The Return of Football and Why Tottenham Need it More

If the season is decided today by a co-efficient performance based on points per games played, Spurs will find themselves positioned 9th in the league.  The only way they can move higher in the league table is if the Premier League (in conjunction with the British Government) sanction games behind closed doors.

The idea that the season will be declared null and void thus preventing Liverpool to be awarded a title they were two wins away from claiming is largely the least possible scenario now.  What is a greater probability is that Boris Johnson will most probably give the green light for the Premier League to finish the season.

The chief problem with finishing the season or even awarding Liverpool the title if the season cannot continue is that Liverpool fans will congregate in mass to celebrate the teams first title in 30 years.  It isn't a case of sensible supporters will stay at home and observe social distancing because they will, but there is a group of supporters who are not.

This small group is a different one to that which became the original black eye of British sport, the days of soccer hooliganism which for the large part soccer authorities have managed to root out, other than the odd and rare moment. Liverpool supporters are law abiding even though they were involved in two of the greatest sports fans tragedies.

They were exonerated in the Hillsborough disaster even though they were initially blamed and that long fight for justice did prevail, so Liverpool supporters know what it is like being on the wrong side of condemnation.  They also live for the team in ways that will not make sense to people - it is in their DNA, their history and their culture.  They will celebrate.

One team whose supporters will not be celebrating are those of Tottenham.  Beaten a year ago in the Champions League final, the loss in the Madrid based final only led to more miserable moments, while Liverpool went from strength to strength.  If any team has so far not observed social distancing, it actually has been Tottenham with Jose Mourinho.

Mourinho was hasty taking specific players out on training sessions, but he is organizing these training sessions in the expectation that the league season will be completed.  When football was suspended due to the Coronavirus, Spurs were an injured team in tatters.  If and when the season resumes, some of those injured players will be again available.

The issue then comes down to actual fitness and the last thing one would want to do is let players return from injury without full fitness.  That can be recipe for further injury, which then impacts the new season, which will arrive hot on the heals of this one.   It is only 10 games but having one season finish so close to another, it will feel like 50 games.

Spurs need the season to begin because their outlay on the new stadium is so huge and the cost of not playing games recently so onerous that the team needs to have European football.  It is a disaster for Spurs if they cannot qualify for any kind of European football if the league is decided on a particular closure system.  Playing means more points.

The question then comes down to just how mentally ready the players will be when the Covid-19 threat is at the back of their minds, in a game which is a contact sport.  Then there is the mess of who Jose Mourinho wants to keep and who he wants to sell, which means the anxieties of the transfer season are added to the anxieties of a virus without vaccine.

Coupled with that the Saudi's are making an ownership play to buy Newcastle United. Fresh money into a team that is has been way more neglected in financial support than Spurs, will breath new life into a team that arguably has the most passionate fans in the league.  It will make Newcastle a contender for European places, adding more pressure..

So it is that Spurs desperately need to finish the season, but that desperation needs to be coupled with readiness.  Are the Tottenham players more hungrier than other returning teams when the season is allowed to be re-continued?  This comes down to the questionable mentality that hampered Mauricio Pochettino's best laid plans to win a title.

Now Jose Mourinho is picturing dreams of winning his 4th Premier League title, a title Spurs have never won. Moreover Spurs have not won a title since the old English First Division title and cup double back in 1961.  That is a long time for fans to have waited - so if there is a return to soccer, then it also better accompany a return to conviction.

In the meantime the Chairman had to back track in furloughing staff at the team, while asking Pochettino to take a cut in his severance pay to help the team out.  The Spurs supporter association showed the best face of fans when it pressured Daniel Levy to reverse his decision and he did.  If Harry Kane now has to be sold, what will Spurs fans think?

If Levy does one thing well it is balancing the books, but he has also lost a lot of money by not going all out to win titles. That is why Jose Mourinho has been brought to Tottenham, but the fear is that the Chairman will want him to work miracles on a shoestring budget.  Mourinho has never won silverware on a shoe-string budget.  We can wait and see.

The commandment from Levy is to sign player whose contracts have run out but that may be a counter reaction that he has lost or will lose several key players whose contracts did run out.  The title that Christian Eriksen thought he would gain at Inter Milan so far has not materialized but more importantly Inter Milan are not giving him much game time.

That shows that a strategy of picking off and looking to sign players on a "free" are not guaranteed to work out.  What has worked in the past is when Jose Mourinho has had his wish list fulfilled.  He may have been viewed as a failure in his time at Manchester United yet he still won them trophies. Return of the League may be a return of hope for Spurs.