da brdice： Tottenham Hotspur desperately need a trophy if they want to keep their burgeoning squad together.
da betcris： That is the prevailing point of view in the aftermath of Spurs’ Champions League last 16 defeat at the hands of wily Italian giants Juventus last week. It makes Saturday’s FA Cup quarter final against Swansea their biggest game of the season.
Not everyone subscribes to this viewpoint but even those who do cannot dispute that Mauricio Pochettino has vastly improved the club in almost area since his appointment.
He has shipped out the deadwood and made Spurs a well-coached, potent and adaptable side, who improve year on year.
For my part, I am a huge admirer of Tottenham and what Pochettino has done there. In an era of quick fixes and overspending, Spurs are bucking the trend.
The Argentine is much more adept on the training pitch than in the transfer market and appears to be one of the few coaches left in the English game – although Eddie Howe and Sean Dyche are others – that believe in building something.
‘Poch’ feels that greater cohesion, team spirit and organisation over a period of time will do more for his young and prodigious squad than expensive purchases would and based on the performances his side put out most weeks, it is hard to disagree.
They are the epitome of a modern football side. Comfortable in numerous formations, capable of dominating games or counter attacking, tight at the back and frightening going forward. It is hard to find a weakness when running through their starting eleven.
Yet, as the club passes ten years without a trophy after their latest failure at the hands of the Old Lady, all this serves to do is beg the question; how does such a good team keep faltering during the big moments?
They blew up against Chelsea when they were Leicester’s closest challengers in 2015/16. Last season’s FA Cup semi-final was a huge opportunity to set up a shot at silverware but they lost 4-2 to the Blues.
Even this season, while they collected impressive home wins over Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League, they were timid throughout away defeats in crunch matches against both Manchester clubs and bitter rivals Arsenal.
They dominated for 170 minutes of the tie against Juve but in the 10 minutes they were on the back foot, they conceded four goals. That is not good enough.
Week to week, it is evident that the quality of the players is there. Most of their Premier League rivals would trade their respective options for Toby Alderweireld, Christian Eriksen, Mousa Dembele and Harry Kane.
Yet, there are big moments within big matches. Ones where other teams – Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayern Munich – find a way to keep the ball out of the net or make their chances count.
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They switch on and realise that if they ride out the current storm or make the most of their sustained pressure, they will win the match. They manage the game. And Spurs still don’t.
It is not a case of being ‘Spursy’ or ‘bottle jobs’, as Spurs are far too good a team for that. They have performed in some hostile atmospheres; in Turin, in the Bernabeu, and have made Wembley a fortress.
They still just don’t have the knack of identifying the crunch times, the ones where they simply cannot afford to go to sleep and stepping up at those times.
That’s all it is. It’s a small step that will make an almighty difference. By almost every discernable on-pitch measure – attacking potency, speed of play, adaptability, playing style – Spurs are better than say, a much more expensively-assembled Manchester United.
Yet they are behind them in the league. Because they lack that bloody-minded ruthlessness at the key times.
It should come for Spurs. They could quite easily win the FA Cup this season and silence the doubters. I don’t subscribe to the theory that if it doesn’t, there will be a mass exodus as the players are clearly happy where they are – with only one or two exceptions.
But it needs to soon, or else this team will become synonymous with glorious failure. Poch was ruthless in his culling of the deadwood until he had a squad that, to a man, bought into what he was trying to do.
Now, he must instill that same bloody-mindedness into his players, so they learn to come out those vital moments within matches with their noses in front.