Celtic friendly will provide high-energy clues for Spurs fans

Article by Douglas Bence

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Interesting that Spurs’ chairman Daniel Levy’s comments about the club playing attractive football should generate such criticism. One Liverpool supporter sounding off here seemed to think that Spurs, for many years the exemplars of mid-table mediocrity, don’t know what attractive football is.

What Levy actually said was that he thought that his new coach, Mauricio Pochettino, ‘with his high energy, attacking football, will embrace the style of play we associate with our club.’ In other words not the negative fare dished up by the likes of Sam Allardyce, who’s brilliant at avoiding relegation with half-talented sides and a limited or non-existent budget.

Having said that his West Ham triumphed three times over the old enemy last season and the Hammers will be looking for a fourth consecutive win on the opening fixture of the season at Upton Park on 16 August.

QPR visit three-point lane the following Saturday, but Spurs’ fans won’t really know whether the Lillywhites have gone forward or backward until 30 August when Liverpool rock up hoping to repeat last season’s 5-0 humiliation.

There might be a few clues in the three North American friendlies next month, in Seattle, Toronto and Chicago, but the Poch’s best starting line up is unlikely to be determined by then. More enlightening, perhaps, are the two August friendlies, against Celtic in Helsinki and Schalke at the lane.

Meanwhile, Liverpool fans are entitled to their opinion. The club played some great stuff last season, they were unquestionably the best side in the Premiership after Christmas and enjoyed a fantastic run only to bottle it at the end.

Spurs were poor and their supporters knew it. Maybe sixth place was a little flattering and perhaps owed something to the raw skills and enthusiasm of temporary coach Tim Sherwood.

And not just last season. It was Spurs under Martin Jol, remember, who got a point at Chelsea by putting as many men as they could behind the ball, what José Mourinho in his first stint as coach described as parking a bus in front of goal, a phrase that has since joined the ‘sick as a parrot’ glossary.

That didn’t stop the Special One adopting the same tactics when he took his side to Anfield last season, but why should double standards be confined to journalism, politics and the police force?

His tactics were successful, of course, but Liverpool didn’t get it together in that fixture. We didn’t know it at the time, but the red’s defeat signalled the beginning of the end of their dreams of winning the title. But to go from eighth to second in one season, however, was a fantastic achievement and it wasn’t all down to Luis Suarez and Brendon Rogers.

Football traditions aren’t created in one season, however, and in recent years the Scousers have played some mediocre stuff and that side left by Rafael Benítez in 2010 was a disgrace. They need a repeat performance next season and the season after that before opinions change.

Many fans see Liverpool, like Spurs, as living in the past, those far off days of the 1970s and 80s when the sides created by Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley won 11 league titles and seven European trophies. They weren’t unbeatable, but didn’t fall to pieces when the pressure was on. They were winners and deserved to be.

But perennial success has some illogical side effects. After a while you can get to thinking that you should win by right not ability. Liverpool thought they should be winners, not because they were a great side, but because they were Liverpool.

Spurs have never been so arrogant, not even when they were winners. But to produce ‘high energy, attacking football’ they will need a lot more than double helpings of Wheatties for breakfast.

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