No Way, Manuel!

When a big boy approaches a smaller boy in the playground, intimidates him, shoves him around, tells him how much money he wants from his victim, they call it bullying. When the self same situation is replicated in football, it’s called Real Madrid and/or Barcelona!

I read with great interest this week that the great Spanish behemoth in white want to plunder an equally impressive English scoring icon. The article stated, yet again, that Real want our Harry, are willing to pay a certain price and have three players in mind to replace him – as far as you can. Ditto Dele Ali, although the Catalonian giants have stated they prefer the old way, cash, which is very, very nice and sporting of them; gentlemen to the end.

Yes, folks, it may be Friday the thirteenth, again, but it seems more like Groundhog Day.

For older fans it rankles very much that we have gone from being the ‘Bank of England club’ in the early sixties’ to nigh on European also-ran’s, until the advent of Harry and Poch; Spurs’ very own pair of footballing cops. Well, they arrested our decline, didn’t they? Now, even though we are about to dispense with the smallest ground of the top six clubs, and have built our impressive squad on a relative shoestring, the threat has returned yet again; and I guess it’ll always be this way unless WE were the club to eventually threaten the parameters of global football – we wish. This makes me wonder at times if ANY player alive ever looks at the wonderful improvement being made at their club and thinks, ‘Hold on. It might pay me to stick around here to see where this goes!” – or is EVERY player merely in this great game [of monopoly] of ours just for the pay check?

Loathe to mix politics with sport, Spain’s immediate problem seems to be holding on to the sum of the whole, although heavy-handed tactics don’t seem totally alien to their nature, there, either. With the advent of all the new money in the English game, are we REALLY that susceptible every time Real and Barca come calling, and is Daniel Levy the only individual willing to stand up to them? So Real want Harry Kane. Don’t we all? And Barca want Dele! Isn’t it truly amazing how both these clubs feel a compulsion to demand[initially via the press], bully, then, ultimately, get their own way? So much for the over-riding power of the Premier League! At the very least, Barca haven’t showed themselves up by offering a 33 year old, a semi-permanent cripple and ‘Sick note’ reincarnation, and a guy who seemingly struggles to hit the side of a liner. I’d just love to be a fly on Daniel’s office wall when THAT phone call comes through…-

Rumour has it that the concrete will still be setting on the day that we move in to the new, Kentucky Fried Chicken Stadium on the first day of next season, which may well extend the disinterest of some to sign new contracts, or to commit to the excitement of the future Tottenham Hotspur. Meanwhile, the stories will keep coming. The Spaniards will keep tapping up our players via semi-spurious articles and excited agents. And the fan base of our emergent club will have to live on the edge of their seats… Many rumours will spread. Many heart strings will be stretched. Many questions will be posed. The Tottenham version of the Spanish inquisition…