Opposition View: Tottenham Hotspur

Tottenham Hotspur visit the Amex with their club in a “crisis”. No new signings this summer, three games lost in a row and without a home stadium after countless sets of delays. Almost sounds like Brighton in the 1997, doesn’t it?

We say almost, because Spurs aren’t being kept in the Football League purely because there is somehow a Doncaster Rovers side more inept, they aren’t playing in front of 1,000 people 80 miles away from home and aren’t on the verge of going out of business.

Still, these are apparently worrying times for the club. In order to find out what’s going on in North London, we spoke to Mark from Spurs Fanatic who talked about Daniel Levy, their new stadium and whether Chris Hughton could be a Spurs boss of the future.

It was seemingly a frustrating summer at Spurs and we know that if Brighton didn’t sign one player in a transfer window, some of our supporters would suffer from a mental breakdown. What was the Spurs fans reaction to your lack of business?
There was a meltdown amongst a large section of the fan base as well. A fair number of fans know that we need to improve the squad if we are going to take the next step and there was a massive amount of frustration that we didn’t address that. Equally important was that we didn’t let some of the dead wood go to make way. Our squad needs trimming to allow for new arrivals, so it was disappointing that we didn’t ship some of those out of the door. If you stand still in the Premier League then you’ll inevitably go backwards and that could be a problem this season after so much progress.

You’ve suffered three defeats in a row for the first time in over four years. What’s going wrong at the minute?Given the lack of new signings, what would represent a good season for Spurs in 2018-19?
Top four was the objective at the start of the season and I don’t see why we still can’t achieve that. This year was always going to be harder with Liverpool’s mega spending and Chelsea due for a good campaign after their usual season on, season off, sack the manager approach. Arsenal should be more of a factor with Unai Emery and Manchester United will always be a pesky outfit with Mourinho in charge, but we still should be aiming to get amongst the top four and aim for the Champions League spots.

If your only signing in January came from Brighton, which one of our players would you take to Spurs?
Pascal Gross without a doubt. A really nice player that would fit seamlessly in to our line-up. I’d love to see him in a team with Dele and Harry Kane.

Pochettino is quite rightly highly rated. Do you think there is a danger that he could leave at some point should a bigger job come up?
I don’t see him leaving for at least a couple of seasons yet. Although most of our managers get upset with Daniel Levy either not spending money or bringing in players who are not their choice. Maybe we are seeing the start of that after the last transfer window, but Pochettino should be around for the long haul.

Speaking of managers, Chris Hughton is a former Tottenham player. What are Spurs fans opinions of the Brighton boss?
Big fan of Chris Hughton. Used to watch him as a Spurs player and he’s still a class act as a manager. I think he is doing a great job with Brighton and the strong work ethic and gritty determination that he had as a player shows in the way you play,

We’ve had our fair share of Spurs connections in the dugout. Any particularly fond memories of Gus Poyet and Mauricio Taricco’s time at White Hart Lane?
He did well for us as a player, but it was tough to love Gus due to his Chelsea connections. However, my fondest memories of him were as a coach. He was assistant to Juande Ramos when we won the League cup, our last trophy, so great memories indeed. Taricco had a real mean streak running through him, and he was a real master of the dark arts, which certainly endeared him to the fans. I remember him more for the red cards that he amassed than anything else.

Speaking of White Hart Lane, what is the latest on the new stadium? Will it be up and running for our visit in April. Are Spurs fans excited about the prospect of having a new home that is going so corporate as to feature a cheese room, in an house bakery and a place where “guests can store their personal vintage wines, cognacs and liquors in a purpose-built, temperature controlled on-site reserve?
Haha thats a very good question. No one really knows when we’ll be in the new place and that is really frustrating. The lack of communication is what is really irritating and the club aren’t doing much to address it. As for all the corporate stuff its a shame that its where the game and stadiums are going now, but what I’m really excited about is the 17,500 single tier stand. That is going to be something special and the atmosphere it’ll create will be amazing, way better than any cheese room, bakery or on-site reserve!

What effect do you think the new stadium will have on the pitch? There’s already comparisons being made to the barren years Arsenal suffered after moving to the Emirates, where they focussed on paying off the new ground rather than improving the squad?
As the cost of the stadium has doubled, I’m expecting some more barren transfer windows as we try to find ways to pay it off. However, the focus under Pochetino has been to give youth a chance or bring in cheaper prospects to develop, so I’m expecting this to continue to be the case.

Finally, how do you see Saturday evening going?
Last year’s game at the Amex was really tight and I see it being another difficult game. I’m hoping for a response following the Inter loss and to end our losing streak, but think it’ll be 1-1.

Thanks to Mark for answering our questions. Don’t forget to have a look at the Spurs Fanatic website and you could even send him a Tweet once the new stadium opens asking about the best cheese in the cheese room