Summertime Sadness

Well, the sun's in the sky, pollen is in the air, crop tops and shorts are in and my nose is slightly burnt. Those are signs of the Summer having come.

The Premier League season wrapped up with drama at the bottom of the table, but our season ended in a more boring fashion, with Aston Villa beating Brighton - a thing that meant Tottenham, no matter what they did at Elland Road, were resigned to 8th place and a 2023/24 season being played entirely within England for the first time since 2009. We have been reduced to once-per-week football, which is a bitter-sweet degradation. It may be bad for the plummeting repute of the club, but might be good for the mental health of the fans.

On top of that, we still have no manager. Chelsea sacked Potter a full 7 days after Levy sacked Conte, and yet them in blue have been the first to announce their replacement; Mauricio Pochettino. Our Poch. We know now that he sat by the cockerel themed bat-phone and the phone did not ring. Had we still had a Director of Football running things, perhaps we'd have made the move, but that is another position currently vacant. Our captain's contract runs out in a month and our best player's in another 12. Add to all that the fact that Nuno Espirito Santo became the latest member of the 'We Left Spurs and Won Something Club' by winning the Saudi league and our misery is finally over. Or has it just begun? Those are the signs of the Summer just getting started.

But hey, Tottenham actually won this weekend. A comfortable win and away from home too. It was a 4-1 battering that condemned Leeds United to relegation. Lucas Moura scored in his final appearance. Those things are nice, right? I bet you're still thinking about the bad news.

Here's the good; Harry Kane is utterly amazing and he's ours. His 30 goals for this sorry Spurs are a more stunning achievement than Haaland's 36 for a scintillating City. Many are saying it. Many are right. A few months back I labelled our final 10 matches a Harry Kane farewell tour. It's looking now as though he'll be sticking around for one more season, giving him all the control and power he needs to dictate his future this time next year when his contract runs down. That's how you beat Daniel Levy; the long game. Eriksen had to play it and he did not regret a thing winning the Serie A. Kane will follow suit.

Replacing him is impossible. This team without him, should you subtract his match-saving goals, sits somewhere in proximity to Everton's near escape at the bottom. He is a combination of mesmeric talent (De Bruyne's passing, Kante's work-rate, Haaland's finishing, Ronaldo's heading...) the likes of which we will never see in white again. A player like him comes through the academy once in a generation. Those of you who've seen Moneyball know what we do when he leaves - we recreate him in a number of new signings. Yet that will be harder to do when his departure yields us not a single penny. I cannot even contemplate how I'll be feeling the day this happens. Wasn't this supposed to be the 'good news' segment?

Porro shows promise and is growing on me with every performance. His finish past Meslier was something we have not seen from our other forwards for much of the season. That said, Son still has it. Tactically, it went wrong for the Korean, but I am confident his athleticism and commitment will see a resurgence in his output (so long as the next manager doesn't play him deeper than a sperm whale's dildo like the last guy), traits he shares with Richarlison. Bentancur will also be back in action at the heart of midfield before Christmas and Scudetto-winning 20-year old Destiny Udogie will finally begin his long-awaited mission to make Tottenham's wing-backs great again. Not everything about the coming season is a bust.

Things can change quickly. Daniel Levy now has 70+ days to put Tottenham in the very best shape he can before August's curtain is drawn. It is obvious that a title challenge is so far off its a fantasy, not an ambition. So much ground must be made up already on teams charging over the horizon. We must be patient and acknowledge that transforming this squad into one that can hold its weight at the top will take years and years and years. By then, Kane will be gone and Son will be doing grey-haired Skywalk appearances for the social media and marketing team.

This era at Spurs, the new stadium one, the time of Kane and Son, the one of fast-paced counter-attacking football, the era of Poch, Jose, Conte and big names, is ending. Now, the stadium has been open for some time and has become a cauldron of exhaustion, disappointment and derision. It has witnessed repeated humiliations to United, Liverpool and Chelsea. Established managers have come through its doors promising greatness and those same managers have fled through the bathroom window.

The pressure on Levy this Summer is immense. The wait for a trophy has entered its 15th year and the football recently has been miserable. Titles are a pipe-dream, but cups are still winnable. If we are to have one last dance with Kane, let it be a glorious one. The aim next season must be to win the FA Cup. The aim for the Summer; Tottenham must either decide or discover who they are, who they want to be and how they want to get there.