It has been more than a year since the world started to take COVID-19 seriously, and we are finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. A footballing season during this pandemic is bound to be unique in many ways, but the Premier League this season has been exceptional for pure footballing reasons also. The difference in the points table is very low that, two teams, one which was considered to be title contenders and one which was considered to be fighting relegation have same points tally, all within 50 days. Any team who can put together a decent winning run can climb so much in the table, and the opposite is also very much possible.

One of the teams that has seen both is Tottenham Hotspur. The team that held the summit of the Premier League for weeks is now seeing its fans calling for the gaffer’s head. There are no rights and wrongs in the opinions of fans. Fans always want more from the club and it never ends, and it should stay that way. But it is always good to take a step back and analyse the situation on a broader view free from any reactionary bias. In the Spurs fan communities, recently, most of the fans are divided into two: those who want Mourinho out, and those who don’t. I do not attempt to prove any of them right, and I do not want this write up to be seen as a report card of Jose Mourinho, rather than the club.

Let us start with the competition results this season. Spurs are involved in all the competitions they started with. That includes a ticket to the league cup final, 5th round of FA cup, R32 of Europa league and a 6th position in Premier League. Spurs have been very much fortunate in the cup draws this season. Other than facing Chelsea in the 4th round of the league cup, the opponents have been some of the easiest possible, including an 8th division side Marine AFC in the FA cup, and the championship side Brentford in the league cup semi-final. But in the recent history, Spurs have not always taken advantage of weaker opponents, particularly in domestic cup competitions, which is evident from the list of teams that have knocked Spurs out of the domestic cups in the last three seasons.

– Norwich City

– Colchester United

– Chelsea

– Crystal Palace

– Manchester United

– West Ham United

Spurs should have comfortably saw off at least 4 of these teams, but they haven’t, which is why the fact that they capitalised on such advantage this season, is a good sign. In the Europa League, Spurs have topped the group table as expected, although, not without minor hiccups on the way. Coming to the Premier League, results are mixed. Spurs stand at 6th position, with a chance to go 3 points off top 4 if they win the game in hand, which is somewhere about a real position of Spurs as a club among the English clubs. However, the problem lies in the fact that Spurs received numerous chances to be further above in the table, in the form of their opponents dropping points. Teams are dropping points in the league like never before, and Spurs have failed to capitalise those opportunities.

The playing style of Spurs is mostly what anyone would expect from a Jose Mourinho team. The team believes in controlling the game off the ball. They let the opponent have the ball and catch them on counterattack. However, uncharacteristically, Spurs have been leaking goals. Of the 34 games played this season, Spurs have kept clean sheets only 11 times in all competitions. At the start of the campaign, Spurs scored a lot of goals, thanks to the pace of Son, vision of Kane and their telepathic connection. After THE Lanzini goal, which shocked everyone around the club, Spurs tightened their defence, giving them their first clean sheet of the season in their 10th fixture. 8 of their clean sheets came in the next 12 games. In that run, Spurs kept clean sheets against Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal among others. This was the run of fixtures where the defence and attack of Spurs worked harmonically and generated results. It was exciting to see their football, even though most of the time it was Spurs’ defence against the opposition attack. Things started to go downhill from there for Spurs. Both the defence and attack were failing. Defence went back to looking like conceding any minute, and the attack simply disappeared, trying to help their team defend. Apart from a few isolated games, this pattern has continued to date. It is a very painful watch for the fans these days.

Analysing the season of each player is not possible in a write up of this length. However, it is only fair to mention some of the highlights of some players. Hojbjerg is undoubtedly the signing of the season, if not player of the season, for Spurs. He has been a rock at the midfield base intercepting passes of the opponent and even dropping into defence at times. He has been responsible for many solid defensive displays of Spurs. Reguilon is another signing who have made a great impact. He has been chipping in with his contributions to goal from the left wing, while using his pace for some beautiful recovery tackles. Bale hasn’t lived up to his expectations, although, on hindsight, those expectations are a bit harsh for someone who hasn’t been playing regular football for a while. Doherty also has not made a decent impression, although his signing helped Aurier to up his game. Vinicius has scored a hattrick, but it came against the non-league side Marine AFC. He has not received much opportunities to impress in big games and will be waiting for them. Joe Rodon has been unfortunate to be not able to participate in Europa League games, which would have been perfect for him to integrate himself into the team. Instead, he was thrown into his first start against a high-flying Chelsea. He did well there and other games he was asked, although, Mourinho doesn’t expect much from the young Welsh defender, at least this season. Joe Hart appears to be brought in just as an alternative to Gazzaniga, there by solving a part of the home-grown issues. Son has been more clinical and has been combining frequently with Kane to create goals out of nowhere. Kane has evolved into a more complete footballer by combining his prolific scoring ability with his newfound play-making skills. Ndombele was a wantaway at the end of last season for Mourinho, but is bossing the midfield for Spurs now. On the other hand, Dele, after finding his mojo back in the first few games under Mourinho, is struggling to find a place even on the bench these days.

Given the results and performance of the last month of Spurs, it is hard to imagine what holds for Spurs in the remainder of the season. Biggest question is, whether Spurs can finally end their trophy draught, which is the main reason why Jose was brought in. The easiest route is to overcome Manchester City at Wembley in the League Cup final. Spurs have Everton to face in the 5th round of FA cup and Wolfsberg in Round of 32 of Europa League. Spurs will be hoping they can go all the way in at least one of these competitions. Coming to the Premier League, it is difficult to set a realistic objective even at this stage of the season. Overall, a top 4 finish in the league and a trophy can considered as the minimum requirement to make this a successful season for Spurs. Some fans may also want to see their team play more attacking possession football, although, I doubt it is possible under Mourinho, especially this season with no possibility of incomings to the squad.

This brings me to the final portion where I want to discuss how Spurs have done as a club, rather than as a team. And for that, we need to take a broader view. The club has been run brilliantly by the chairman Daniel Levy. The club built their biggest asset in the form of stadium, has spent in the squad a decent amount of money and also kept hold of their best players in the recent past. Levy brought in a fantastic manager in Pochettino who made Spurs regulars in Champions League, even taking them all the way to the final once. Once the inevitable moment came to part ways with him, Levy brought in the most decorated manager possible to start winning trophies. However, in my opinion, things went wrong twice with the timing for the club. One was the decision to build the stadium. The squad was nicely shaping up to win titles under Pochettino from 2015. Players were entering their peaks and form of their life. If the club could have postponed the construction of stadium for 4-5 years, and instead invested in some game changing players like Mane, who were linked with Spurs at that time, may be the outlook of the club would have changed entirely, and would be in a better financial position also to build the stadium. Another mismatch in the timing could not be seen beforehand by anyone. When a new manager is brought to the club, he must be given a decent amount of funds to build his squad over a few transfer windows. It has more relevance when the manager is someone like Jose Mourinho. However, the appointment of Mourinho came for Spurs when they were in stadium debts, and more importantly, COVID-19 struck the world soon after, tying up the funds of the club. Even if the chairman becomes ready to spend for Mourinho, it is not recommended for the club to spend big in this climate. If either of these timing differences could have been avoided, we could have been writing about a decorated club now, in Tottenham Hotspur.