Tottenham Turn A Corner? | The Wolves Win, Xavi Simons Devastation & Surviving Relegation

0:00Jack:This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.

0:11Jack:Porro with the corner. Still alive. Mike Fulfer. Rashad has sent it, steered into the back post. And the flag stays down. A huge moment in Tottenham, what's first season? Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Rule the Roost podcast. John, John Bass of the Big John Bass Show. Welcome back, mate. I wanted to have this be a really jubilant return. Spurs were in their first game in 2026, but the footballing gods have conspired against this, as we said, godforsaken football club in the time since we won a bloody game, haven't they? Yeah, I had a very short-lived, like brilliant sort of afternoon and evening on Saturday.

0:57that was like absolutely great i actually had to take my nieces to go and watch britain's got talent live which would not been my first choice for a saturday night jack even in my later years as a 40 year old man but i was absolutely buzzing because of the spurs victory i went into it like so hyped right and it was the classic thing of like beforehand i was going if there's a dog they're dancing i'm gonna lose the plot right if there's a bunch of kids doing some sort of dancing i'm gonna lose the plot both of those things were there was i up and dancing was i giving him a stand innovation yes i was um i was absolutely buzzing and then the next day we get the news about uh javi and you know then it sort of brings me back to a level but i did get to enjoy a win and i was like very conscious of trying to enjoy it as much as possible is uh

1:41Jack:is simon cow still at uh britain's got talents he still do all that big time if you believe that it's simon cow because you know now there's all these like celebrity i don't know how much you love these right i know you love your conspiracy you know like go take us into it please go on so i don't know if anyone remembers this but recently there was one where it was like jim carrey at an award ceremony and everyone was like that's not jim carrey that's mental it doesn't it sort of looks like him but it's not really and then there was like some sort of comedian who does stunts was like oh it's actually me wearing a mask and then people were like no it wasn't and everyone's like well then where's jim carrey what's happened to him um and then simon cowell just looks like a sort of parody of simon cowell or like a person pretending to be a human wearing a simon cowell mask and so now i'm like i don't think simon cowell's alive either i think they're just like putting actors in masks and it's a way of just you know like spreading out the time they don't have to be on stage or be in front of camera but he was there mate apparently the man known as simon cowell was there i started watching his uh he's got like a netflix series where he's on the hunt for a new boy band again.

2:50Jack:And the whole sort of premise of it was, look, you know, the K-pop stars have sort of, you know, stolen my piece of the pie now. I'm going to take it back. And I'll be honest, I struggled with it because I passed like the first episode in a bit. So I thought it would be interesting to see how he operates, how they present this whole thing. And I just, I was plagued constantly by this feeling of like, I think you've had your fair share, mate. you know like you've done you've done more than all right for yourself like this sort of the the almost like that because they almost try to ham it up as in like poor old simon cowell yeah he used to be a bit nasty on the telly but he's just a person with feelings like the rest of us and he just wants to make millions and millions of pounds exploiting children you know my favorite bit if anyone does want to i mean he doesn't need any more promotion as discussed but if you do watch the show my favorite game to to play whilst watching that show is to spot the moment where simon's girdle is uh put on because it's if anyone's ever seen extras the ricky gervais show the bit when he goes to an audition and he puts the girdle on and then it sort of explodes uh midway through the audition um he's basically like he's like he's wearing one of those constantly and he's got these like same t-shirts that are like really skinny and like tight fitting but then because they're tight fitting, which like sort of, I think he's trying to make his shoulders look good.

4:14You can just see what can only be either a, a girdle or be a bulletproof vest. And I'm like, it's not a bulletproof vest. So he's wearing a girdle. I'm like, I don't understand why. And he looks really frail, like when he's walking around. So it's like, they've just sort of sewn him up and he's like Frankenstein every morning. They just sort of pump him full of fresh blood, probably from, you know, young kids who didn't get through the audition. They get siphoned off into a little room and liquidate it to fill him up at that pizza shop in washington dc that yeah yeah it's all connected it's all connected um what was that show what's that big the big

4:50Jack:show in america where you know they you walk down the you sort of get that guard of honor from all the production crew and they're all cheering cheering the stars on and simon cowell was kind of walking through like clapping like in a really just robotic straight like no it's not even robotic like a really strange fashion clapping in the way that I would imagine a pervert claps that's you know I'm not saying anything libelous I'm just saying I imagine yeah I'm not imagining any of it so do you reckon we should talk about Spurs do you I don't John like why I'm not the thing is I'm not even getting into the West Ham thing right I'm not I'm not whatever Spurs we did our we did our our part you know we won we won away at Wolves somewhere where we haven't won since 2021 that's good isn't it like you know that's that's kind of shows that Deserby is having some sort of an effect that the players are perhaps turning a corner psychologically I mean the game was awful the game was horrible for the most part but Spurs got the job done didn't they and how many times have we said that of Arsenal how many times have commentators said that of Arsenal you know they played like it was a miserable war of attrition but they got the job done and that's the that's the mark of mentality and all that type of thing right yeah the thing is like i understand why we all feel a bit like oh it's good but because of the west ham thing but if west ham were just like two nil up in the first 10 minutes and then saw it out for two nil and we got that result i don't think we'd be feeling as bad it's because it was sort of dangled in front of us like oh they might drop some points and then when we get the goal and suddenly it's like oh my god this is amazing it feels worse than it is fundamentally if we just forget everyone else the first thing we needed to do to get ourselves out of this mess or to give ourselves a chance at getting ourselves out of this mess was to win a game and we've been since deserve is come in we've been slowly seeing improvements in the performance and i'm not talking about like it you know it's peak deserve but just in the application from the players like the desire from the players applied in a way that looks like we might be able to get goals and we might be able to get performances that will give us results and i think whilst this actually wasn't like a particularly great performance it did show that they kind of were battling until the end and that you saw how much it meant to them when the final whistle went and even though you know from a league point of view position wise um you know we we kind of haven't moved anywhere it has psychologically shifted the paradigm a little bit I think for us because it's not decided week to week we have to start winning games now it could be the case that West Ham don't win another game and we win the rest of ours and it's absolutely fine right at this moment in time we just have to win our games we I think it's really easy to be like but we also need West Ham yeah but we can't control that and that's what we've kind of saw this weekend so the first focus has to be on us just winning our games and we'll see what happens to West Ham because really it's them, isn't it?

7:52Like, I can't really see the other teams dropping in. So, they've got...

7:56Jack:No, especially after Forrest, Forrest Sunderland, man. That was, you know... Mental. Completely insane. Of course, of course he gets a hat-trick as well. Like, the season, if, I'm sure at the end of the season, whatever happens, someone will put together, like, this has been unlike any other season for a Spurs. Like, for a club that creates the most absolute chaos, mad stuff to happen, the amount of, like, small details of just chaotic stuff that's happened to us and kind of aligned with us as a club this season has been absolutely ridiculous like it's been absolutely chaos and that yeah that Sunderland Forest game was just yet another in a catalogue of completely berserk stuff but yeah I'm just focusing on basically mate like whilst it's annoying because we like obviously we need West Ham to drop points in order for this to have like helped us get out we have got that monkey off our back now we do have that first win we have something to build on we just have to focus on basically maintaining some solid form and performances and yeah of course we are now reliant on them slipping up but this is the thing and we saw it a microchasm in this game it's going to flip-flop and change within games every game week because it's so tight and so close and there's so much on the line this is why i've had a little bit of hope weirdly more recently because i'm kind of like every time there's a relegation battle when it's this close it constantly flip-flops and changes and often the team that doesn't deserve to get out of it is the one that gets out of it and so that could be us and so whilst we are still in the mix and there's a chance we can get out I'm just gonna roll with that and kind of keep the positive momentum in my head until we mathematically are relegated if that was to happen because I've seen quite a few of those comments along the line of like well what does it really matter that we won now because we're in the same position we were in it's like well that's why it matters that's why winning matters because we would have been five points if we'd have lost that we'd have been five points off west ham and pretty much relegated by that point right now we're at least still clinging on and they've got some horrible fixtures to come i mean ours aren't all pretty but you know we're all brentford in a few days time aren't we you know because i mean brentford who are on a five game drawing streak might be even more than that but yeah i mean the worrying thing about west ham i guess in all of this is i'm not sure on exactly what it is but i saw like a graphic doing the rounds that pretty much it's them outside of the top six who are in the best form in the country um for the past for the past few weeks and you know it's just it's so it's so ludicrous that that coincides with the season where we're just looking so so awful um but you know it is what it is like we can't we can't be complete victims about this john i know we i know we will talk about the injury crisis and it is a crisis i don't think that's too emotionally charged a term to use within the confines of football right it's it's a it is an injury crisis but spurs haven't helped themselves have those spurs have not helped themselves this season we haven't we haven't we just simply haven't been good enough at times and i think there were still signs of that against wolves there were signs of this is how we got ourselves into this place um but equally you know there was there was there was enough positivity there that we can that we can carry forwards and that's just that's that's that's just what i want to go with yeah the grand inquiry and everything as i keep saying can can wait until the summer but right now i just want to take it that we got the three points we've turned something of a corner and yeah you know it's late april and we're talking about our first league win in 2026 yeah it's timpott i understand all that type of thing but my point is it within context of of that tin pot season of our bobbins form and mentality and all that type of thing we gotta win we gotta win at a tricky place come on you know like we just got we got to try we got to try and find the positives in that yeah exactly at this point mate it's like i think this is one of the things there's been a lot of talk of like the club's not set up for a relegation battle and the players aren't set up for a relegation battle the squad's been assembled we're also not up for it.

12:17I've never been in one. We don't know how to, which is why for the last eight weeks, if we lose this one, we're down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it feels so dramatic. But actually it's like, this is what it's going to be like. If we are in this like dogfight with West Ham, it could be that we like both win the next couple of games and then someone loses one and you're like, oh my God, that's it, it's over. Right? And then, you know, this is where you get into this thing of if they lose their next game and we win ours, right? like leapfrog them that doesn't mean it's over because if we lose our next game and then they win theirs it's back like it switches around and so this is why i'm saying now i think we've got to switch our mentality of just going okay let's just look at like in isolation what's happening with us on the pitch and currently we've just won our first game that can only be a positive thing right forget obviously like some of the knock-on effect of what's happened in the game in terms of players and all the rest of it but just getting a win is good now i've seen people oh well it's the first one that was terrible yes but we can't go back so we can only do what we've got now if the if you were playing fifa you know like sometimes you can play those like scenarios where it's like you've got five remaining league games you've got to win like x amount to stay up right that's basically we've got four games left or whatever it is now to try and stay up and we've got a team that are like one point ahead of us that's like a informed team if you're looking at that you're just like i've just got to try and win all these games give myself a chance i can't do anything else i can't influence them i've just got to do my bit and so right now this is the way i'm like treating it as a fan which is like i'm just going to celebrate us winning a game because that gives us one step closer to trying to stay up and that's what we can do really and we i think we've been and i've been guilty of it for sure like catastrophizing yeah like every little piece because we're just not used to it and actually this is the time now where we do have to sort of hold our nerve a little bit and yeah it's annoying that they're in such good form going into this period because they're the ones that are closest to us but as we know in this league as we've seen mad stuff happens and that's what i'm holding on to if you're just looking at this purely on stats numbers form who's available like all the factual stuff we're down like all the numbers everything is pointing to us going down but we all know that's not how football works just not and that's what I'm relying on.

14:37I'm relying on going, well, if all the evidence is pointing that we're down, that's actually giving me a bit of hope because that's not how football works. Otherwise, there'd never be any shocks. There'd never be any surprises. There'd never be any underdogs. There'd never be any FA Cup minnows turning over a team. It would never happen because all the stats and facts would never, ever back that up. So that's what I'm clinging on to and if we didn't win that game, then we basically are even in a worse position. But we did. So we go again and we're still alive. As long as our heart is beating, I'm going to believe we're coming out of the coma.

15:07Jack:I mean, is our heart still beating when our last, pretty much last remaining creative player, Xavi Siemens, club confirmed, has, you know, is ruled out of an ACL injury. I mean, it's just, it's bitterly and bizarrely cruel. And this is it, mate, like, because everything that you say is so true. We are all catastrophizing. We are all, you know, drawing conclusions of things that aren't conclusive, right? it's not over until it's over but if there were if there were signs from the universe if it was signposted at pretty much every fork in the road along the way which direction spurs were headed it's down because the fact that there's been such a narrative why hasn't xavi seaman's been played more why has he been shifted out on the left why haven't managers been using him properly the fact that now finally it's like he is our creative instrument he is our outlet let the guy go do what he does best and let him create let him be a nuisance outside the box he's been doing that spurs his form picks up then he goes down holding his knee our medical staff tell him to do some sprints at the side of the pitch run it off and then yeah it's confirmed he's got an acl injury i mean just how how big a blow do you do you think this is john because you know i mean would you agree that he is the primary catalyst or one of at least maybe outside of deservey directly for our recent upturning form yeah i mean look i've never been a massive uh xavi simmons fan not because i don't think the guy is talented but because i think there's like some flaws in his game but he's also been the one player that i've been like i can't believe he's not been playing more because he's exactly the type of player that you need to turn to in these scenarios you need someone that can sort of give you a creative spark and make something happen out of nothing can give you that little bit of imagination a bit of magic especially in the final third way where you need it to unlock teams that may be sitting in all of that stuff so like everyone else I've been like he needs to play we need to find a way to get to get him in and his again his form and you know the stats aren't lying in terms of what he's been doing in these like last few games and yeah look De Zerbe's found a way to get him in the side and looking good and just as he's doing that it's another ACL injury and again you can look at the numbers for like the average amounts of ACL injuries across like an entire season with all the teams and you can look at that over a bigger period and we are like way overrepresented like the numbers are just ridiculous like the odds of it happening the amount of ACLs that we've had is absolutely crazy in like a three or four year period so this is just such frustrating timing like obviously for him right it's awful as well but not that I don't care but obviously I'm just focused through the lens of like how this impacts us and forgetting obviously his ambitions for the world cup etc and now it's like i don't know what we do because we kind of finally settled on what looked like a pretty settled lineup which now has to be rejigged again but you're now missing the sort of one profile that we don't have we just don't have and i know that madison's been on the bench the last few games and i heard your um sort of post match saying like apparently he's not even fit they're just putting him on the bench which is almost like a sort of cheerleader thing.

18:26And if that's true, then is it better served having like a youth player on there? But the options that you would want, like Williams Barnett, for example, they're injured is my understanding. They're also injured. So even the youth players who would be the sort of ones where you'd go, well, let's just give, you know, what have we got to lose? Chuck them in. They're injured. My field's injured. Williams Barnett's injured or has been injured. So I'm not sure if they're up to speed. And Maddison's coming back and is clearly not going to be up to speed. So of all the positions and players to get injured, Xavi is not a good one to lose in this moment.

18:57On the flip side, though, the only thing that fills me with hope is De Zerbi, right? Which is that he has himself made an impact. And there is a tangible, like, feeling. I think you can kind of see it, like I said, with the player's reaction and the way he's talking after games. You can see that, like, why players buy into him. And it's that collective hope and desire that we're going to need. we can't rely on individuals gone are the days and i know you've spoken about it on here a few times gone are the days where we have a superstar we don't we don't have javi's not really one either at the minute right so we are going to have to rely on the collective and we are going to have to find a way to make this work and that that's the thing that gives me hope is that we still have a manager who can do that and hopefully he can find a way to make this work and figure this out

19:42Jack:does it worry you at all you know because i would imagine javi seaman's and i think it's fair to make this assumption would be one of the players that would be straight on the blower to his agent the day Spurs get relegated if they get relegated saying get me out of here I'm not I'm not doing a season in the championship does it worry you that he's a player that's paid a considerable amount I know some people have floated the idea of Spurs players all having 50 % wage cuts on there you know in the event of relegation but none of that's confirmed so even if he does he'll be on a big salary he's a player that we could sell for a certain amount of money that isn't going to be happy i mean does it does that play into any part of the the the anxiety around this john or is it just simply that the games that we have left is where your focus is right now yeah personally like all of the like what will happen if we go down with x player y player one like again you know i know you've mentioned this before as well in the past like i don't care about them like i care about the club and if they don't want to be here then just like just get them out do one i don't yeah do one i don't care it doesn't matter who they are like i'm not interested in that and also at this moment in time you know i'm i'm not thinking about us going down i'm like concentrating on how we can find a way to to stay up and hopefully the players and this is the thing right now we've won a game and we're still in the mix we're still alive any players that have been sort of distracted and thinking about it elsewhere it's like guys just if we stay up but this season ends you can still leave right it's like there's going to be a big overhaul when it will actually be probably in some ways easier for you to move without a relegation on your uh rap sheet so to speak so yeah i just like i hope the club are just focused on that my thoughts if i like take a second to think about what that would look like is there's some players where it's like out of their hands a little bit right because it should be the club's decision whether or not we're willing to let players go and there'll be certain players that like because their contracts and you know the position they're in where it actually makes sense go okay let's just cut our losses let's sell now because that you know they're going to be more detrimental to stay players like xavi who's just come in and signed quite a long-term contract he's quite a young player there is a world and he's now got a serious injury there is a world where we go look there's no point in you moving she won't you won't be able to no one's going to want to buy you if you can't play for a year we'll rehabilitate you we're going to get back up into the premier league and then stay with us if you get back fit enough you'll get some games to come back and and then you'll be ready to you know hopefully push for us to get back into the premier league like he won't be able to go i don't think i don't think there's a world in where that actually makes sense for him whereas other players and events romero's they'll have clubs coming in from and i think we should get rid so it's it's all going to be circumstantial based on like player to player and i think the club have to balance this thing of like if we do go how much consistency do you want to keep in order to get you back up because if you do completely overhaul it and you know adjust it for a championship type squad do you become a championship type side and then that actually becomes difficult right versus going let's try and keep most of our squad get rid of a few of the bad eggs get rid of some of the taint from this sort of negative spiral well in you know inject some fresh blood into the squad but keep the bulk of a premier league side and let's make sure we get back up and then we can reassess the squad from there so again mate there's loads to do here and there's loads of bigger questions about the people in charge of the club are they could they even do it correctly like do they even understand how much of a big change that they will have to prepare for i'm not sure and the same as if we stay up i really do not feel confident that they will understand the implication to what's happened here and how big the change needs to be because i do think there's like 10 to 15 player over like hall of this squad because you have to get the taint of this like relegation mindset out of that squad and you've got to completely reset it if you have too many players from that then you're back into the it's another season we've got to plan for relegation you almost want like that's never happening again summer and have these owners and Vinay and Langer are they built for that a whole other question which we obviously don't need to answer now but this is the way I'm why I'm not thinking about it now maybe because it's like just staying up is the most important thing i can bear to deal with at the moment i mean obviously there's a lot of talk about the retractable pitch stuff and i think it's again like most things it's getting turned into one of those things where if you believe it you're a loony if you don't believe it you're a mug and all this sort of stuff i mean i don't know enough about this type of thing to have a definitive opinion on it the to me there is some interesting stuff out there there's a correlation with Real Madrid players.

24:23Jack:There's another one with one of the NFL teams who have a similar playing surface to ours. And I know people say, well, you know, not all of this injury occurred at Wolves and stuff, but there's talk about accumulative fatigue, the amount of times they're playing on that pitch. I mean, there is something, there is something that spurs, given the injury crises we've had for two, three seasons now, at least. it's it's it's bonkers but you know i mean if you don't want to focus on that then one of the things i would focus on is the lack of protection afforded to a lot of our players now because the week after we've just seen christian romero pushed into antonin kinski and receive a season-ending injury as a result of that we've seen eve basuma chopped down two-footed in the center circle in what I would say 99.99999 recurring percent of the time is a straight red card and again we've had to sit there and be told by various different commentary teams oh it's just a rough challenge it's just like pretending like it's a normal thing to happen again I mean it just it makes my head spin mate it feels like every single week we have something like this going against us and if our players are being yeah if they are afforded that little protection then that's a level of accumulation if before we start talking about retractable pitches and stuff let's talk about things like that straight in front of our faces referees not doing their jobs properly players not being protected players who are already being run into the ground by this schedule also not being protected you know i again i don't think it's conspiratorial or i don't think it's poor me to suggest that right now there's a there's a mood there's a mood shift in in the country let's get spurs let's get spurs down let's go hard against spurs they'll get rattled because Gary Neville says they get rattled if you leave one on them and I just I I think it is I'm not saying all the referees are sat down having a big like conspiracy chat about this and preordaining that this is what they're going to do but I think there is that little bit in the back of their head where they're like just a rough challenge get on with it kind of thing i i i just i i thought i thought the challenge from wolves in particular to just get shrugged off was disgraceful personally yeah mate i'm with you and i've been saying for a while on on my pod that it when people talk about conspiracies they go wow how many people would have to be involved to make it no it's that's not how they work right you only need to influence a few people you don't need to go here's the truth everybody buy into the lie you just need to tell them the lie right and then that's how it spreads and i think this is really what's happening and i think the way that you can really demonstrate it is not the issues it's not the instances themselves right i'm prepared to accept that referees make mistakes or that they see things a different way let's assume that all of those were just innocent mistakes that they just made a bad decision that the media reviewing those incidents and making cases why actually this horrific decision was right that's the conspiracy it's mad mate it's the madness because i wouldn't be as annoyed personally if after the probing thing they were like can't believe ref's not giving that i can understand you maybe things but in the end he's hurt a player it's a pretty dangerous one i'd go yeah fine good in the light of day you can see it objectively this is the issue or it's a two-footed challenge since i can remember like france 98 two-footed tackles like that straight in straight legs straight red like no matter if you slip it's accidental doesn't matter if you go two foot straight leg like that it's a straight red and i've seen one reckless mate it's a reckless challenge and i've seen ones where a player has definitely slipped and got a red card and i've gone oh it's harsh but you gotta go like you can't you you're not allowed to do it sonny sonny against everton when he broke andre gomers's leg you know like exactly and this there are tons of examples and so if you want to see and you want some quote-unquote evidence albeit fair enough it's not uh you know a smoking guns so to speak it is the way the media are talking about incidents that are objectively wrong and trying to justify them and it's this like cycle of basically saying to the referees like you're doing the right thing like keep giving these decisions this way because we are essentially agreeing with you it's not uh you know it's not a you issue it's a spurs issue and that that to me is this clearest like view of basically like you said it's not that all the referees and all the leaders of these various different leagues and managers are all going right how are we going to get spurs down this week right but that's not what it is it's gary neville going oh he's been a naughty boy it's like referees making awful decisions it's people commentating on games and going oh we all want to see spurs go down don't we ha ha ha lol like it's buying into this idea of that we could make this happen couldn't we wink wink nudge nudge like it feels a little bit like that for me and and also if if if we give spurs a bad decision nobody's really going to grill us about that exactly mate yeah and also look the reason that it feels conspiratorial to say it and like people go oh get over it's because it seems like we're going and that's the reason we'll get relegated no no we have been garbage there's no doubt about it like we've been in a terrible position but there have been games and there have been decisions that are the difference between like maybe five points that's enough that's enough to keep us up and i know you could go to every season and go oh if you've got that decision but if it's like the amount the sheer amount of injustice over this season and obviously why would i have seen anything like it i don't watch an entire season of walls for example right but you just you know it's in the ether of sort of football media the amount of controversial decisions alone this season that spurs have faced you only need two of them to be correct and we're not in a relegation battle and that's to me is the bit that's so frustrating is that you if you're really this garbage it doesn't help if you've got a ton of injuries and then on top of that it doesn't help if you're getting so many awful decisions and it's those three factors of like the footballing team has definitely been mismanaged from the very top to thomas frank particularly as as our manager the injuries compounding the lack of quality and the problems with that squad and then you throw in the mix going well every time you need a decision we're going to go the other way it's like a recipe to get relegated and that's why I think if we do stay up it is a bit of a fluke like it isn't actually anything other than just we've we've managed to just get lucky here because everything is conspiring against us and that's why people don't like to say this stuff about the referees because it feels like you're using it as an excuse I'm just highlighting what I'm seeing as one of the contributing factors to the fact that we are potentially going down alongside the bigger one which is that we're absolute garbage i would say as well that we haven't been if we do stay up we wouldn't have been as lucky as we have been unlucky so i yeah i take it you know like whatever um i mean dominic solanke also went off the pitch roberta deservey after the game didn't seem to be that bothered about it It said it was like a muscular thing, but we've seen Solanke out for such a long time with this minor muscular injury, as it's been called in the past.

31:47Jack:Were it not for, and I mean, it's tough to talk about this in this context right now, because we need bodies. I don't know who plays against Aston Villa, number one, if Solanke isn't back. I guess the thing is, though, in a sort of in a blue sky sense. Do you see an awful... What I want to say is that I don't feel... With Solanke missing, I feel it purely in the sense that, damn, we need bodies. Who the hell is going to play? I'm not sat here thinking, oh, we're going to miss this amazing thing about Solanke like we are with Javi Siemens right now. I'm not saying that everything Solanke does is bad, but I do feel like he's one of those players a bit like Soldado where we're always sort of clutching to straws.

32:33Jack:Those straws being the good things that he does. And there are plenty of good things that he does. He holds the ball up fairly well, gets his body in between sort of the ball and the opposition players a lot of the time up top. He does those sort of things quite well. But in some moments where you want a bit of a killer instinct, I think Solanke is often lacking. I mean, I guess if we do go down, he'll probably score an absolute hatful in the championship so great that would be good on that thing but I guess I guess just sort of the point I want to make is mate like do you think Solanke is one of those players that is just a clear sort of example of this sort of unambitious unimaginative transfer policy from the people that run the football club Solanke is seen as one of the better players outside of the big so-called big six and thus spurs will get him as opposed to looking elsewhere for for a more imaginative option like you know like clubs like Brentford and Brighton and whoever else do yeah I mean look just really quickly on Solanke he should have had a penalty that was a push blatant push in the back the ball's dropping on his head he gets shoved over we still haven't had a penalty either this season sums it up and as for Solanke Yeah, look, when we signed him, he came off the back of a pretty good season with Bournemouth.

33:53But it wasn't like he was this sort of out-of-nowhere striker. He'd been around forever and never really kind of done it in the top half of the table. You know, obviously he was at Chelsea, went to Liverpool, didn't really work out. And, you know, fair play to him. He got to a point where he became undeniable, right? He scored a lot of goals to get Bournemouth into a position where they were like people were talking about them. And when we signed him, I was just a bit underwhelmed. Now, I will provide some context to this. that we do have and we did have the greatest striker this country's ever seen for like a decade right so everybody is underwhelming like everyone there isn't a really a player especially that we could realistically sign that you'd go yeah okay this is levels like there is you've gone from harry kane so that i think is also like a bit of an issue but i just felt like he basically had one good season his whole career and then we've gone oh this is the guy that's going to like fire us up the league and this is the guy that's going to take us into the next thing I thought okay I don't really see this but like all the the stats nerds were loving this sign in they were like this is going to be brilliant and to be fair to him when he came in I was like okay I was kind of wrong about this guy like he's got a bit about him he can hold the ball up his link play was really good and he offered a lot more than I thought I thought he was almost just like a kind of tapping merchant you kind of for the dad's uh Francis Jeffers fox in the box type striker who wasn't good at much else.

35:16But actually, that's not what he's like. He's actually the opposite of that. He's a very good link-up striker. But I think what you said is an absolute nail on the head. He hasn't got a ruthless streak in him, right? And it's like where there's certain moments where I'm just like, you've got to take that. You've got to take that chance. I think there's other wider context as well, which is like even before Kane, we always did have like really good strikers, right? We've had like players like Defoe, players like Keane, players like Berbatov like even players like Pavlichenko you got a chance to take it like he was ruthless finisher and actually that's the one bit that Solanke for me is like missing a little bit he's not like a ruthless finisher and I do think there is an element of like you can see what they're thinking which is like you need proven Premier League players here's a guy who scored whatever he scored 20 plus Premier League goals it's a no-brainer makes total sense I don't think that signing Solanke was the worst thing ever I think it was almost like signing players like Richarlison was more of an issue where you need like other options and we've just sort of gone two average Premier League strikers and combined they'd be an excellent player and you combine their goal tallies and you get enough but we we needed something a little bit else and at the time when we signed Solanke I want us to sign Osserman and that year in Europa League and we played against Galatasaray and he absolutely ripped us to shreds I was like he was available he was available to us and we didn't we didn't go for him because it wasn't you know Premier League proven now I'm not saying that it would have worked maybe it'd have been another sort of adder boy on it all blown up and it wouldn't have quite worked for us and or another soldado and for whatever reason he couldn't cut it in the league I don't know but I felt like there were other options out there and Sanky always felt underwhelming to me do I think he's a decent player yes will we we miss him just like maybe yeah a little bit but it's not noticeable enough and that therein lies the issue with this team right is that it doesn't really matter who's missing no one stand out enough we don't have a superstar we don't have like a set way of playing that's so reliant on one player and that's kind of the problem right is that we actually don't have any magic, any sparkle.

37:31I mean, Romero being out, he's probably our best player. If you're looking at it on paper, you're like, you know, won the World Cup. He'd probably be one of the higher value players. He's come out, we've kept a clean sheet and we've looked defensively more solid. I mean, this just sums it up for me. There isn't like a stand-up player that like, if they go, we're dead. And you want that, in a weird way, you want that to be your strikers, right? You want that to be your magic end of the pitch. And actually, if any of them got injured, aside from just to your point, the numbers element, It doesn't matter.

38:00What are you taking out? No goals. Oh, no. How will we survive? And this is the problem. We just don't have any magic at the top end of the pitch with all the injuries that we've got. Deke was potentially that guy, and we haven't seen him, have we, all seasons?

38:13Jack:No, and it's painful hearing, like, you know, to Serby the other week saying that Kulisevski, Kudus, they would have been very important players to him the way he likes to play football. You know, because it just... It does make you lament, And, you know, when you see our players who are out injured now, it's a top-half Premier League side that's missing, starting XI pretty much, you know? And that should be the caveat to everything. Like Spurs, yes, Lange is useless. Yes, Venkatesian seems to be useless as well. Yes, Enoch have taken the piss for years and years and years. But we have been massively unlucky as well.

38:55Jack:We have been. and it just, it's a crying shame, mate, because I've spoken about it on here before, but it feels like, you know, I'm trying to believe, I'm trying to stay on board with this. You know, and I do feel that it's not just empty words at the top, I do feel Spurs are turning a psychological corner. I do think they have been, at least, you know, from what we can see from the outside, these past few matches, it does feel like De Zerbe's having some sort of an impact on them. but the relegation becomes an ever more realistic proposition with each game we creep closer to it right it's just that's just what it is you know you i think you just naturally prepare yourself in some way for a terrible thing happening and in this instance that's the terrible thing that's happening how do you like how do you obviously it's awful we know that but how do you feel about it all mate like because you know i'm i'm having to sort of like talk myself back a bit in that i sort of veer to this place where i'm like relegation for spurs is is a catastrophe like yeah i know on the ground level we're talking like it's very very embarrassing and it's very painful if arsenal do win one of the premier league or champions league or both still which they can still do if they do that type of thing in the season that spurs get relegated that's just off the scale embarrassment they've won Arsenal have won Arsenal have won for a hundred years if that happens you know there's there's nothing all right we might be in an FA Cup tie or in the league at some point down the line but they've won if Spurs get relegated a year they win all that they've won so that's off the menu that stuff's embarrassing but that's just like fan stuff that's pride stuff that's ego stuff what sort of creep is creeping up on me more and more and more mate is what this means to Spurs, what actually getting relegated means to Spurs.

40:53Jack:And I know there's a lot of talk about like non-match day events. I know there's a lot of talk about the fact that Spurs will still make more money than all the championship clubs combined. You know, I do sort of struggle with believing that, but right, if I am to believe that, then okay, fine. That's all good. But there's still that bit of me that's like, what we're talking about here though, the sort of frame that this is always like pushed through is spurs will be okay it's like great so we're not going to go bust i i can believe that i can understand that but what i don't want to be and this is what i do worry about is spurs being caught as you were sort of talking about at the top there he's been caught in this infernal cycle of do we just stick with a load of premier league players in the championship okay so what happens if after a season in the championship we don't come straight back up because we got shown up in some of these horrible muddy games at points down the season we had more championship players to it and then that's another season without premier league revenue our overheads aren't going anywhere because for all the money that spurs do make spurs probably owe more than all of the rest of the championship clubs combined as well and that's something that people don't like to talk about there's a lot of money that the club owes we have a hell of a lot of overheads we have an ownership that already pleads poverty with Champions League money, let alone championship money.

42:15Jack:There's just so much there that makes me sit here and think, fine, the club aren't going to go bust, but are the club going to be irrelevant for two decades after this point? Because that's what worries me. The thought of Spurs going down really strikes me on a really existential, for the club, level. I don't see what we are from that point if we go down. I mean, look, we might go down, go down and boss it, get over 100 points, come straight back up, and then we're Tottenham again in the Premier League. I find it, because for all that, for all that, for people that say that, they're just ignoring what we've seen before our eyes for the past two seasons, which is a club that is falling to pieces, you know?

43:01Jack:And it's, how do you stop that rot, especially when you're in the championship? I'm sorry to end it on this note, John. I'm getting very aerated about this, but this is always on the forefront of our thinking, isn't it, right now? Yeah. Well, let me add to the doom initially, and then let me pose you a slightly different... Then pull it back. I'll pull you back in. Introducing Home Care Plus, a new subscription service from Lowe's that helps make life easier by giving members a hand with home maintenance. Let Lowe's tackle the tasks you keep meaning to do, like electric dryer vent cleaning, replacing hard-to-reach light bulbs, and more.

43:39Subscribe to Home Care Plus for just$99 a year and consider your to-do list done. Members get more at Lowe's. Available in select zip codes only. Cancel anytime. Non-refundable fee. Product purchase required. Terms and service restrictions apply. Details at lowes.com slash terms. Subject to change. So to add to the doom, I think the thing that concerns me the most is that it's the people in charge of making the decisions. That's what worries me the most, right? Like going down to the championship as a Premier League club, you do get a lot of advantages right in theory you've got although they've been relegated you've got premier league players you can decide which ones you want to keep that will help you get back up you get parachute payments especially in our case you've had decades of premier league money champions league money we've got a massive stadium we've got loads of room news the thing that worries me is the people that are in charge are the people that have effectively got us in this mess and i my biggest worry this whole time has been how long it took them to identify that thomas frank was going to take us down.

44:35It took them way too long to figure that out, right? And that, to me, shows a level of either A, not understanding football clearly enough to identify, okay, he might be a good manager, but he's not a good manager for us. And this is a problem. We need to act quickly and try something different. Then their sort of approach of, oh, well, we will definitely stay up. So let's just get in an interim to keep us up so we can have our pick of managers in the summer. Oh, guys, if you don't get this appointment right, you're going to run out of games and we're going to go down then then you're going to be scrambling around it not to go very well and then go right now we're going to have to get in a permanent manager with the potential that we might go down anyway and having to deal with the fallout of that mess which again we don't know what provisions have been put into a contract to be like oh actually i don't want to manage in the championship so pay me up five years worth of money whether or not there's some sort of agreement there i don't know but again i don't have much faith in these people making these decisions because so far we've seen that they've made pretty bad ones, including January transfer window, either not sacking the manager in time that you bring in a new manager and give them the transfer window or giving the manager you've got in the seat enough money to buy enough players to get us out regardless of who the manager is, to not really sign any people that we needed in certain positions and sign a player that was just available, right?

45:50Those decisions are what worry me the most because plenty of clubs, big clubs have gone down and come back up. Some have taken longer than others, but it can be done. But what worries me is the people responsible for these decisions. I really do think they are inept. I think Vinay is a really, really bad CEO. And I think that Lange is a really, really bad director of football. And that's the bit that worries me the most. Now, on the flip side, and this is where I always take some solace, I'm a firm believer in just like looking at the optimistic route because I can't change anything either way, right?

46:23Nothing I say, think, do will affect this outcome. So I prefer to just think about the positives. If we stay up, they'll think, ah, we are brilliant. We brought in deservedly just the right time to keep us up. Thank goodness for that. Go back into another season, we go again, like nothing's changed. They won't see this as a big enough problem. And that could potentially mean that not much changes. And we're back here again, like in a year's time. And that it becomes the new normal, essentially. And they don't understand that this is a problem. And it takes too long for them to figure it out. And this becomes really a big issue.

46:56If we go down, things have to change. Like there has to be an element of like, you've taken us down. You've got to go. We've got to move forward. and it could be this sort of resetting refreshing moment that people are talking about and i understand why people have concerns why it won't work but let's assume that it does it would be a state where you go well we have to clear the decks because we have to get people off the wages right my biggest gripe this season has been players like van der ven with a face like thunder for most of the season because we're in a relegation battle you're part of the reason mate like do play better be better for romero the same thing i'm like sick of looking at him moaning at people getting himself sent off and missing massive chunks of games and then complaining because we're in a relegation battle there's players that are just permanently injured not their fault but we get to basically clear the decks because we have to we have to reset it literally cannot be the same we won't keep all the players because we can't so it could just affect change by necessity which could put us into a position where okay now we're looking at things slightly differently maybe we do integrate a few of those youth players that we've all been calling out for and suddenly those players die for the badge they care they care so much that it bridges the gap where we were going playing in the premier league suddenly they're playing the champ the championship and they look amazing because you know they're playing at a sort of a level that is a good place for those young players to play like mikey moore in scotland and suddenly it's like you can integrate those players with a few other players from around the world that you think would help you get back in you keep the madisons deckies xavi's because they can't go anywhere else because they got injuries and you keep the Dan Soz of this world who seem to give a shit you've got young promising players we've signed like Tell and you you keep a Solanke because he's going to bang 30 goals in the championship and you do have a good season where you smash everyone to bits in the championship with the Zerbi as manager and he's got a whole season to go I'm going to build a championship team that annihilates this league but will also be ready for the Premier League and we come back up and actually what we get to experience is the journey of going back from a team that gets promoted into the Premier League to being back in trying to pursue getting into just getting into Europe then just getting into the Champions League then being it we might be able to have that journey if we carry on with this road of just sticking a plaster every season it will be this perpetual state of hell for a long long time and so this feels like a moment for potentially ripping the plaster off and sucking out the gangrene and giving it another go chop the leg off and let's go again give me one of those lovely prosthetic bad boys and let's do this i mean do

49:31Jack:langer thanks session would you gamble would you bin them both off in summer because really because you know i know there's a lot of considerations there a lot of people will say they're the only football people in the building but they've been terrible man yeah but they're not the guys like and this is the thing for me is i understand the like vision of yeah but you particularly with CEOs, right? They need more time. They need to have a certain time horizon in order to make bigger changes. But we can only judge on what we've seen and the major moments this season, i.e. hiring Thomas Frank, firing Thomas Frank and the January transfer window, every single one of those decisions has been wrong.

50:11Like completely as well. Not even like you can make a case for it. They've completely failed. And yeah, great. We started putting flags on the seats for big games. Fucking great. I could have told you that. like it's not these are not the decisions that we need the business has been from a business perspective really well run so what we need you to do is make better decisions that impact the football team the men's first team that's what we need you to focus on now because the rest of it's doing all right and those major decisions for that element have been absolutely terrible Vinay has got this sort of reputation of well look what he did with Arsenal yeah but look what he did with Arsenal he basically had Arteta didn't sack him when everyone said sack him and he's gone on and done well and then he's left that's it so what are we basing this on that is some sort of genius and he tried to do the same thing with us he basically went well i didn't sack our terra and that worked out so let's just not sack frank that's his whole plan and it didn't work because guess what it's not a strategy because he doesn't know what he's talking about there's that famous clip of where we've strengthened the arsenal squad with socrates and some piece of shit players from crap fc sort of like kinty and all that lot just garbage and he's like i'll sit in there all look at what we've done and basically once he's left Arteta's like flogged all of them and brought in other players and so the the way that they've like had the success is sort of separate to him and this idea of yeah but he's the one who's built fan engagement and like got the fans or so what anybody can do that that's the easy bit the hard bit is like making the right decisions on calls on players as for Langer he's a decent youth scout that's what he is right he's identified clearly some pretty good youth players for us fine that's his skill set that is that's his lane he's been put into a job of like your director of football co-director of football with Paratici he's that he's not the guy clearly he's not capable of it how how can you sit in that room and go oh thank thank god we didn't panic what are you like and I understand people are like well you know at the time he thought that no anybody can see we've sold Brennan Johnson I think most people are like oh fair enough if we're going to sell him this kind of makes sense right he's not doesn't fit what we're trying to do now okay fine as soon as you get that kudus injury you have to sign someone in that position whether you want to or not you have to because that is now a position where we've got no players we can play on the right none and they didn't sign anyone that alone is a sackable offense that is gross misconduct it's a dereliction of your duty to balance the squad so those two i'd have been them i'd have been them i've been them now because there's no point we don't need them it's not like we're signing players or doing anything and i'll be looking for a replacement now because whatever happens it's been a horrific season the worst season in premier league history for spurs and the worst season in living memory for most people like this it's it's enough they've had enough they need to they need to go and this is what i mean if we stay up it needs to be a hard reset we need to think about everything from top to bottom in the way that the club is set up the internal culture the scouting network the who's going to be director of football the whole thing needs to be reviewed and if we go down it's even more important because you've got one season to get it right and if you don't get it right we could be in doomsday scenario of in that league for a long time or worse look what's happened to Leicester go through Leicester's squad and tell me like those players that are in there I know most of them and that worries me because I don't know any championship players most of those players are premier league quality yeah of course they are and this is what can happen if you don't take this stuff seriously you can put yourself in a bad situation that's why for me Vinay and Langer I If I was put in charge tomorrow by the losses, they'd both be fired because they've made a really bad mistake over and over again at crucial moments in the season.

53:49And they are very responsible for the reason that we're in this mess.

53:53Jack:Are you just hoping that Stavely, big Mandy Stavely and the lads will come and just save us, mate, this summer? Big Stave dog. Yeah, get someone to come and buy the club who's serious about making the football team the priority. One of the things, I know you've said this a lot, and I think it's really true. the main difference between the scum and us is that the be all and end all for them is success on the pitch and it hasn't been for us right and it just hasn't been a focus and a priority it's almost like oh this is good that we've got this like thing that people like because we can use that to insert commercial deal here whereas they're looking at going we have to win on the pitch that's it that's our number one priority that's the same for liverpool that's that is the same for man united that is the same even even the city group their whole thing is like successful on the pitch now they've got their reasons for why that's important to them but that is their main focus and the whole thing the whole machine is set up for the first teams of their respective teams to win ours is not it just shows you as well though with enic for as much as they sort of lauded as these geniuses or genie genie i is it genie i um that you know it's it's again to me it's sort of short-term thinking there's there's some talk now that tom brady and the consortium that own birmingham are thinking about using tottenham as a as a springboard as a launch pad that that stadium to create their own to turn whatever birmingham stadium what's it called birmingham stadium can't remember what it's called new streets the station isn't it but no notst andrews it isst andrews yeah i think you're right i think it'sst andrews let's go with that whatever it is they want to build a big stadium that can suddenly host huge events in the Midlands because they're suddenly like hang on why does everyone go down to London all the time we can build something we've we're in the second biggest city in the UK let's build a massive stadium here that can host football that can host gigs that can host fights that can host all of this you know like this thing that we have this stadium that can host all these gigs and all this stuff that's great and it's brilliant for now but even that ain't gonna last forever what it does last forever is the love for the football club is the is the love for or dare us to do is you know to dare us to do for people that want to see their team tottenham hotsburg go out and contest every single trophy that they're in every single football match that they take a part in and never take their eyes off of that and that's what this lot have done because you know we i've spoken about it on here john i've heard you talk about it on your pod and on fighting cock before because in the years leading up to this it was absolute envy it was just other than bill bauer right you know bill bauer happened let's not let's not pretend it didn't but for years it was just we are tottenham we just exist we don't bother anybody at the top but we're not getting bothered down at the bottom so to speak and uh now we are now we're getting bothered right up our bottoms john and it's not very nice whatsoever um but as you said that little bit of you you do feel a bit alive again don't you i'm watching games again now i was watching that wolves game and i was just like please tottenham you know for the for more than i have done in in a really long time this this is it mate and i like flab was asked a question on the fighting cock a little while back which was like um would you like would you rather be like involved in a relegation battle if it made you feel alive again or would you rather just like finish mid-table and not care about anything and i think he originally answered it going oh i'd rather be in a relegation battle because it make me feel something and then this season he's like why did I say that because it's actually horrible and I kind of challenged him on that and I was like this is the most engaged I've been since Pochettino times probably like I'm watching other teams games that could have an impact on our games I haven't watched other teams for 10 years couldn't care less about what's going on I just watch what's happening with Spurs and I'll do the odd hate watch for the scum that's it but now I'm like looking at results and like I'm feeling something now it's horrible what I'm feeling right like it is it's not nice and I'd rather we be feeling something at the top end obviously but I did have a few years of just numbness around Spurs which is also Enix fault right they allowed that to happen that numbness where we weren't we were just sort of floating and existing in this middle space and again this sounds like I'm like trying to put a positive spin like I'm glad this is happening I'm not glad it's happening but I am feeling something and I am engaged in what's happening and that has in a weird way like given me a bit more meaning to watching spurs and that's why i'm hoping that if we can just find a way to stay up like against all the odds against all the injuries all the stats all the form we find a way to just stay up that the owners either go okay like this is too much for us right and the succession kids just sell up and they move on and someone comes in and goes right well there's this so much to build on here let's actually make this happen or they go, okay, we need some serious operators to come in here and fix this because we can't have this happen in every season.

58:51And it's a complete overhaul from top to bottom because that's what it's going to take. The worst outcome here is that we stay up and nothing changes. That to me would be worse in a way than relegation because I think we run the risk of longer term, like this time if we go down, we have a good enough team that could get us back up. I do believe that. If this continues to carry on where we are basically just relegation for every season, that team that eventually goes won't ever come back up. Like they'll just, we will languish and languish and languish. And that's why I do feel like, in a very perverse way, there is, I can understand, I don't want it to happen, I'm still very much in the camp of we have to stay up.

59:33But I can understand the idea of like, it's a hard reset that could longer term help us. And the worst thing that can happen if we do stay up is that nothing changes. And that what they think, Like, oh, we stayed up. We did our job. Not thinking bigger picture. And so that's all to come. But for now, my focus is on the next game and getting something against Villa. Wouldn't it be sweet? Is old Martinez, is he fit at the minute for Villa? Is he playing in goal for them? Because what about Kola Mawani? World Cup, right? The ball goes through. Oh, yeah. He saves it. What about the exact scenario?

1:00:09And it flashes through his mind. I fucked the World Cup because of this guy and then just roofs it. Bang, 1-0, Spurs 97th minute. And it's like redemption for him and he finally contributes something decent. I'm always looking for storylines, Jack. I'm looking for storylines.

1:00:23Jack:Emi Martinez is playing. I can't say he's definitely playing. He played against Fulham the other day. All right, get Lumpon Mawani. Lumpon, he's going to bang one. I've just got a feeling. He's been terrible later, doesn't he? Exactly, he's due one and it's that football symmetry. he's gonna get a chance and he's gonna smash one in to win the game he's one of the worst players i've ever seen in our shirt i don't i honestly like i understand being like if he's unmotivated i understand if he's maybe just scared or sad or something but he just looks so bad he looks so bad this is a guy that like you say he's played in a world cup final for france you know and i i i I think I've been completely genuine when I say I've seen five, at least, better performances from Dane Scarlett when he's played for some of them.