Like a phoenix from the ashes...

Spurs Across the Pond is back!

Just as Tottenham Hotspur is receiving a new lease on life with the ouster of José Mourinho and the beginning of the Ryan Mason era (however temporary), I decided to bring back the newsletter a little earlier than my planned re-launch just before the 2021/22 season. It just felt like the right time. Also, I have some feelings about the European Super League that I just have to get off my chest. More on that later.

As I mentioned in my last newsletter back in March, the time had come to migrate away from Substack. It was a nice host for the newsletter while it lasted, but my ethics and principles won't allow me to utilize that platform anymore. I totally understand why some writers have chosen to stay on Substack, but for me personally, it's just become embarrassing to be associated with them in any way. This interview with writer Jude Ellison S. Doyle is a good primer on the reasons why, if you're curious. Otherwise, I hope everyone was all right with me re-adding y'all as subscribers for this new Revue-hosted version of the newsletter. If you're no longer interested in receiving updates from Spurs Across the Pond, feel free to unsubscribe below. No hard feelings!

On another admin note, I wanted to add all of the past issues of the newsletter on here retroactively for the sake of continuity and the perusal of any future subscribers, but unfortunately, Revue only allows me to send one issue a day, so if I wanted to get this thing up and running ~today~ and not five weeks from now, I had to forego that plan. So I'm leaving the old posts up on Substack for posterity if anyone wants to relive the chaos that was the 2021/21 season (or laugh at how naive I was about Spurs' title chances 🤪). I did go ahead and re-post my original introduction letter for the sake of any curious new subscribers, hence not being able to share this first actual new issue before the final as I had hoped to.

So before we get to the Super League mess, let's talk about the Carabao Cup final. Yes, we have to.

A predictable result, but it still hurts

I'm not going to lie, I really was harboring hope that we could pull off the upset win. It's not so much that I thought Ryan Mason would magically fix all of our formation issues and blunted attack, but I wondered if his fresh outlook and positive spirit could at least give us an extra boost to make up for the gap in quality with Manchester City. Alas, the objectively better team won the match.

It was never going to be easy to beat them; they're all but certain to win the PL title, and they're already in the semi-finals of the Champions League. I don't know what was going on with City at the beginning of the season when you never knew which City team was going to show up, but they clearly sorted out their problems and have been a consistent force to be reckoned with for months now. The fact that they don't play with a designated striker can make them difficult to plan for, tactically. They've also had the best defense in the league for a long time, thanks to the successful CB partnership of a resurgent John Stones and new transfer Rúben Dias.

There was a lot of chatter over the past week speculating that City would put out a weaker lineup than usual for a cup final, since they have the first leg against PSG on Wednesday and everyone knows how much Pep Guardiola wants to win that competition, but alas, we didn't get City's B team--or even their A- team. They did play their second keeper, American Zack Steffen, but we didn't test him so that rotation didn't matter much. Stones was suspended for the match due to his red card midweek against Aston Villa, but again, our attack was hardly a threat, so a moot point.

It really is a shame that we couldn't get anything going offensively because this was one of the best defensive performances we've seen from Spurs in a long time, bar the foul by Aurier that led to the set piece City scored on. Alderweireld and Dier were basically impeccable. Lloris was superb. Aurier and Reguilón failed to impact the game offensively, but until that mistake from Aurier in the 81st minute, they'd done okay on the other end.

I feel bad for Ryan Mason, because even though I didn't agree with a few of his lineup and substitution decisions, I can't exactly blame him for them. He's stuck with the roster that Levy & Mourinho left him with. Unlike when Mourinho would say he wanted Spurs to play attacking football, I actually believe it coming from Mason. I think he truly gets the identity and spirit of Tottenham Hotspur--or Tottenham as it should be, and once was. But some of the players he's inherited aren't exactly the "brave" type who can "play with freedom." It is what it is, y'all. Until the summer, anyway. By which point Levy will almost certainly have appointed a permanent manager who is not Mason. I really admire him for agreeing to take on the job now and doing the best he can under difficult, high-pressure circumstances, but he's still relatively inexperienced as a manager and if the club is going to live out its ambitions, he's probably not the right man for the job. On the other hand, he doesn't make me want to punch a wall like Mourinho so often did, so he's already an improvement in my eyes. Let's get behind him for the last few PL games and hope we can secure a spot in Europe.

The midfield was just like molasses today. Every time the ball reached the final third it stalled out when we lost possession or was promptly sent back to our defensive third out of what honestly looked like fear from our midfield three. And our one true goal-scoring opportunity came when *reads notes* Højbjerg brought the ball into the box and instead of shooting or attempting to square it to Son, completely over-kicked a pass to Reguilón coming up on his outer flank. Sigh. My heart dropped at that moment, because it didn't seem like we would get many more chances, and indeed we did not.

On the Harry Kane of it all... I don't blame him for wanting to play. I don't blame Mason for letting him. But he clearly wasn't at 100% fitness. To be sure, he still put a lot more effort at playmaking than the midfield players behind him who were supposed to be doing that for him. There was just no one there most of the time to receive his passes. The Kane & Son connection was faulty today. Again, it is what is. Harry can't do it all, even if he makes a very good try of it every game.

I do wish Lucas had been given more time, but perhaps he picked up a knock (after yet another unpunished foul from Man City. Thanks, ref). I know we were all hoping for a game-winning moment of brilliance from Bale, but it never came. Sometimes it's just not a player's day, same with Son. Lo Celso wasn't exactly pulling up trees, but Sissoko is not the swap I would have made when we were still chasing a goal. Maybe we won't ever see Dele given more than ten minutes to play in a Spurs shirt, even under Mason. This game probably needed Ndombele, but he hasn't been playing well lately either, so for all we know he would have been just as ineffective as the chosen subs.

As for the red card that wasn't, I do think it was a factor in the result. Sure, Laporte probably wouldn't have made that second yellow-worthy challenge if he'd already been on a yellow like he should have. But that's exactly the point. If he's already on a yellow, he's playing more conservatively. I try not to focus on the refereeing too much because it's just an exercise in frustration, but it really did seem like Paul Tierney let the game get away from him. That Laporte went on to score the game-winner is just a bad bit of luck that made the result harder to stomach.

It would have been difficult to withstand City's offensive onslaught for the entirety of extra time, if it had come to that. We probably still would have lost. I guess we can consider it a positive turn of events that most of us at least had some hope coming into the game. I know I wasn't feeling optimistic at all about our chances last week when we still had Mourinho in charge. It's gutting that we've gone another season without winning a trophy, but at least that dark cloud of a managerial presence has left the club and we can move on, hopefully refreshing the squad this summer and going again next season with a recommitment to Tottenham's offense-forward heritage.

European Super League:  "legacy fans" vs global fans? Not quite.

I don't think I need to go into too much depth about why the European Super League was a bad idea; plenty of other writers already have, and anyone who's a football fan understands on a gut level why the ESL concept would be bad for competitive football and increase inequality between the rich clubs and everyone else (a divide that Tottenham Hotspur is firmly on the more prosperous side of, to be fair).

What I do want to talk about is the idea of so-called "legacy fans" being pitted against the rest of us global fans. Obviously, it's super insulting to even use the term legacy fan to describe the people who have made the game what is today--fans who have been raised to support the clubs in their local communities and the clubs that their families have supported for decades. Without the matchgoing fans there to lift up the players on the pitch, whether home or away, there wouldn't be much point in playing. But I also don't think it's a fair framing to say that the interests of traditional, local fans are much different or even opposed to the interests of fans like myself from overseas, or younger fans in general.

True, those of us outside of the UK are in a unique position in that we aren’t directly affected by decisions about where and when matches take place. We don’t have the problem of navigating travel logistics for away matches, working around inconvenient kickoff times, or balancing skyrocketing ticket prices with other budget concerns(though we can sympathize, especially with ticket prices--it's not exactly cheap to go to most sporting events in the US, especially if your city doesn't have decent public transportation). A lot of us have never been to see our club play in person before, and in the age of COVID-19 we are unlikely to get to do so anytime soon, and even then it will be a rare occasion.

I think there's a mistaken impression that fans outside of the UK aren't as invested in the Premier League as an institution because we can't go to matches regularly, but that's not true. For myself and most of the fans I know and talk to outside of the UK, we care deeply about learning the history of the club we’ve adopted as supporters, alongside learning about all the other teams in the league. It's a point of pride that I can now tell you the name of any of the stadiums for the current PL teams, know all the managers, and have a working knowledge of recent PL history. Earlier this spring I read A People's History of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club by Martin Cloake and Alan Fisher (you can read my Goodreads review here if you'd like) and finally learned the stories behind Tottenham's most famous players and the origins of the rivalry with Arsenal.

We take the time to learn these things because we want to feel connected to our club, and to the league as a whole. The European Super League would have made all that effort a waste of time, because although the Big Six clubs claimed to want to stay in the PL, it wouldn't have worked out realistically, since there are plenty of PL matchweeks where games take place during the midweek slots that were supposed to be reserved for ESL games. A departure from the domestic leagues and cup competitions (whether intended or not) would break a bond that both traditional and newer fans had formed with the PL and for what--to see the "best teams" compete in bloodless dead rubber games in a closed league instead of the high-stakes PL matches we've become used to? No thank you. That would be a step backward, not forward for the sport—a shrinking of its stature, not growth.

Global PL fans have also come to appreciate the “magic of the cup" with the FA and League Cups, even as we enjoy the drama of the European competitions too. For fans, it can be a both/and situation; it’s the clubs and their managers that have made a value judgment about which competitions matter most and when to rotate versus when to play their best XI. Ideally, we want to see our teams putting in full effort in all competitions, while understanding that the players are only human and can’t play every full 90. I don't see the point in risking player health (and the longevity of their careers) just to add in the unnecessary and unasked-for ESL competition, and I'm sure most UK-based fans would agree. Again, there's a lot of projection from club owners/boards when it comes to what they think fans are clamoring for as opposed to what we actually want--just follow the money. If they had bothered to connect with supporter groups (and the players!) they could have saved themselves the embarrassment of the extensive social media and stadium protests that followed the ESL announcement.

I've also seen a suggestion that global fans are not actually loyal to the club they follow and would just as happily switch allegiences to follow their favorite players from club to club, and therefore the ESL should appeal to us because we just want to see those big names play. Perhaps it might be easier for non-local fans to “give up” on our chosen club in theory, since we weren’t literally raised to support them, and our family and social relationships don't revolve around the club (unless we seek out a supporter group where we live). But I can tell you that for me personally, the idea of switching team loyalties at this point, or giving up on watching football altogether as I've seen some anti-ESL fans propose, feels unthinkable.

Few things bring me as much enjoyment as watching football, and Spurs and the PL are a huge part of that. I mean, even saying ‘football’ now instead of ‘soccer’ has become second nature, even if I may tweet the latter term more often for the sake of character count. The point is: I truly consider myself "Tottenham til I die." And I know I can’t be the only one across the pond that feels that way. It may be a different degree of betrayal that we’re experiencing from the club executives than those of you in the UK are feeling, but it’s still painful. Even though we show our support in different ways due to geographical circumstances, we're all devoted to Spurs at the end of the day.

On the matter of "young" fans, I can understand the argument that younger fans are perhaps more player-obsessed, if the popularity of the FIFA video games and endless transfer talk can serve as evidence, but you can also see that team tribalism is more prevalent than ever. As someone who used to just watch the PL in general and didn't have just one team that I followed, I get the appeal of enjoying the sport for the sake of the athleticism and overarching narratives. I don't think you have to choose one team to support to get the most out of watching football. But it's pretty hard to watch and not form loyalties eventually, and most people do end up choosing a club if they weren't already loyal to one through family or community links. So while the ESL would certainly have the "top players in the world" in action every week, you'd still have a good majority of fans upset that their club went from always finishing in the top of their domestic league to being middling or bottom table in the ESL. And as for individual players, the intense popularity of Harry Kane amongst Spurs fans shows that a player can be admired for staying loyal to their club and trying to win things the "right way," without joining a super team or chasing easy titles in less competitive leagues.

My point is:  I think we would be wise as fans to focus more on what unites us than divides us. The money-obsessed boards and owners across the league might be happy to pit us against each other and forsake one type of fan for another, but we don’t have to cooperate in that scheme. We can express our common values (competition, equality, and fairness) and reject the priorities of the executive elite. While I can't join in the protests outside the stadium, I'm here in solidarity.