It occurred to me recently that Spurs are best team in the country to support. I'm not saying they're the best, far from it, but just the most bloody entertaining, certainly in the last four years or so. Dad picked the right team. Here's why:
1) We don't do boring. Thanks to our habit of buying excellent attackers (Berbatov (he's gone but for the purpose for this blog he counts), Defoe, Pavlyuchenko, Bale, Crouch etc. etc. etc.) and good but eternally injured defenders (King, Woodgate) we concede a lot and score even more. Things have calmed down a little bit compared with 2007/8 where 4-4 draws were not uncommon - Arsenal Villa and Chelsea spring to mind - but we just don't do bore-draws. It's not easy on the nerves but it's great fun at the end of the day. 4-4 is always more fun than 1-0.
2) We're a thoroughly English club (relatively speaking). Daniel Levy is one of the few English chairmen in the Premier League, and certainly the richest of the lot. Not only is he liberal with his cash, but he also runs the club like a business, which, while it may sound dry, means we have among the best financial structure in the league. There are no £400m pound debts here. Furthermore, he's a very smart man: the £8m capture of Rafael Van Der Vaart was a stunning piece of business: the man is superb. Our team is also far more English (or British at least) than perhaps any other club in the top division. Unencumbered by injuries, our first team would include 8 British players (King, Woodgate/Dawson, Hutton, Lennon, Huddlestone, Bale, Crouch, Defoe), which is none too shabby.
3) Defeat makes victory all the sweeter. There are few other clubs that can say they have lost to Wigan and Bolton either side of thrashing Inter Milan (or something similar, obviously). Losing is annoying but it keeps our feet on the ground. Whilst we continue to slip up the club and its fans won't gain the arrogant sense of entitlement that others do (ahem, Arsenal and United), and won't sack the manager if even just a few such slip ups occur (ahem, Man City and Chelsea).
4) Heroes emerge from the unlikeliest places. In dire moments a strangely large number of players will step their game up and do something unexpected. Look to Alan Hutton, a largely ignored player, against Stoke (I think) a few weeks back where he scored one and won a penalty; Danny Rose scoring an absolute pearler against Arsenal in one of the crucial final few league matches of the season that helped secure a Champions League berth; Gareth Bale coming from almost nowhere to be the hottest property in Europe; a rare Huddlestone howitzer: there really are a lot of them.
5) We don't seem to have any twats at the club. 'Arry may occasionally show questionable morals, but on the other hand he is refreshingly candid and bullshit free. There are no Drogba or Ronaldo characters who dive at any opportunity and throw tantrums when decisions go against them. Of course I don't know them personally, but there is a distinct lack of egotism.
6) There are several under-appreciated players. No one seems to have realised that Huddlestone is without doubt the best player of long balls in the whole world. A drastic statement I think you'll agree, but hear me out. There are better passers - Xabi, Alonso, Iniesta, Fabregas etc. - but none of them could hit this. I hate the phrase but describing him as the team's "quarterback" is a pretty good description. His ability to predict an attacker's run and drive a ball with frankly unbelievable accuracy is astonishing; even more astonishing is that hardly anyone has picked up on this. Perhaps it's because he has been lumbered with a (fair) slow and cumbersome tag, but in the last year he has become an excellent shield for the back-four and a solid base from which to launch attacks. Liverpool were foolish not to place a bid when Alonso left, he would have filled the void more ably than nearly anyone.
Gomes is another under-appreciated gem. Just like Spurs itself, he makes just enough errors for the wider football-watching public to think he's crap, when in actual fact at his best he's in the top three in the league. I think it's fair to say his run of appalling form from the tail-end of the Juande Ramos era and the first few months of Redknapp's managership and the reputation that came with it has benefited both him and the club. No bids have come in that could unsettle him, and no one wants to buy him. His game isn't perfect but we wouldn't have won a place in Europe without his saves against Arsenal and Chelsea.
7) Gareth Bale. Holy Hell, this guy is amazing. No other player has generated so many column inches based purely on his footballing ability since, well, no one that I can remember - not even Ronaldo was hyped to this extent. The Fourth Estate has been singing his praises from the rooftops. His playing style is very similar to Ronaldo's, but whereas CR7 was critisised for going missing during big games, the opposite is true for Bale. He tends to falter against your lower-ranked teams but steps up and humbles the big boys. I've already mentioned consecutive defeats of Arsenal and Chelsea, but he's done it to Inter in spectacular fashion, Arsenal again, and several others that escape me for the time being.
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