kind of overriding thought is if we do go down, why do they get to jump ship, Jack? Why do they get to do what Billy Zane did, dress up as a woman and get on the lifeboat in Titanic? Why do they get away with that? Their lives should be attached to this. They shouldn't just get a payoff after getting sacked in the summer when you sent Spurs down.

44:05Phil:I feel like they should be chained to it until they get Spurs back up, although they probably wouldn't. But you know what I mean? It's just, again, it's just all these people come into football and come into your football club, not just ours. Create chaos, get a massive salary and then get a massive payoff and it's just left to the fans to pick up the pieces of it all. Mate, yeah, it's really, it makes me really angry to think that they can just waltz off and go and get another job. All right, fine, I'm sure their reputation might take a bit of a beating, but you know, just these people at that sort of level land on their feet.

44:41Phil:So yeah, I mean, I think go either way, go either way. Yeah.

44:46Jack:That's part of the frustration though, isn't it? Because we know that ultimately, we know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the sense of injustice about the whole thing, isn't it?

44:53Phil:Get rid of them either way.

44:54Jack:Oh, mate. Like, it's just, it's so, like, how did it come to this? Do you know what I mean? Like, actually, I think that's like the thing I feel most is that how did it come to this? I mean, it came to this because the club's not been very well run, but I still maintain that it would probably be harder to get Spurs into this position than it would be to, I don't know, let me just work it out. I think it's harder, yeah, it's harder for Spurs to be in this position than it is to see them have a top half finish in the Premier League. do you know what I mean like if you actually just had an ounce of just like good judgment um and some ambition about you focus for whatever you do want to say about Levy it's true like the platform that has been built by him by Enoch is grand it's great but they're not using it are they it's like you know I don't know a crude analogy off the top of my head is like it's like buying a supercar and just to drive around like the 20 mile an hour roads in in in central london right as opposed to taking it to a track and ragging it or whatever do you know i mean it's just like it just feels like a complete exercise in a sense of sort of vanity that has really caught up with them like i mean this is like we sort of joked about them being the succession kids and stuff right but it's embarrassing like this is this is literally like a sort of succession storyline, isn't it?

46:20Jack:Right? There's sort of the kids take over the ship and it sinks almost immediately. It's just, it's balmy. It's balmy. It just feels like there's such a, where we are right now, and I know people say things change quickly in football and hopefully that's the truth, but it just feels like, be it Romero, be it managers cupping their ears to fans, be it apologies to NFL fans before it is Tottenham fans about stadium delays and stuff. It just feels like the culture around the place is just totally washed, probably to a degree that we can't, that I don't think we'd even want to fully comprehend as Spurs fans.

47:01Jack:Because you know how, like, Toby was saying the other day, Toby Olderweireld was saying, like, they need to have more Tottenham people. Like me, some of the other guys, we'd be happy to come back, you know? And I think Parrish was saying to us, wasn't he? Like, when you look at clubs like Ajax, and they've got like De Boer, Overmars, all that lot, all there, all sort of in the heart of it. Why isn't one of our greatest teams, like why haven't we called them back? Why don't we have like, you know, Jan, Obi, all that lot in ballet if they want to come in and play in some sort of role there. Like I think when King came back and started doing all that type of stuff, when we actually got him meaningfully involved and not just having him sort of cut ribbons at Sainsbury's and stuff like that, right?

47:42Jack:It gave everyone a bit of a lift. it gave everyone a sense that like there's some there's somebody there that actually gives a shit and like deserby has like he's obviously come in and you know he's a passionate guy and i think he knows football and i can't remember who it is they they spoke to who was it maybe it was sky maybe it was the athletic there's somebody at brighton that used to work at spurs a lot um and i think it's spurs but i can't remember who it is but they they were speaking to him about it and he was saying yeah you know roberto did call me about spurs and he wants to understand more about the club and all that type of thing so and he's he was very drawn in by the the history of the club and the the ethos of the club and all that type of stuff but for me even he's still not tottenham is he he's still not like the lightning rod there that like we know can be the voice inside the building saying roberto man this game is like this is this is a massive game i know on paper like for example on paper Alphampton might not seem like a big game but they hate Tottenham and they always they always play an extra gear against us you've got to go out and like put them in their play do you know I mean just little things like that um because it feels like we've tried everything else it feels like we've tried every other avenue the super manager the upcoming manager we've tried the the progressive spend we've tried spending bigger money albeit doing it quite badly it feels like nothing seems to really work for Spurs um and the only thing I've not really ever seen us try is to build more of that Ajax model that continental model Barcelona do it a lot as well right where you bring all your former stars back and they just kind of get it because again again like to bring them up Arteta's gone in there he's an Arsenal man you know you could say he's an Everton man as well but he is also an Arsenal man he he gets them he understood the club he understood the importance of certain rivalries and the fan base and it's you know I'm sure it's positives and negatives he got it entirely and I just I just feel like like again it comes back to the point you were making mate it just feels like no one's fighting for us you know and it's so sad to be saying that and feeling that way going into a game of this magnitude sort of feeling like there's probably a minority percentage of people in the room that actually understand the full gravitas of what it is the club is facing this weekend and how the fan base are actually truly feeling about that because we're talking about like rando colomani who will be back with psg i can't remember who actually owns him psg i think next week you know and that's that um it's just sad in it mate yeah yeah as you say it's really kind of exposed all the kind of

50:40Phil:problems that we sort of half expected to but you can ignore when the results are going well because essentially that's all you really care about because you think our culture's fine if we're winning um yeah yeah i mean you know your point about deservey um he's not really spurs pochettino wasn't spurs before he joined you know it's about a personality that kind of matches what the club is so I think that there's you know possibility there for it to kind of breed what Pochettino did people are gonna have to listen to him or people are gonna have to listen to these voices you know this feels like such a big subject that it just depresses you even further and we've got enough on our plate with the actual football at the moment but yeah in in the summer when the dust has settled depending on what tier of the football pyramid we'll be playing in it would be good to kind of think more about this and kind of see where we think the problems are we could get probably six weeks worth of podcasts out of it to end this on a positive note because i appreciate

51:39Jack:like i'm sort of talking yeah this has had a bit of a funeral vibe to it um and you know like i have said like this has just meant to be a bit of catharsis and me trying to sort of make sense of a lot of the shit that's wearing around in my head about this game when you actually take that step back to your point again earlier and let's just try and look at this from like a bookmaker's perspective spurs draw they stay up spurs win they stay up spurs lose and west ham do anything other than win spurs stay up you know like leeds one of the most informed teams in the country right now everton not in the best of form right now still a good side but not in the best of form um everton aside that classically anyway aren't usually actually that good against spurs um that only means so much really it only you know that that matters as much as yeah the last result really doesn't it but i just think you know the like for all the stuff i was saying about the fans the fans will be there the fans will be in full voice the fans will understand what this occasion is I have no doubt about that whatsoever because when we want to show up we do and we literally are for whatever anybody wants to say about us we're one of the best fan bases in the country and I know everybody feels that about their club but they're wrong but we we we genuinely are look you and I have both been I listed some of those games previously you've both been in that stadium and you know as much as people talk about Anfield and all these other grounds there is something about white hart lane be it the old one of a new one that when the conditions are right the crowd can just pull the team over the over the line right they can do it um was it gary neville said once one of the nicer things he did say about spurs that we brutalized arsenal that that afternoon and i have every every faith that be it coming from a place of frustration love probably all of those things the crowd will be up for this the bus will be great and yeah you know there can be a hero that one of these boys can be a hero one of these boys can be immortalized tomorrow day after sorry it's sunday um and that's just the way you gotta look

54:01Phil:at it i guess isn't it because yeah definitely what else do we have you know you talked about this and just to kind of underline this point even more because this has been quite a uh negative discussion let's say reflective of where we are and lots of different reasons for that but it was meant to be cathartic so the idea that what you know all the frustrations all this anger all this and everything get it out now think of it now and then when we go in on sunday because it is now whenever that's it this is annoying we're going to mess it up next week oh we're not going to get a result because this is what I was feeling against Palace for instance right oh we needed to win this because we've got a tough game here and you know we've got no and we now Mickey's out all that goes out the window because it's literally just the 90 plus minutes that we play on Sunday and there's no there's there's nothing to hold back for there's no frustration for later it's all it's all got to be positive and got to be supportive and yeah that as you say that's what we do because things just take a natural order right it'll just be fans don't need to be told fans don't need to be told to queue up for the bus we're happy to do so not queue up for the bus but you know queue up for the meet up for the the meet the bus as it comes in because we because this these things will take their natural course you your frustrations go out the window when it comes down to it as is the case with every football match at every point so yeah i'm not i'm not concerned about the fans turning on the team after 20 minutes or anything like that.

55:30Jack:You've got to start punching faces if they do, mate. If you start hearing boos, you've got to be the start of the Spurs on Spurs. Hey, you! Get behind the key, new mud! Okay, Jack, I'll do that.

55:39Phil:And so on and so forth. That's exactly my personality. Fists. I'll do that.

55:45Jack:Yeah, exactly. Ordy punch-up, man. Go in windmilling. Go in windmilling. Not the other type of windmilling either. Well, thanks for being a sounding board for that one, mate. definitely that's what people want though Jack that's what people pay for

56:01Phil:the streamer consciousness is that it is that it streamer bile the wobble-headed head on

56:08Jack:that's good fucking fucking last day last day in the fucking season last day in the season relegation battle top of Moxford

56:17Phil:after we stop recording for me to be like no no it's fine don't worry about it when we're doing it little Pete behind the curtain in our last ever Premier League podcast only joking because we might come up next season. No, no, no, no.

56:31Jack:You've done it.

56:31Phil:Yeah, only joke. It's Gallo's humour, mate. That's Spurs, right? Gallo's humour. That is what Spurs. We're not suited to this kind of mawkish hand-wringing, pearl-clutching. We just like having a laugh, don't we?

56:44Jack:Cheeky chappies. Buckles and braces. Oi, oi, oi, oi. Do you know what I mean? Okay, now. Right. I'm going to go listen to some Chas and Dave and cheer myself up, mate. Goodbye, love you. Much love, brother. See you on the other side. Thank you.