The Swagger of Spurs

By riksta71

It’s been written about before regarding Spurs sides of previous decades, but I thought I would apply ‘The Tottenham Way’ to our current side as I truly believe this is the best squad I have ever seen in my lifetime.

It’s not the fact that we are currently joint 2nd in the best (and toughest) league in the world, or the fact that we are half way through January and we have only lost 3 games in the league. Audere est Facere and all that, and I too am starting to really believe we can emulate the great ’61 side, yet I find myself not wanting to believe in case it all implodes in February with a potential nasty run of fixtures in the post. By the way, do well next month and we will really be contenders.

But what I am really loving is the swagger, the arrogance, the style and class with which our current squad put away tackle after tackle, shimmy after shimmy and opponent after opponent. Coupled with desire, grit and bags of pace to burn from front to back this is a potent mix, which even the most dogged of bus-parkers cannot handle.

It pains me to say it, but Arsenal played some beautiful football last term (albeit without anything to show for it) but their tic-tac Barca style was very different to how we play. In fact nobody plays the way we do, mixing up quick pass and move routines with pacey old school wingers and steel when required with powerful holding midfielders. They won’t all admit it, but pretty much everyone enjoys watching Spurs now, as it is simply so entertaining.

Bill Nicholson, Peter Shreeve and Keith Burkinshaw all adopted and encouraged the Tottenham way, and Harry also has this running through the veins of his squad. A five yard pass is a simple task, but when done the Tottenham way, it oozes class and style, with a follow through and exaggerated arm movements, a subtle head turn finished with the chest out, looking two passes ahead to receive the ball in an equally polished manner with a sublime first touch, perhaps with the outside of the foot.

Take man of the moment BAE for example. At one point vs Everton he made three outrageous dummies on the edge of their penalty area, with each one gaining him an extra yard to get a quality cross in the box. Kyle Walker also shows that ‘chest-out’ self confidence when delivering a short pass whilst our mouth-watering midfield, whatever configuration it is deployed in each have their own individual elements of the Tottenham way.

I’ll end my words with a phrase that I’ve remembered and used over the years from the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off ( & later sampled by LTJ Bukem)

‘Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it’.

Well, enjoy this season, we are over half way through it and are all privileged to be witnessing something very special. So next time you watch those Lillywhite Gods play, look out for The Tottenham Way, you’ll see what I mean.

COYS

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