My Debut

As I sit down to write my first article, I realise how big of a task this really is. Firstly, what do I write about? When you have a topic so broad it can be hard to decide what to write about. Spurs, Spurs, Spurs where should I start. Should I write about a current on-field issue, maybe our striking woes or maybe I should write about how Harry Kane and Ryan Mason deserve more first team football to fast-track their development. However I choose to write about what I feel the club as a whole needs when you are at the stage in which we are at. This thing I feel we need as a club is stability.

Stability is when an object, in our case a football club, which is in a stable state. For Tottenham to be in a stable state we need to be in a condition which is unlikely to change or fail. For the purpose of the article I am going to compare Tottenham to another club which was at a similar stage maybe even behind us in the pecking order of English football about 3 years ago, Liverpool. I have been following Tottenham Hotspur about 5 years now and each year I more passionately support my beloved spurs. I chose Tottenham as I wanted to support a team which hadn’t had much achievement in the premier league but were striving to become successful.

So let’s now go back and look at how both clubs compared during the three season from 2011/12 – 2013/14. In the 2011/12 season we came 4th still didn’t manage to get champions league football and sacked our manager, Liverpool came 8th didn’t achieve anything other than a carling cup in addition to reaching the FA cup final and ended up sacking their manager as well. Both clubs appointed new managers for the 2012/13 season and we somehow managed to fall back one place in the table from the previous year and came 5th, Liverpool on the other-hand improved and came 6th. Then last season we sold our best player, bought poorly, sacked our manager halfway through the season and had a below par season in which we ended up coming 6th. However to everyone’s surprise Liverpool managed to come second after not selling their best player and not sacking their manager halfway through the season?

I think what this shows is how important stability is to a football club. When talking simply, Liverpool gained stability over that three year period on the contrary we lost stability over the same three year period. However the good thing for us supporters is that we seem to be on the right track to gaining back the stability this club needs. We have appointed a great manager who has proven himself in the premier league, stuck with the same first team to last year only a change of formation for the new manager and a few additions to fill the holes in the squad. We have gotten rid of the dead wood player such as Livermore, Dawson (as much as it hurts me to say it) and Sandro (again as much as it hurts me to say it) as well as starting the season playing better football and winning games. All these changes are positive and seem to be pointing in the direction of improvement.

The point that stability is important to football clubs is further driven home when looking at a club such as Manchester United. They had one of the best managers of all time and had a squad which was only ever slightly changed not completely scrapped. With this manager and squad, over time they managed to win numerous premier league trophies, champion’s league titles and four FA and League Cups. However last season after Ferguson retired and had to be replaced Man U lost stability and ended up having their worst season in Premier league history. As a result they then Sacked Moyes and appointed Louis van Gaal, they then lost even more stability through this and now they have started the season with loses to Swansea at home, Leicester City and getting destroyed by MK Dons. However Man U have spent massive amounts of money and even though they are playing bad have no stability at their club they should still make top four through the sheer talent in the squad they have.

Stability also comes from the fans of the club, the case for us was that when results went bad under AVB we all started complaining about him and that’s when the media gets on board and that’s when the pressure mounted on the manager. It was the same at United with Moyes as results weren’t going Man United’s way the fans got irritated and started questioning the manager the media then got on board which led to the board putting pressure on Moyes to win games. When results don’t go spurs way this year which I can definitely see happening at some point, let’s not point the blame at the manager he has proven himself at Espanyol and Southampton so we should give him the patience he deserves. He hasn’t had much financial support to bring in the players he needs yet and has still done a great job so far.

AND THE SPURS GO MARCHING ON

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