The Aftermath – Tottenham 0-1 West Brom – A message to supporters

Article by Daniel Norman

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Yes, it’s happened again. That same feeling of frustration, confusion and disillusionment pervades and it feels like that moment when the matchstick tower you are building falls, and you have to start over.

Yes we were sluggish; we lacked drive, tempo, creativity and worst of all passion. The feeling of déjà vu and of backward steps is worse because the lack of passion echoes the days of AVB, where sterility and staleness were a weekly occurrence brought on by a methodical approach which sapped any freedom and inventiveness.

And whilst Tim Sherwood and his tactics (or lack of) had many faults, we rarely ever faded out in quite the same way as Sunday. These memories are still raw for us, but we shouldn’t leap to conclusions that any kind of history is being repeated after only the fifth game of this fledgling season.

As expected the doomsayers have pounced on this performance, both from inside and outside the club. All those rival fans who hate us because they believe we poached Pochettino unfairly, or that we inherently carry delusions of grandeur. All of the media sycophants who made a career based on the scraps from ‘Arry’s press conferences and have black marked us for ‘the way we have treated him’. Most disappointingly it is all those so called fans within the club who promised that they would give this new structure time who have not been able to resist writing everything off: if they had their way they’d actually sack the manager after this one poor performance!

Let me put this into context again. This was one game! The contours of the season at its close will contain many undulations including some big highs and, like Sunday, some real lows. What needs to be constant is the support and belief of the fans.

Let me give an example that should embarrass us: my friend spent a year in Buenos Aires going to all the Boca Juniors games. The crowd would jump and chant for the whole game. Some fans would not even see the game, instead choosing to face the stands and conduct the supporters in their songs for 90 minutes. When the opposition scored the fluctuation in the volume of their voices was so minimal as to be unnoticeable, they were a barrage of positivity. When my friend asked an ultra why they did this, the reason he gave was that whatever the situation on the pitch they want to know that they had given 100% support to their players. His words were something along the lines of, “We support the players like fathers watching their sons, with only encouragement.”

There is always a desire to pick apart team selection, formation, and today's overbearing reliance on stats. Sunday was just a bad day at the office and it’s about how we react moving forwards that matters, both players and fans. It’s not possible for a manager to be getting everything right after 5 Premier League games, and with the Emirates looming our job is to circle the wagons and get behind the lads...not start shooting them all down.

We’ve had a grumble, let’s look forward to Forest tonight, and then stand proudly together behind the boys for the big one on Saturday.

Let me know what you think. Is my outlook unrealistic? Is the reaction of some fans justified?

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