You can try as hard as you like, you'll never kill the old Spurs curse. It will lurk, and it will strike, when you least expect it.
Showed up expecting to win, played lethargically and like crap, and never got going. I said at half-time that we needed Dembele on, and that we were being proven unable to pick up Lanzini, which was mystifying given that we were essentially playing a back four plus *two* DMs ahead of them. Well, we were punished for not picking up Lanzini, and for our weaknesses on the flanks - Walker was outdone on the right, Davies made a summarily useless header out on the left, then completely bottled the follow-up challenge, and the ball bounced around and was poked in as we looked for the linesman's flag to save our *rses.
That was a classically 'Spurs' goal to concede, but that in itself was entirely forgivable in the context of a magnificent defensive record overall. What was worse was our utter lack of ideas, our lethargy, our inability to get out of first gear throughout the game. At the end, West Ham were making a mockery of our supposedly superior fitness - winning every challenge, winning every header and breaking at speed while we were standing around moping and feeling sorry for ourselves.
Ultimately, this was an entirely self-inflicted defeat, and an entirely avoidable one. West Ham were nothing special - they put eleven men within ten yards of each other and played for a draw, at their own home ground. But we were nothing special as well, and that was the harder thing to take given how brilliant we have been.
I never cared for the title. We were not, are not and will not be ready to win one for quite some time. Games like these are a helpful barometer in that regard - we had a brilliant mentality to come back from 1-0 down against Swansea in injury time and 2-1 down against these c*nts at the Lane, and we won 9 games on the trot heading into this one. We did as well - no,
better than any Spurs team in my lifetime, under almost certainly the best Spurs manager in my lifetime.
But it's not enough to win the title. Not by a long shot. That's just the cruel reality of it.
You want to win the title, you win *every* one of these games. You don't have an iffy start, or an iffy middle - you take the form we showed over nine games heading into this one and multiply it by three. A single slip is punishable, every mental lapse is unforgivable. Every missed opportunity is cruelly, almost vindictively cut apart and excoriated. Every man not single-mindedly focused on winning at all costs is cut adrift and sent packing.
There is no *sense of the occasion*. There is no special game, or a derby meriting significance, or anything of the sort. There are 38 hurdles to be vaulted, and at the end, the 38th must be vaulted as coldly and clinically as the 1st was, if that's what is necessary. And if you're trying to catch up after the first weekend, you've as good as lost it already.
We are not ready for that. We are getting there, slowly and in fits and starts. We *will* get there someday - all it will take is a constant desire to build on the previous season, climbing inch by inch until we get there. But we're not there yet. And, again, to get there more quickly requires ruthlessness that maybe we can't afford to have right now.
Vincent Janssen's having a difficult start to life in London? Bin him, and never look back. Harry Winks, a young kid trying to break into the team he loves, is asking for a chance? Tell him to f*ck off and not come back until we've won the title and there are meaningless games we can blood him in. Harry Kane, our talisman, our leader and our beating heart on the field, is struggling? Bench him, and bring in someone who takes his chances. Walker is making a bit of noise about rotation? Send him to the u-21s, keep him there and bin him off the first chance you get come the end of the season. No preferring youth, no sentimentality about 'one of our own', no giving transfers a chance. Results, and performances, are all that matter. *That* is what you have to do if you want to win the title without an infusion of money and in a very short time span.
Are we ready for that level of ruthlessness to accelerate our chances of winning the title? I don't think so. And so I'd much prefer to do it our way - climbing slowly, methodically, going from 64 to 70 to 77+ points and aiming higher with each season. Growing slowly, and keeping our humanity and our ethos as we do so. Giving our youngsters and new signings a fair crack of the whip, going about our business as humans and not title-winning machines devoid of emotion, and building slowly - relentlessly, but slowly. Breaking hoodoos as we go - winning games we feared to win, finishing above our rivals, getting naivety and fragility out of our system - but slowly, and at a pace which enables us to retain our humanity.
Mauricio Pochettino and the lads have done a fantastic job this season. And whatever we get from here on in is a bonus - hell, whatever we got from 72 points onward was a bonus, and yet here we are, with 77 and looking at 80, and having ensured the end of one of our biggest hoodoos in a long time (namely, finishing above our rivals).
Today was our failure. It was our trademark self-inflicted bit of Spursiness. But it doesn't mean much, in the end - it only means something to the fans of the other clubs who, for the second year running, couldn't do their jobs and compete for the title despite spending hundreds of millions of pounds on expensive failures. It only means something to Sky, who in desperation latched on to us to manufacture excitement for a title race that was over in December. It only means something to West Ham fans, who will maybe rightly) celebrate their tinpot achievement of beating us once a year and finishing in lower mid-table, looking forward to watching Robert Snodgrass, James Collins and other such footballing worthies grace their empty uranium-laced Giganto-Bowl of a ground.
It shouldn't mean much to us. And we are the people who ultimately matter in terms of our own story - the Spurs family. That's all that counts. Not Sky's manufactured title race, not other fans, not pundits, not 'neutrals'. Us.
So let's take it easy with the title talk, and simply bask in what has been a great season from a bunch of hard-working, committed lads. They're allowed slips. And the best thing is, they've proven that they learn from them.
Get back up, and let's end our WHL journey with a high next weekend. Otherwise, onward we go.
