Champions Tottenham is a contender. Please feel free to write. With three quarters of the season remaining, Manchester City will emerge victorious. However, Spurs have to be included in this category because they are currently the only two unbeaten teams in the league, along with Arsenal.
Since I support the Spurs and we haven’t finished five points ahead of the pack since 1960–61, I hope you will overlook my earlier observation that it is useless to look at the league table until Christmas. Oh, how vividly I recall it.
As my new co-host on The Football Gods, Tim Spiers, a Tottenham correspondent, points out, no team has ever started a 20-team Premier League season with this many wins (eight) and finished lower than fourth.
For the benefit of the fun sponges, let me clarify: I’m not saying we’ll win the league. But I’m eager to learn more about the situation. since I enjoy it. This season, I have laughed heartily at the performances of newcomers James Maddison, Guglielmo Vicario, Micky van de Ven, and Brennan Johnson.
However, at the time, Spurs supporters weren’t overly enthralled with their summer transfer window—and not just because Harry Kane’s tardy departure for Bavaria. Please don’t make me watch another lederhosen-clad insta reel.
The main player here is, of course, Ange Postecoglou. And I’m curious about this. Since the team has obviously been improved and coiffed, but it still clearly identifies as a team. More importantly, a lot of the problems facing Tottenham’s executive team still exist. Tottenham has a reputation for being a very difficult place to work; its culture has been described as dysfunctional.
But then Ange enters the picture, and based on what’s visible of the men’s first team, at least, this is a group that appears fearless and free. The burden has vanished.
Naturally, the victory is beneficial. However, there’s more.
When I interviewed Under-20 England international Michael Olakigbe at Brentford for my BBC Radio 4 series How to Spot Potential (which airs this week and, yes, you can listen to it on BBC Sounds; I appreciate your inquiry), he gave me this definition of potential: “I think potential is what you have inside of you that needs to be brought out.”
He recalled the words of his first coach at an elite academy, who described him as having “a gift” and said, “You’ve got a lot of potential—I think we can train this, to get this out of you.”
Premier League players are all very good at football, at the risk of writing down the clearest statement in human history. Eric Dier excels in football. Serge Aurier is a fantastic football player. Phil Jones is an excellent football player. You get what I mean.
The main obstacle is whether or not all these excellent football players can mesh into the most cohesive squad, especially in light of many clubs’ shoddy transfer policies. However, coherence is impossible if the people surrounding those exceptional football players aren’t helping them reach their full potential.
Listen to Postecoglou speak, and it becomes evident that he is a kind man, a force for good, and—possibly most importantly—he has faith in the team’s players and their potential. I’ll let you compare this to the previous managers of Spurs or assess how much it represents the state of your own team right now.
Nevertheless, Tottenham has taught us thus far this season that you might be rooting for a team that isn’t quite ready to be a team.
