This is uncharted territory for Tottenham Hotspur and their supporters, who have been moulded into cynical beings by hearing two decades of worthless words.
Once upon a time Spurs were huge. They were the first English club in the 20th century to win the league and cup double and two years later became the first British side to win a European trophy. Not content with that they then became the first to win two different continental competitions as they lifted the inaugural UEFA Cup.
In fact Tottenham, along with Manchester United, were the only two clubs in the country to win at least one major piece of silverware in each decade from the 1950s up until the turn of the century.
Then they stopped being something special and let everyone else pass them by. They did so because the north London club became everything their motto declared they shouldn’t be. They became safe and predictable.
There would be the odd fancy player signed to get the fans out of their seats but ultimately joy was about moments rather than tangible success. Those who became stars were never built around and the wasting of Harry Kane remains Daniel Levy’s biggest crime in north London.
The house was never furnished as Mauricio Pochettino once hoped and ultimately it became a club to be mocked as ‘Spursy’ or patronisingly patted on the head.
From within there were plenty of words and promises with little substance. Managers came and went with the project that was sold to them never actually resembling what they discovered when they walked through the doors. You could often pinpoint the exact moment when each realised what they had actually signed up for. Money was spent, but on players who were projects rather than the real deal. It was mediocrity and hope wrapped in fancy packaging with a bow on top.
Even as recently as last summer, long-time chairman Levy excitedly declared that he was not happy with the Europa League trophy that ended his 17-year wait for success because he wanted Spurs to win the Premier League and the Champions League.
Let’s ignore the fact that Levy and his board back then were deeply unhappy that Ange Postecoglou had prioritised winning the very trophy that allowed him to yell “We’re champions!” into the microphone in a room full of staff and players’ families that night in Bilbao.
The Australian was sacked a couple of weeks later and Spurs did anything but act like potential Premier League or Champions League challengers. They appointed another safe manager in Thomas Frank who ended up being nothing of the sort and they finished 17th, only escaping relegation on the final day of the season. The previously untouchable Levy was also sent packing by his bosses.
So you’ll forgive Tottenham fans for saying they’d heard it all before from those at the top of the club when the Lewis family stated, in a rare open letter after that horrendous season came to a close, that “change is happening, we know that actions will speak louder than words”.
Yet almost exactly five weeks on and there certainly has been action to finally back up words at Spurs. The club have spent £237million on three top drawer players alone that Roberto De Zerbi asked for – Sandro Tonali, Mateus Fernandes and Jan Paul van Hecke – and that’s not including the finally prised open wage structure that helped seal those deals and three transfers for Andy Robertson, Marcos Senesi and Martin Dubravka.
With Tonali they will enter the exclusive realm of clubs who spend £100million on a player, with the combined fee reaching that mark. Postecoglou once said he could never envisage the club ever doing that in its previous form.
Spurs are not finished either. Like someone who suddenly improves their diet and way of life after a heart scare, never before has a football club been so jolted to life by the threat of relegation.
It’s like someone flicked the ‘big club’ switch on again and Tottenham are signing players who would comfortably excel in any team in the Premier League or beyond. The Lilywhites would run away from transfer battles in the past, now they are diving headfirst into them and offering the kind of wages and a project that attracts ready-made top talent.
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It’s like a snowball gathering momentum, for with every game-changer they sign, so another one sits up and takes notice and thinks ‘something is happening at Tottenham, I’ll have a bit of that’.
In De Zerbi they have the leader the rudderless club have been searching for over the past 12 months, someone to gather behind and listen to. The new signings are all speaking about the Italian’s influence in negotiations and the project he is not just selling but actively ensuring becomes a reality.
After years of players leaving Spurs, frustrated at the promises that never came to pass, the club are putting their money where their mouth is.
“I spoke with the manager. I think he was the main key for me to join Tottenham and the project. We will fight for the Premier League, we will fight for first place,” said Fernandes before his soon-to-be midfield partner Tonali indicated similar before boarding his flight from Milan on Thursday morning.
For years Tottenham fans have begged for the club to ‘just pay the money’ as Levy’s haggling ensured deals dragged on and on across summers and often never came to pass while others never even got out of the blocks.
It was somewhat ironic that the former chairman apparently told his friend and former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan that Spurs had had their ‘pants pulled down’ by paying £52million for Van Hecke in the final year of his contract. It’s ironic because everything Levy had set up has actually allowed Tottenham to do all the things he wouldn’t.
In the end, Tottenham essentially swapped Luka Vuskovic, a talented young defender who had never even played for them, for Van Hecke. Time will decide whether that was the correct move or not and exactly who had their pants pulled down.
You can tell Spurs have made a statement in the window because of the outrage from rival fans. Watching the north London club spend big money on the very players they would have loved at their own club just a few weeks earlier has resulted in either mocking or anger.
One view is that Tottenham have wildly overpaid and had… well their pants pulled down, even though had those fans’ club done it, it would have been a ‘show of intent’, ‘real ambition’ or ‘what big clubs do’.
The other view is that Spurs are somehow being allowed to spend huge amount of money while others who finished above them in the table for two seasons running are being penalised by PSR. That’s of course ignoring so many factors like the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium’s huge revenue returns over the past seven years or that the club’s wage to revenue ratio is the lowest in the Premier League – again both down to Levy.
The club are comfortably within the rules. Nobody praised Tottenham back then for ‘going about it the right way’ and being self sustaining while others were spending huge amounts without the required revenue or consequences, and now people are moaning that Spurs shouldn’t be able to benefit from their own previous frugality.
For Tottenham eventually realised that if you can’t beat them, then you have to join them. Aside from Leicester’s fairytale season in which they saw off Spurs – also punching well above their weight – for the title, the big spenders always win the title and perhaps it’s unfortunately in keeping with that rule that the Foxes now find themselves in League One.
For football does not like you to climb out of the box it puts you in, but Spurs appear to have had enough of that line of thinking.
They have already spent more by early July than in any previous transfer window and for now reservations about the Lewis family must be parked. Yes, they have been there throughout the past 25 years but behind the scenes there’s a different feel to their involvement.
Managers would occasionally meet the mysterious billionaire Joe Lewis on a yacht moored in the water somewhere exotic and the 89-year-old’s presence at Tottenham matches once every five to 10 years was like spotting a rare animal out of its natural environment.
Now his daughter Vivienne and her son-in-law Nick Beucher have taken a more active role in backing the club’s ambitions. Vivienne is at most Spurs home games and could be seen walking around many of the European cities on Spurs’ Champions League trips. She was even spotted at one or two UEFA Youth League matches on the road.
Beucher has been involved in meetings at Hotspur Way with staff and head coaches, trying to see how the family, through ENIC, can support the board’s plans.
On that board is Peter Charrington as the non-executive chairman, seen as the family’s eyes and ears inside the club. Charrington is credited by some as being the one who ensured the deal to get De Zerbi into the club at the end of March was pushed through. It would be the decision that saved Spurs.
So while cynicism over the Lewis family after years stood behind Levy and accepting what he did, for better or for worse, is entirely understandable, this does feel different, whether it’s borne from the shock of last season or the genuine desire to create something special by giving CEO Vinai Venkatesham the backing to change a stale club.
The ownership had to get their decisions right this summer and so far the signs and the response have been good. It’s worth noting that the changing of the guard has come amid four years in which the owners have injected £332.5million into the club, after realising that two decades of self sustainability was just not working on the pitch.
Further investment injections this year have not been ruled out if required and multi-year plans are being put in place to not only transform the men’s first team as well as the performance and medical departments, but also the women’s side at Spurs and the academy with increased investment. There’s finally a drive to ensure the club isn’t just shiny looking from the outside, but has a football focus that matches.
So this summer will be stepping into the unknown for Tottenham and their fans. The club are trusting their charismatic head coach and there will be more spending to come as De Zerbi seeks improvements further up the pitch to ensure the goals flow. There will have to be sales, mainly due to the sheer size of the squad now with those six additions and further reinforcements to come, and some unpopular decisions may follow if it’s in keeping with what De Zerbi wants.
That’s the price of handing one man the keys to the kingdom, to first get him through the door and then because he delivered and saved the day. The Italian will now decide what comes next, for better or for worse, but at least Tottenham have a direction again and the fans deserve to be excited about something after what they have been dragged through.
The De Zerbi way may not work and there will certainly be collateral damage along the path, but at least Tottenham Hotspur are remembering what they once were. The club is daring to do after years of doing anything but and if they truly do, then it will be all the sweeter for it.
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