Well, here we are again. I return to my desk (and my third glass of port before noon) to contemplate the absolute bin fire that is Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. This week’s highlight? A 4–0 battering at the hands of Bayern Munich in a pre-season friendly so limp, so utterly devoid of backbone, I’m convinced the squad had their spines surgically removed before kick-off. I’ve seen more fight in a queue for oat milk lattes in Crouch End.
And before the usual apologists start bleating about “fitness levels” and “just a friendly” stop. This wasn’t a friendly. This was a global broadcast of our incompetence. A festival of futility. A one-hour-and-35-minute advert for every decent player in Europe to avoid N17 like it’s a particularly virulent strain of norovirus.
The Threadbare Circus Squad
Our squad, if you can call it that, looks like something cobbled together for a Comic Relief charity match. Son has gone and we have left, a predominantly injury prone bunch of overpaid mid-table merchants, and the eternal hope that maybe, just maybe, the academy might cough up a miracle before Burnley in six days. Five players short? Ha! We’re ten players short if you actually want to compete at the top of the table rather than making up the numbers like the awkward kid no one picked for the school team.
And yes, I hear you: “But Frank, we’ve got Kudos!” Yes, one player. Fantastic. The rest of the window has been a Daniel Levy masterclass in doing bugger-all while appearing terribly busy. Somewhere in a luxury suite in Singapore, he’s probably leaning back with a flute of champagne, telling himself he’s revolutionising football operations while the club continues to stagnate like an abandoned paddling pool.
Thomas Frank’s Miracle Workload
Let’s take a moment for the actual manager, shall we? Thomas Frank, a man now asked to perform a Premier League survival act with the footballing equivalent of a student flat’s fridge contents: one lonely tomato, a jar of suspicious-looking pickles, and a lump of cheese two weeks past its sell-by date. Every post-match press conference is basically a hostage video at this point.
If anyone can conjure something from this sorry lot, it’s him. But the club is actively sabotaging his chances by handing him a squad with the depth of a saucer and the resilience of a wet teabag.
ENIC & Levy: The Laurel and Hardy of Football Governance
I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it until my liver finally gives in to this port habit: ENIC and Levy are running this club like a property portfolio, not a football team. Success on the pitch is an inconvenient distraction from the main business of stadium naming rights, NFL games, and flogging replica shirts at £125 a pop. The ambition to win the league? Fantasy. The ambition to win the Champions League? Science fiction. Their true ambition is profit margins, plain and simple.
They’ve created a shiny, hollowed-out husk of a club, where the training ground looks like NASA HQ but the squad looks like the cast of a Sunday league documentary.
The Port Verdict
After Bayern, after staring at the fixture list, and after realising that our “transfer strategy” is just Levy thumbing through his Rolodex of excuses, I’ve come to the only logical conclusion: this season will be another exercise in mid-table mediocrity, dressed up with a press release about “long-term project building.” I’ve ordered another case of Taylor’s 20-Year Old Tawny because frankly, it’s the only way I’m getting through this circus.
If you’re a Spurs fan, buckle up — the ride’s going to be bumpy, boring, and borderline insulting. And if you’re ENIC, Daniel Levy, or anyone with actual power at this club? Either spend the bloody money or sell up and go.
References
- Bayern Munich 4–0 Tottenham Hotspur – BBC Sport match report: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football
- Tottenham transfer news – The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/team/tottenham-hotspur
- ENIC Group profile – Financial Times: https://www.ft.com
- Premier League fixture list – PremierLeague.com: https://www.premierleague.com/fixtures