*
I liked hearing Eric Dier say that if we don’t win a trophy with the squad that we have, we’ll feel very disappointed in five years’ time. That’s the attitude of a winner. In the words of Napoleon, ‘Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.’
Harry Kane spoke in similar terms: ‘Something is happening here. I’d be surprised if any of my teammates would go now. We just need to take that last step, which is to win trophies.’
He said ‘trophies’. In the plural.
*
Today, four days after the Chelsea game, we have played the home cup tie against Aston Villa, a big club currently languishing in the Championship. Toni is back after two days laid up in bed. He still looks slightly under the weather, but he wanted to be here because Michel Vorm was starting the game.
It was a tricky game in which we struggled going forward. I brought Alli on for Janssen, which boosted our movement. The Dutchman came here to contribute in many ways and made a promising start to the season, but now the demands of the game here are weighing him down and he’s struggling. I’ll speak to him tomorrow. He has to offer more in training and in matches. I know that he can.
It was goalless at the interval. I decided to bring on a pacey wide player in the 70th minute (N’Koudou) in place of one of our centre-backs (not young Carter-Vickers, but Alderweireld) because they only had one man up top.
Goal-kick by Vorm in the 71st minute. The ball reaches N’Koudou who crosses it in and on the end of it is . . . our full-back! It was Ben Davies’ first goal for Tottenham, what a moment. Luck hasn’t been on his side until now. He gets forward, but there have been no sign of goals before today. Ben is an extraordinary guy. He’s always ready to train hard and possesses real quality. Son rounded off the scoring ten minutes later to make it 2–0 and we made it through to the fourth round.
*
We’ve had a full week of training, which doesn’t happen often. It’s important to enjoy calmer periods. We gave the players time off: Sunday and Monday for those who didn’t play against Aston Villa and also today, Tuesday, for those who did. The first important training session ahead of West Brom will be tomorrow. They’re always tough opponents and our last two meetings have ended all-square. We haven’t actually beaten them at home since 2012.
We’ve drawn League Two outfit Wycombe Wanderers in the FA Cup fourth round.
Rumours are doing the rounds that both Manchester clubs want our full-backs.
I’ve lost four kilograms.
*
Since Wednesday, we had only one training session per day for the rest of the week. After about an hour of ball work almost every day, we headed home between three and six o’clock, allowing us to spend more time with our families. Energy levels are being restored and I feel personally refreshed.
*
Saturday 14 January. We beat West Brom 4–0. Our home form has been sensational, with six wins on the spin.
We seem to be on a mission to bid farewell to White Hart Lane by leaving a fitting legacy and reminding everyone of what a difficult place it was for visiting teams. We dominated throughout and our first-half display was up there with the best football we’ve played this season; we went in at the break two goals to the good, one of which came from Harry Kane, who ended up notching a hat-trick. The only sour note was the injury to Jan Vertonghen, who’ll be out for a couple of months. Opportunity knocks for someone else.
We’ve moved second. We keep progressing. Let’s see how far we can go.
*
I gave an interview to Argentinian newspaper La Nación. I’m not all that well known in my homeland. I said that I don’t need shows of affection from the public to make me feel good about myself. I don’t seek popular acclaim; the support of my loved ones, my friends and family, is enough for me. Was I being totally sincere? Pretty much.
I also opened up at one of my press conferences about another key feature of our philosophy: the fact that there’s no such thing as perfection, but we always aim for it and will never be happy to settle for less.
*
17 January. Since the beginning of the year . . .
I’ve gone 16 days without drinking a glass of wine.
I’ve dedicated 16 hours to my health.
And I’ve already lost almost five kilograms.
*
With no game until tomorrow, Saturday, we’ve been able to take advantage of this week to go over concepts that we hadn’t touched on since pre-season. We’ve managed to get a good amount done and the players have been receptive.
The line-up for tomorrow’s game was decided in part by a plate of lasagne. We’d agreed to meet the squad at midday today. At 11.30, my staff and I were debating our team selection and there were two players in contention for one spot. The lads filtered in and variously ordered themselves some coffee, juice or a piece of toast. And then one of the aforementioned pair helped himself to some lasagne. Our first reaction was to laugh: who in their right mind would scoff down a plate of lasagne an hour before training? But that was precisely the point: based on this insight into the lasagne-eater’s frame of mind, the other guy got the nod for the final place in the starting XI.
We revealed the team, trained and then travelled to Manchester.
*
We were second-best against Manchester City.
Jesús noticed in the warm-up that the team weren’t as pumped up as they should’ve been. City had lost 4–0 to Everton six days earlier, whereas we went into the game on a high. The upshot was that our players did not feel the right amount of tension. Not good.
Off-the-ball play proved to be the difference. They put the squeeze on us, forcing us into errors and making it difficult for us to regain possession. And whoever won the ball back quicker was always going to be able to attack more effectively.
Such was their stranglehold in the middle of the park that we had to make changes. One option would’ve been to push Dele Alli into a deeper role, while the other, which we plumped for, was to switch from three at the back to four, with Eric Dier – who had started at centre-half – stepping into midfield. By doing so, we managed to slightly curtail the dominance City had enjoyed in the first 25 minutes.
Still, we were lucky to go into half-time at 0–0.
We decided to bring off one of the defenders and Wimmer, having been booked, was the fall guy. But should we introduce another central midfielder or a more attacking player like Son, so that their backline had something to think about? We opted for the latter.
I gave the lads a necessary talking-to: ‘I don’t care about how we play, our style or our defensive set-up. All that’s irrelevant; if we’re not more aggressive, it’s futile. It’s a matter of attitude: either we match their aggression on and off the ball, or this game is as good as lost.’
Son provided us with an outlet for long passes in behind their defence. But a comedy of errors led to City opening the scoring four minutes after the break. Shortly afterwards, they doubled the scoreline following a swift counter-attack. Both goals were avoidable and came from the types of moves that we’d flagged up prior to the game. City would’ve gone on to crush a lesser team, but we responded and reduced the deficit just four minutes later, getting ourselves right back into the game.
I think it was the thought of being on the brink of humiliation that jolted our players into life. As a group, we showed that we won’t lie down.
Toby got injured and instead of putting on Ben Davies at left-back, I dropped Wanyama back into defence and introduced Harry Winks, who gave us more control. Suddenly, in the last 20 minutes, we realised that we had the upper hand physically. City had done a lot of sprinting and covered a lot of ground. Our equaliser, in which Winks had a hand, was in part a consequence of the opposition’s tired legs and delayed reactions.
2–2. We were happy with the result – it was the most we deserved.
> The refereeing was one of the main topics at the post-match press conference, but I always keep in mind that more contact is allowed in England than elsewhere in Europe. The fact that fouls aren’t awarded in many instances involving contact explains why there are so many turnovers, and it’s the same for both sides. The problem is that we’re not able to play with the same defensive intensity in European competitions.
I bumped into Guardiola after the game. ‘You’ve got to tell me all about Monaco,’ he said to me.
‘What?’ I replied, not understanding at first. City are up against them in the next round of the Champions League.
*
After the game, we set off for Barcelona. All of us except Lamela. Vertonghen travelled wearing a protective boot. The poor guy – we went on the same trip this time last year and he was on crutches.
We got to the hotel at 3 a.m. and gave the squad the Sunday off.
I used the day to pick up the car I keep at my house in the city and gave my best tour-guide impression for some of the players. We stopped off at a small shop to buy Spanish ham, then I took them to the Zona Alta (a high-lying, upscale part of town), after which we headed down to Espanyol’s training ground, where I pointed out the tower on which Miki used to practically risk his life to film training sessions. Then we returned to the hotel and went for tapas. In the afternoon, Miki and I had agreed to work out together in the hotel gym. While we were pedalling on the exercise bikes, we switched on Chelsea’s game against Hull and saw what happened to Ryan Mason.
It was a horrific clash of heads. Seven or eight minutes passed and the kid didn’t get up. The commentators were lost for words. In the end he was stretchered off with his eyes closed.
In the evening, we all went for dinner. While we were there, we found out that Ryan had fractured his skull. I’d already left a message with his girlfriend, whom I met when the two of them came round to our place for dinner one day so that Karina could give them some advice about nutrition and diet. John McDermott had been in touch with his dad, who told him that Ryan wants to see us as soon as possible. We’ll go to visit him when we get back.
We trained at Montjuïc on Monday morning. Since we’d had such trouble bringing the ball out from the back against City, we devoted a whole hour of the session to that. ‘Think about one thing,’ I told them. ‘Even if you make a mistake passing the ball out, you won’t be penalised. You won’t concede goals because of it, as there’s always someone on hand to cover your back and get a foot in. Or because the opposition still have to put the ball in the net, which is never easy. Playing long balls is worse, because if the opposition win possession and we’re in disarray, that’s when they can cause the most damage.’
Harry Kane has made the same point, if not in those exact words, in several interviews. And he’s done so with conviction: his way of thinking has changed, which is the hardest thing to do.
The squad recorded a video to send to Ryan. After the training session the lads were free to spend the day as they pleased, with an 11 p.m. curfew.
That was Monday. Yesterday, after work on the pitch, I had something to show the players. Since we’ve been training at the Olympic Stadium, the press team made the most of the opportunity to tweet a video of the long-range strike I scored past Zubizarreta there, in a game against Valencia. The clip included my celebration, in which I pushed my teammates and yelled out ‘golazo’. I made sure everyone watched it. In the evening, my staff and I went to celebrate Sebas’s birthday at Espai Kru.
Today is our last day in Barcelona. We’re drinking mate in the sun.
*
It is Thursday. Jesús, John, Allan and I went to see Ryan.
We’d heard that he’d perked up a bit, which was good news, but you never know. He made for quite a sight, all swollen. He’d had to go under the knife and have his scalp cut open, and he hadn’t been very talkative previously, but we were pleasantly surprised when he spent three-quarters of an hour chatting away completely lucidly with us. He told us that what had happened was a result of the position in which he plays, as a central midfielder who defends balls that come in from wide. This is something that he never used to do before, but which he added to his game under our stewardship.
Ryan always showed himself to be intelligent. Without that, you can’t go from the sidelines to being an international in the space of eight months. He overcame his limitations through hard work. He’s a warm, humble person. A real role model. I miss him.
Lamela is coming back from Rome today. Depending on how his recovery goes, he could be like a new signing for the second half of the season.
*
28 January. I need to jot down a few observations about the FA Cup tie against Wycombe, of League Two, at White Hart Lane.
We went 2–0 down, before pulling it back to 2–2 thanks in part to three substitutions, which helped us take command. Then Trippier got injured and we had to play the last 25 minutes with ten men. They scored a third, but two goals at the death through Dele Alli and Son Heung-min, in the 89th and 97th minutes, turned it around and handed us a 4–3 win.
Why did we make such heavy weather of it?
They scored from their first chance. Buoyed, they went on to win a penalty. They had a towering centre-forward who made every long ball stick. These sorts of matches are very difficult to control. When you make four or five changes to your starting XI, your coherence suffers, but if the fringe figures don’t play in a match like this one, when will they? In these types of situations, the opposition get their tails up if you don’t dampen their enthusiasm with an early goal. What’s more, dead balls serve as a leveller for lower-league sides because contact, shirt-pulling and little kicks are tolerated more than usual. If you constantly applied the rules against such teams, there would be stoppages every minute and the game would be continually interrupted, which isn’t the done thing here.
Anyway . . . it was a lot of fun!
*
Today is Tuesday and it’s the last day of January. As planned, we have not signed anybody. We round off the month this evening away to Sunderland, who lie bottom of the table. Since beating Chelsea, Antonio Conte’s side have won both of their league games, while we’ve won one and drawn with City. I wasn’t very pleased with the first-half performance against the latter or against Wycombe.
*
Disappointing.
We never reached top gear; we were once again lacking that little something that makes the difference between being champions and missing out, between winning a game and not winning it. In the first half, we weren’t ourselves: we offered very little attacking aggression and, correspondingly, zero defensive aggression. We were up against a goal-shy team, but were only managing to win the ball back in our own box. In fact, we recovered possession closer to our goal than in any other match this season. We wasted the first 45 minutes and although we dominated and created chances in the second half, we couldn’t take them.
0–0.
We stay second, because Arsenal lost 2–1 to Watford.
It’s very much two points dropped.
8.
FEBRUARY
Drawn to face Gent in the Europa League last 32 and Championship outfit Fulham in the FA Cup, Tottenham’s three league games of the month were headlined by the trip to Anfield to face Liverpool.
After the Sunderland match, we weren’t sure whether our flight was going to be able to depart Sunderland or land in London owing to fog. We ended up arriving home at 2 a.m., but that didn’t stop us from getting into the training ground bright and early this morning to analyse the game.
The next thing we’ve got to do is clear: enlist some influential players who are willing to pass on our disillusionment over yesterday’s performance, as well as some of the solutions, to the rest. Today I asked Kane, Dembélé and Lloris to come by my office. It’s not so much a question of putting pressure on them – the impact of external motivation is only fleeting. Certain players were below par and we’re going to give the
m a wake-up call, but we want the dressing-room leaders to help us go further than that.
We need the lads not just to understand but to take to heart the team’s principles and the fact that if we stray from them, our chances of winning are diminished. And the idea that footballers who don’t stay true to their essence become much-diminished versions of themselves. Last year, Kane suffered a ten-game scoring drought during which his mind was awash with doubts: ‘Maybe I’m moving around too much, maybe I’m wearing myself out, maybe . . .’ He was consumed by everything the press and his camp were saying. But if Kane didn’t run his socks off, if he didn’t put himself about and instead simply waited for the ball to reach him, he wouldn’t be Kane, or wouldn’t get the best of himself. And the same applies to the others.
It’s up to the coaching staff to lay out the demands and raise the bar constantly. But it is not enough. The high standards at Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Juventus are ingrained. They don’t sign players to get into the Champions League, but rather to win things. And to keep winning. It’s the be-all and end-all. If you don’t win, they get rid of you. Arrigo Sacchi spoke about this very subject in a report that was aired on a French channel the other day, which Lloris brought to our attention: a crucial ingredient for success is a club’s culture. In other words, the ethos, the rules, deep-seated things that must be respected and which serve as a yardstick.
Not so long ago, finishing fifth was fine and it was good enough just to give one of the big boys a scare. Now we’re trying to create those standards that are present at the big clubs. But we know a mentality like the one at the likes of Real Madrid doesn’t come about overnight – and nor does the ability to thrive under the pressure of constantly having to win.
What’s encouraging is that this team no longer have the same shortcomings as two and a half years ago. And they were really angry about dropping points against Sunderland. That’s a good sign.
Brave New World Page 22
