Tottenham seeking summer of sunshine

You’d think that after the season we’ve had, the emotional abuse and at times hellish self-doubt sprinkled with dollops of hope that most definitely does kill (someone) – you’d think we’d be done with football for a bit.

Well, we are done with it but somehow it won’t quite go away. It feels like an age before we go at it again. I’m not wishing to go into stasis and wake up on the opening day of the new season. I’m going to enjoy the break. Reboot. Recalibrate. Fine tune my mind in preparation for what might be an epic new campaign. See this is what a bit of a bounce does to us. Turning around our fortunes and getting ahead of the enemy to claim Champions League football is that ‘thing’ that we made ourselves believe we could not have.

I do wonder if Conte can break his own personal curse and take us on a journey, akin to dizzy highs we’ve had before. The odds are not like betting all on black in a casino. I’d favour our odds to be might lower.

You know; we can’t have nice things. Turns out we can and now we’re sat up in a bed of extreme comfort whilst the enemy and its hordes of zombies glitch and twitch in the summer sun (rain).What this means is the months ahead, the off season…it is a far more digestible experience.

Now I’m not one to give too much of a shit about the transfer stories. Especially from aggregator accounts that churn out quotes and links that are then repeated about a thousand times. Mostly all of them will turn out to be click bait nonsense. It’s a business and it’s one that relies on the thirst of football fans wanting something, anything to get them through the slight boredom. But again, we have that bed of comfort, so we’ll probably be more productive with our time by bantering off the Arsenal fans that we’ve managed to break in glorious fashion.

And Spurs look like just signing players ‘out of the blue’ rather than us living through the fantasy of a sports writer. We’re getting business done with no faffing about. Finally. We are still keen for actual tangible Spurs news. I’m not talking about vague and ambiguous ITK (In the Know) gossip from the royal club insiders. This is pretty much on the same level as the click bait from tabloids. And as for think pieces? Well, this one is barely a think piece…more of a brain dump, but it’s interesting how the season long narrative that told us that Antonio Conte was practically hanging on to the Spurs job because Spurs had somehow super glued themselves to his hands has turned into a celebration of sorts.

Conte is fully COYS. And the journalists are loving this uplift. Naturally, they would considering they moulded the stories around him wanting to escape back to the detached Italian countryside. But what of Conte? What of Spurs and the summer? What of that keen interest we have in the tangible?

Well, first things first. Spurs do appear to mean business in what might turn out to be a cutthroat ruthless application of intent. The £150M injection is a statement. We’re about to announce/sign Ivan Perisic, the 33 year old worldy that will make our left-side a phenom. Spurs are going in and we’re going in early. Conte supposedly needs 6 signings. We know he does. We need that first team to be solidified with extreme talent and that bench bolstered to combat the bread and butter of the Prem and the elite swagger of the Champions League.

We need new players and we appear to be ‘backing’ our Italian gaffer. So this summer will be one to enjoy because we’re about to be blessed with constant activity. Considering Perisic is a free transfer, we’re moving in the market with intelligence and guile. Money will be spent, the Spurs Official Twitter account is going to get over worked and Conte is about to shift towards a full pre-season with his squad. Good times are ahead. Yes?

Yes, I think so. Look, this brain dump, it’s just me flexing my mind to keep on top of the process at play. But I do see and hear the concerns around Conte being someone that still wants out. Just not yet. That his family are in Italy and that, well, he’s often centric to the present and immediate future and not the project years some fans demand. That he will focus on success for next season and possibly the one after that and then he’s gone. But is this really something to get you down? To make you worry?

We have tried practically everything as a football club in terms of styles of appointments. We’ve have the accidental success and over achievement of the peak Poch era. What we have right now is a world class manager and coach with high level ambition. He wants it. And it seems like we do too. So it would be batshit crazy for Daniel Levy not to ‘back him’ and give him all the tools for his box. To allow him to go for the jugular and make the most of the Kane and Son dynamic before time takes it away from us.

We need the monkey off our back, we need to consolidate and have that day out, win a trophy and embrace the winning mentality and experience that can act as a foundation for more success. To suggest we’d do this and then Conte walks and things fall apart is an exaggeration. And one that doesn’t align in my head mainly because we haven’t won anything for an age. So this particular caveat is okay. I’ll take the risk. Because what is the alternative? I survived Jose Mourinho and do not want a repeat of that. Beggars can’t be choosers and to suggest that Conte will break us is too fantastical, even for my imagination. 

Conte might not have been suitable for Spurs 5 months back but he is now. That is how quickly things can change, especially if the club and players and fans have that big game mentality. That hunger to be better, to do more. Perhaps Conte IS the catalyst we’ve always needed. We might once more reach for the stars and fail. That is football. But reaching and doing so with all our might because we have backed ourselves is all we want as a fanbase; to know we have done everything within our power to compete.

So that’s where we are right now. On the cusp, potentially, of something special. When you look at this past season, perhaps the gap between us and the top two is still too far too reach for but 3rd place isn’t. Taking the domestic cups seriously isn’t. We won’t get over-stretched. There is good momentum, physically and mentally, as a team and a fanbase. All is in place. Just missing those 5/6 pieces.

Then football has to do us a favour or three. Those top two might (probably won’t) but they might falter a little. We have to be ready to go in for the kill.

And feasting on the already half dead carcass of them lot down the road, is an imperative detail we can not forget either. Because broken they might be, they can still be further snapped in half.

So enjoy it. Enjoy this break because it will still be one that will have you constantly thinking about the future. And the future is bright. It might yet be blinding.