guiltyparty
Well-Known Member
- Sep 21, 2005
- 9,023
- 13,524
Nice piece in the Standard yesterday evening about us, didn't see it posted anywhere else, even if it's by what often seems like a fairly committed Spurs fan…
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/stand...s-of-87-this-spurs-side-have-staying-power.do
Unlike class of 87, this Spurs side have staying power
Jason Cowley
28 Nov 2011
Tottenham are enjoying their best start to a season since their Double-winning season and this is their most convincing team since 1987, when manager David Pleat, learning from what he had witnessed at the 1986 World Cup, introduced a new system with Clive Allen as a lone striker in front of a highly mobile five-man midfield.
That season, in which Allen scored 49 goals, Spurs played a new kind of fluid, technical football at a time when English clubs were banned from European competitions, and many of their rivals, such as Arsenal, were playing a banal long-ball game, a version of anti-football.
For far too long, even their supporters would agree, Spurs have flattered to deceive. Even in 1986-87, when they were the most technically accomplished side in the League, they did not win anything, losing an epic League Cup semi-final to Arsenal (after a replay) and a great FA Cup final to Coventry as well as finishing third. At the end of that season Glenn Hoddle, perhaps their finest ever playmaker, was sold to Monaco (the purchasing manager was Arsene Wenger) and, within a few months, Pleat had been forced to resign over lurid allegations.
What could, and should, have been the start of a golden period for Spurs turned out to be nothing more than another false start as Chris Waddle, another star of the five-man midfield, was also sold to a French club in 1989.
By contrast Arsenal prospered. Their League Cup win in 1987 under new manager George Graham was the first small triumph in what would become a long chain of successes which, at times, rendered the north London derby all but meaningless, so one-sided did it become.
In his celebrated poem The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost writes of coming upon two divergent paths in a wood and, after much contemplation, choosing the one "less travelled", and of being haunted by the consequences of that decision. The poem - one of America's most popular - is an allegory of choices made and opportunities missed, of what actually happened and what might have been.
Over the years, I've often wondered what might have happened if Spurs had won that League Cup semi-final, and not Arsenal, and then the FA Cup as well. What if they'd taken another road? What kind of club might they have been today?
As it is, after so many seasons of underachievement and long-nurtured resentment of their north London rivals, they have at last assembled a team capable of winning the Premier League; a team as thrilling as any out there.
It was correct that chairman Daniel Levy remained resolute and refused to allow Luka Modric to leave for Chelsea during the transfer window, when many were urging him to take the £40million on offer. His refusal to sell Modric, his best player, was a statement of determination and pride - why should we succumb to the graceless, avaricious power of Chelsea or Manchester City, whose standard response to adversity is to flourish another £50million?
No one should fault the ambition of Levy. He and his board have consistently - some would say recklessly - gambled in the transfer market, often over-paying for mediocre players (David Bentley, for instance), and being suckered by the hyperbole of agents. But theirs is a long-held vision of transforming Spurs into a top four, Champions League club and more, and in Harry Redknapp they have the manager capable of delivering all that they desire.
There's something admirably fanatical about Redknapp. Aged 64 and just returned from minor heart surgery, he's utterly consumed with football, to the probable detriment of his health. He has spoken of how "this game can make the most mild-mannered of people explode as when you are sitting on the bench you get eaten up inside from first to last whistle … After a game I cannot sleep, there is too much going on in my head as I go over moves, think about game plans, think about which player has had a good or bad game - and it's worse if you lose."
To watch Redknapp during a game, with his grimaces and various other expressions of hyperactivity, is to observe a man in thrall to his obsession. He was unfortunate that there was so much unrest, indeed great unrest, inside the club at the start of the season, with Modric confused and agitating to leave and midfield "destroyer" Scott Parker yet to arrive from West Ham. After two games Spurs were bottom, having lost to both Manchester clubs. But City and United caught them at an especially propitious time; they will not be so lucky again.
In 1987, Spurs ran out of energy and out of luck in the closing weeks of the season. There are many who expect something similar to happen to them this season, for them to flare brightly and then burn out in the way of all Spurs sides.
I'm not so sure. Somehow this team, this time, seems different.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/stand...s-of-87-this-spurs-side-have-staying-power.do
Unlike class of 87, this Spurs side have staying power
Jason Cowley
28 Nov 2011
Tottenham are enjoying their best start to a season since their Double-winning season and this is their most convincing team since 1987, when manager David Pleat, learning from what he had witnessed at the 1986 World Cup, introduced a new system with Clive Allen as a lone striker in front of a highly mobile five-man midfield.
That season, in which Allen scored 49 goals, Spurs played a new kind of fluid, technical football at a time when English clubs were banned from European competitions, and many of their rivals, such as Arsenal, were playing a banal long-ball game, a version of anti-football.
For far too long, even their supporters would agree, Spurs have flattered to deceive. Even in 1986-87, when they were the most technically accomplished side in the League, they did not win anything, losing an epic League Cup semi-final to Arsenal (after a replay) and a great FA Cup final to Coventry as well as finishing third. At the end of that season Glenn Hoddle, perhaps their finest ever playmaker, was sold to Monaco (the purchasing manager was Arsene Wenger) and, within a few months, Pleat had been forced to resign over lurid allegations.
What could, and should, have been the start of a golden period for Spurs turned out to be nothing more than another false start as Chris Waddle, another star of the five-man midfield, was also sold to a French club in 1989.
By contrast Arsenal prospered. Their League Cup win in 1987 under new manager George Graham was the first small triumph in what would become a long chain of successes which, at times, rendered the north London derby all but meaningless, so one-sided did it become.
In his celebrated poem The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost writes of coming upon two divergent paths in a wood and, after much contemplation, choosing the one "less travelled", and of being haunted by the consequences of that decision. The poem - one of America's most popular - is an allegory of choices made and opportunities missed, of what actually happened and what might have been.
Over the years, I've often wondered what might have happened if Spurs had won that League Cup semi-final, and not Arsenal, and then the FA Cup as well. What if they'd taken another road? What kind of club might they have been today?
As it is, after so many seasons of underachievement and long-nurtured resentment of their north London rivals, they have at last assembled a team capable of winning the Premier League; a team as thrilling as any out there.
It was correct that chairman Daniel Levy remained resolute and refused to allow Luka Modric to leave for Chelsea during the transfer window, when many were urging him to take the £40million on offer. His refusal to sell Modric, his best player, was a statement of determination and pride - why should we succumb to the graceless, avaricious power of Chelsea or Manchester City, whose standard response to adversity is to flourish another £50million?
No one should fault the ambition of Levy. He and his board have consistently - some would say recklessly - gambled in the transfer market, often over-paying for mediocre players (David Bentley, for instance), and being suckered by the hyperbole of agents. But theirs is a long-held vision of transforming Spurs into a top four, Champions League club and more, and in Harry Redknapp they have the manager capable of delivering all that they desire.
There's something admirably fanatical about Redknapp. Aged 64 and just returned from minor heart surgery, he's utterly consumed with football, to the probable detriment of his health. He has spoken of how "this game can make the most mild-mannered of people explode as when you are sitting on the bench you get eaten up inside from first to last whistle … After a game I cannot sleep, there is too much going on in my head as I go over moves, think about game plans, think about which player has had a good or bad game - and it's worse if you lose."
To watch Redknapp during a game, with his grimaces and various other expressions of hyperactivity, is to observe a man in thrall to his obsession. He was unfortunate that there was so much unrest, indeed great unrest, inside the club at the start of the season, with Modric confused and agitating to leave and midfield "destroyer" Scott Parker yet to arrive from West Ham. After two games Spurs were bottom, having lost to both Manchester clubs. But City and United caught them at an especially propitious time; they will not be so lucky again.
In 1987, Spurs ran out of energy and out of luck in the closing weeks of the season. There are many who expect something similar to happen to them this season, for them to flare brightly and then burn out in the way of all Spurs sides.
I'm not so sure. Somehow this team, this time, seems different.
