The Lost Art Of Patience

My Years Supporting Tottenham Hotspur

One of the saddest days in my years supporting Tottenham Hotspur, and there have been a few, was the day we decided to part company with our most successful manager in recent years - as long as you're equating success with getting close to it without really achieving anything.

For those who follow the Premier League, you'll know I'm talking about Mauricio Pochettino, who led us to a Champions League final and numerous Premier League challenges, including one year, the year Leicester won it when, at least to my mind, it felt justified for the first and thus far only time in my life to consider us, at least on paper, the best team in the league.

Now, six years on, I’m feeling much the same way after the club decided to call time on our latest manager, Ange Postecoglou, just two weeks after he actually brought us the tangible success of a first trophy in 17 years.

News of Postecoglou’s sacking came two years to the day since our chairman, Daniel Levy, decided to tether the club to the lesser-known Australian, who'd done well in lesser-known leagues, such as those in Australia, Japan, and, dare I say it, Scotland.

And whose soccer, again, at least on paper, is thrilling, which, again, for those who know about the Premier League, will know is something of Tottenham's perceived identity.

So when a manager comes along who plays exciting soccer that may one day bring success, has the temerity to promise success, and then actually brings success, you’d think he might be afforded the time to try to bring a bit more of it.

But not, it seems, in the eyes of Tottenham’s hierarchy.

And yet, I’m not sure it’s fully fair, on this occasion at least, to land the blame squarely with the chairman, because the outside noise surrounding Postecoglou’s future in the two weeks since our Europa League triumph, which was followed swiftly by our 22nd league defeat of the season, had become deafening.

For days before the axe finally fell, the media and social media were awash with rumors of what was about to come, and in the end the club even found itself in the strange position of being criticized for not having put out a statement either way - as if telling the world that the boss was still in charge was something that ought to be expected, were that to have proved the decision.

But of course, we now know that this was not the decision, nor indeed, upon reflection, did it ever seem likely to be so, in spite of the growing clamor among the fanbase for the manager to be kept on.

The truth is that Big Ange was fighting a losing battle from the moment he arrived in North London, and especially after pledging, after a loss to our fiercest rivals, Arsenal, early last season, that “I always win something in my second season”. With every press conference that went by, and especially after each defeat - and there were plenty - the quote was brought back in an attempt to poke the Aussie into a spiky retort, and it often worked.

To most sportswriters and pundits, there was barely any real consideration given to the notion that Ange might actually follow through on what he’d promised. So when, after a season of extreme injuries and a similarly extreme number of defeats, Ange actually delivered the trophy, the damage had already been done.

In spite of the joyous scenes of a rare Tottenham trophy parade and celebrations even after the 1-4 final-day home defeat by Brighton, there was honestly never much chance of a reversal in the opinions of those in ultimate charge of the club.

And mostly, I’d argue, that is because we just don’t have time in today’s world for what our erstwhile manager liked to refer to as “a build” - or the notion that “Rome wasn’t built in a day”.

“Season three is usually better than season two!” Ange rollicked at the open-top bus parade, before admitting in the next press conference that he “may have gone a bit early on that one”, as the “main character is usually killed off in the third season”.

And so it has proved.

What would have happened to Manchester United, one wonders, if they’d sacked Sir Alex Ferguson after his early tenure failed to live up to expectations after not just two but three seasons in charge, as many called for him to go with the club ending the season just outside the relegation zone?

We’ll never know, and now sadly we will never know what might have been had Tottenham’s owners decided to stick by just the third man to win them a European Cup - and first for over 40 years. It’s 35 years since Ferguson faced calls for his own dismissal, so the clamor for sacking managers or bosses in many other lines of public-facing work, for that matter, is not new, but it certainly appears to be gathering pace.

At Arsenal - always Tottenham’s counterpoint - the powers that be have decided to keep sticking with their manager, Mikel Arteta, despite a lack of tangible success over the past couple of years, with the hope that “the build”, as Postecoglou would put it, might eventually bear fruit.

Tottenham, instead, have reached for the ejector seat, and now us poor fans - starved of success for so many years and finally beginning to enjoy ourselves - are plunged back into the familiar position of starting over again with the next manager, Brentford’s Thomas Frank, whose chances of success may well hinge upon the time he is unlikely to be afforded.

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.