17 losses, leaky medical rooms and Europa League looming
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The Athletic. Hello everybody and welcome once again to The View from the Lane, the award-winning Tottenham Hotspur podcast from The Athletic. I'm Danny Kelly and joining me today from The Athletic are Jack Pitbrook and James Moore. I'll start by quoting Pink Floyd here, hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way. I'll come back to that at the end of the podcast.

I suppose registered their 17th defeat in the league. Jack, there's part of you that thinks we don't even need to review this game because it's just some of it's the same old, same old. Some of it's quotes the manager is unusual, but it is still pretty horrible what happened. The reason why I think we should review it, so as you know, is that if the players are

appear to not give a toss, if the manager doesn't want to change anything for the better, there's no accountability at all. So it's down to us, the fans, the supporters of the club to kick up a round. Not because that game was important, because it was irrelevant to what's happening on Thursday. The result was irrelevant, but the performance is still something. There's got to be some pride in wearing that blinking shirt, whatever colour it is. I'm not happy to accept. I'm not prepared to accept. You just go out there, pony about,

And then if you're captain of the team, walk off the pitch without even acknowledging nearly 3,000 travelling supporters because you're already looking up condominiums in the area of the Metropolitano and all the rest of it. James, am I right? We have to call this sort of nonsense, don't we, this team? Yeah, look, you can't... It matters less than...

the game on Thursday night but I don't think you can completely discount it as being relevant and I think you're right if what you say the result the performance is more important than the result and it wasn't a performance that would have given you any confidence that this team are gonna are gonna find the performance required to get through in the Europa League on Thursday evening in Frankfurt when they're probably gonna need to win the game obviously they could win on penalties whatever um

Yeah, looking at that, I know there were, what, five changes, I think, from the team on Thursday night? I think that's right. Five or six, yeah. But we weren't bringing in teenagers. This is Spurs' team, isn't it? Right, it's still a core of first-choice players and then other senior players. As you say, it's not giving two 17-year-olds their debut or picking players you are otherwise reluctant to play, i.e. Reguillon or Werner.

It's players who have been in the mix this season and in previous seasons. And we know our capable Premier League players. And to be honest, it made me think the aberration was maybe Thursday night rather than

like this one because we've seen performances like this one so many times this season, regardless of who's in the team. Jack, I think this is your point, really, that it's almost hard, even for people who know their way around a lexicon with such facility as yourself and James, to find new words, phrases, similes, metaphors to describe what's going on with this Spurs team. Yeah, it's just the kind of...

I think it's just the kind of predictability, almost inevitability of it that is so disheartening. You know, it feels very like one league defeat is a disaster, 17 league defeats is a statistic. I know that people are really annoyed about the performance and maybe the selection. I totally get that. But it does feel...

Like, every time they lose a game, it just feels a bit more of a shrug, if you know what I mean. Like, I think that... And I think this one in particular, right, because he obviously rotated heavily, and it makes... We've talked a lot about rotation and to what extent should the eggs be in the Europa League basket, and I think a lot of people buy...

by the idea that the egg should be in the Europa League basket. But I mean, this is kind of a problem that you see a little bit in football now and then, right? Is that when a manager's putting all his emphasis on Europe and they've got two massive European games and then the Premier League game in between the two European games...

he plays, you know, what's in effect the B team. Like it's never going to go well, right? Because you're bringing, particularly, you know, if you're having a season as bad as Spurs are, if you're bringing in players whose confidence is on the floor, like this is what, Bissouma's first start since Posse Coghly killed him in the press conference at Craven Cottage. Gray's first start since Fulham. Tell's first start since Fulham.

None of these guys have done much recently to suggest that they would go out there and perform well. And I think as soon as you saw the team sheet, you knew it was going to be really, really tough for them. Within the context, you're playing a team who, for all their recent run, have spent 90% of the season in the relegation zone. True, yeah. True, but I just feel like

Even then, they are... It feels like they are heading in the right direction under the new manager. They've got seemingly like a bit of unity and they do have better players than their league position suggests. But they just... Like...

If you're coming up against a team who at least have a semblance of cohesion and momentum and positive support from the fans and they're playing for each other, and then you put that up against a pretty disaggregated bunch of Spurs players who haven't... This is not a team who's played together recently. This is not a team with really anyone who's in any sort of confidence or good form or has...

I think almost nobody who they picked has played well recently, I think, to be honest. Then, you know, you don't have to watch a huge amount of football to know that the coherent team is probably going to do better than the bunch of guys in Spurs shirts. And then, James, the game starts and...

The manager used the word unusual about events. I'm not sure how true that was because I genuinely think, and I feel for him as a human being, his interviews now before and after games, they are those of a crushed spirit, aren't they? Let's be truthful about that. Unless he's hiding something I can't see. And I've watched a lot of these interviews over the years. Um, but,

it wasn't unusual, but what was unusual was that this time they decided that the goalkeeper would start the rot. I've defended Vicario. First of all, he seems like a great bloke. Anyone who saw that little documentary the club made about his recovery from his recent injury, he seems like a top fella and all the rest of it. But his performance in the first 20 minutes there would have unhinged any team, never mind one struggling for form and cohesion, as Jack would say. Yeah, I mean...

That is the downswing of Vicario, isn't it? We've seen that a few times over the last two seasons. He's capable of incredible saves, but equally he has matches where he just gets incredibly easily rattled. And you can see that through the game when he was getting stick from the crowd throughout the second half. And although I don't think you would say he was to blame for either the two goals in the second half, I'm struggling to picture the third goal in my head now. That was entirely down to the captain, to Romero. Right, yes, of course, yeah. Yeah.

he still looked I think quite uncomfortable and a little bit unsure when he had the ball at his feet and a couple of times coming for crosses too I mean that first goal from the set piece I mean be curious to know what you both think of this but looking at that and I know when you're defending a wide a free kick from wide in that sort of position obviously you've got to have a lot of players in the six yard box because of where the ball is going to go and the you know like the fact that you're not going to play people offside that high up in the box

But to leave two Wolves players completely free on the edge of the penalty area, to me seems utterly, utterly mad. And that goal, I would say, I know it was only 90 seconds into the game, that goal has been coming for a year and a half. Because Spurs defend set pieces like that every single time. Every single player in the penalty area, or in this instance, basically the six-yard box. They never leave anyone up. And they rarely leave players on the edge of the box. And I've been waiting for...

the second phase goal like that from a set piece. And I'm amazed it hasn't happened more often. I mean, I think there was one at home to Everton last season, vaguely. I think Andre Gomes scored one sort of similar where a corner was cleared and he hit it in from near to the box. But I...

I mean, people might say, well, the fact that it's only happened twice-ish means it is actually working and they're defending free kicks well. But I mean, I'm not... To me, it seems mad that you would leave two players completely open on the edge of the box under absolutely no pressure. And yes, it's sort of two errors from Vicario in one in the kind of weak flap out.

the kind of the flap out to the edge of the box and then sort of basically falling over his own player trying to stop the ball after that. But I'm amazed at how they're set up at that kind of set piece. To me, that is as big a problem as a keeper flapping. I actually think they try to defend on the line in the penalty area a lot of the time, or at least when they look like they're really on their game, you often see them having...

defenders along the kind of 18-yard line, effectively. And they defend that way. I mean, it just goes to show what looks to me like a bit of a collapse of defensive organisation that we've seen in the last few months, as James says. They're just a mess in these scenarios at the moment, aren't they? And they...

that they've lost so much of whatever defensive organisation they used to have. The way Spurs went about this game and what eventually happened is that Wolves have been improving. We know that. The new manager's got a bit of a tune, particularly out of the Brazilian midfielders. And they start without the best player, Cunha, as well. Don't forget that. But the problem with this Spurs team, particularly away from home, and this is what Thursday is looming here, is that

the opposition doesn't have to play particularly well to beat them yeah you just have to stick in a game as first and they will give you the game yeah it's kind of spur if you're playing against spurs spurs will create chances for you it's a kind of negative chance creation right it's chance creation on behalf of the opposition i mean you can see that with the that great chance that was inori had like as soon after the first wolves goal where oh my goodness how did the choreo i think what

I think pass it back to Vicario and Vicario gets it wrong. And I think, to be fair, I think, no, I think it was Strand-Larsen and Romero gets just kind of close enough to him to put him off. Like that would have been, that would have been a total disaster. Not that, you know, not that the outcome was not a disaster in the end anyway, but it just goes to show that Tottenham...

At the moment, they're so open, they're so bad with the ball that you don't have to do an awful lot against them for Tottenham to just gift you these opportunities. And there were tons of them yesterday, just that have been in far too many games this season. But this is the thing of it all being a high wire act, isn't it? And it's been like that pretty much the whole way through, right? It's risk and reward, right?

But when all the players are low on confidence, the reward is so hard to grasp that like the risk they're taking. And I think you kind of saw that with really the second, third and fourth goals. Like a mistake is punished. It's punished so often and so ruthlessly when there's so much space. Like you get done on the turnover and then suddenly, you know, you've seen that. You see these things all over Twitter after every game. Like Spurs give away the ball in the midfield third.

And then suddenly it's like a three on two, a four on two. I mean, that one, we didn't really talk about it that much on Friday, but that one just before halftime in the Frankfurt game where...

Actually, that wasn't even a turnover. The ball just played through midfield really slowly. And because Romero's head up to the halfway line, it's like a massive space. Poro's cut inside. And then suddenly they've got this, I think, four on two, four on one maybe even. Ekitika has that scuffed shot from the edge of the box, which Vacario saved easily. But on another day, that's the second goal and that's the tie. I understand the concept of risk and reward, but I do think sometimes there are moments in games and in seasons where...

you need to put your foot on the ball and compose yourself and play with a little bit more structure. Well, I think they did do that. Get a foothold in a game and in a season. I think they did do that. Like, I don't think they've been trying to defend the same way all season. And I think there were certainly...

in like December, January, February where they did defend much more pragmatically like I'm thinking of you know Brentford away is probably the best example of that where is that personnel though? Yeah I think personnel I think personnel helps I think you know not having a lot of some of the players who are on the pitch yesterday helps as well

I mean, Kevin Danso, I know Kevin Danso didn't play at Brentford, and I know I've just interrupted you, but Kevin Danso would not run up to the halfway line. Right, exactly, yeah. Like Danso, I don't see Danso as being necessarily the most angible player I've ever seen, but I also think he's a really reliable, I think he's a reliable and canny defender of a sort that Tottenham don't really have that many of. And I think he allows you to defend in a more conventional way. Whereas yesterday, like...

watching yesterday, it felt like

the worst sort of, we're going to try and play this way without the players. And that means that for the opposition, as James says, like one, you know, it goes so quickly from one small mistake from Tottenham, massive chance for Wolves. And that just kills, like, if you can't allow yourself to make the slightest mistake without giving the opposition a huge chance on goal, then, I mean, that's a completely unsustainable way to play a football match. Although personally, there is no consequences there because, um,

With the exception of Bissouma and maybe Werner, there hasn't been much talked about the players from inside the club messing up. And I noticed that, you know...

After the goals went in, the first one, you know, your teammates say, come on, let's get on with it. They're actually kissing each other after the goals go in for, you know, oh mate, who knew that was going to happen to them. I'm talking about Bergval here after the fourth goal. He's a young player and all the rest of it, but he's getting praise. He's already international. He's been talked about as a future superstar and to wander into that tackle. And I've got more to say about this in just a second.

I really don't want to come on like Graham Souness. The football has changed since Graham and his ilk were changing the game by putting their foot in or shaking their fist. It has changed, but there has to be at least collective responsibility. It's a shrug of the shoulders from the Spurs team now, maybe a little kiss on the face. I don't think there's any collective responsibility in this team whatsoever. I think that's just been apparent all season.

really. I think a lot of that stems from leadership and experience. We talked about the

the issues that they've had with experienced players over the course of the season. I mean, the fact that the captain, Romero, doesn't really, I don't think, massively cares about how Tottenham are doing. I mean, and I can see that from the fact that he walked straight down the tunnel at the end of the game. I don't think that shows somebody who... If you walk down the tunnel at the end of an away defeat like that, I think you are...

You are not showing that you really care about the institution for which you are, where they are banned. You are baring your ass to the whole thing. And you certainly don't, you clearly don't care about the thousands of people who spent their money and travelled up to Wolverhampton for the game. But I just think that, you know, that kind of thing sets the tone, right? Like it's, and so I don't think...

And I think that makes it... I actually think that Bergwijn, to a lesser extent, Gray, look to me as if they have tried to uphold standards far more than you would expect from players of their age. But I feel like the kind of...

The balance, the ethos is obviously off, right? If a team loses 17 league games over the course of a season with some difficult games still to come as well, like that number is going to get bigger. To me, it's one of the, I mean, there's lots of different factors which go into that, but one of them I think clearly is an issue around standards and leadership in an organisation. I mean, the irony of all of that is one of the,

kind of senior players, certainly in terms of like voice in the dressing room from what we hear and also from kind of what we saw at the end of the game with him grabbing Bergvall by the face. I don't know if you've seen that clip. Yeah. Is Vicario who, I mean, you know, he's clowning around more than anyone. Yeah. And, you know, Bergvall would have been quite in his rights to say, let go of me, you'll drown us all.

I found that really weird, that. I mean, look, we've said on here before, we're not body language experts and we shouldn't look to... Speak for yourself, yeah, but go on. Fine. And we shouldn't look to overanalyse these things. But if you grab someone by the face... Really forcibly. Really, like, kind of quite, like, firmly, and they're clearly uncomfortable and kind of trying to shuffle you off, it's like, just let them go. I mean, don't do the thing in the first place, would be my advice, in general life.

It's just really, really odd. It's like sort of ostentatious leadership a little bit, wasn't it? It just kind of felt... It was performative, absolutely. Don't worry, I've got no plans to grab you by the face, James, for several reasons, not least your enormous size and fear of you. Listen, if you were watching this game as an outsider and not with your Spurs glasses on, it was an absolute comedy from start to finish.

which takes us to Spurs' goal, the first goal they get to come back into, inverted commas, the game. Tell didn't mean that, did it? It just hit him and went in, didn't it? He's attacked the right area. Is that how we're justifying it? I'm not blaming the fella. He tried more than most, I thought. I'll tell you what, I do think quite often you'd see other players, possibly including Solanke and Johnson,

Being in that situation, inverted in Johnson's case, I guess. See the ball come across and a defender stood there and think, well, he's going to clear it. So they'll stop the run and not attack the ball, not attack the far post. And then the ball runs across and they can't get there. So the fact he's actually continued his run. Maybe I'm overreacting this a little bit, but I do think the fact he has carried on running in the hope slash expectation that the ball may still end up being there, even though it has gone in off his shin, like in quite a fortuitous way.

You make your own luck, Danny.

Oh, look, compared to what was going on with the rest of his forward colleagues, you know, you're right. He stood on the exact square metre of the earth that would allow that to happen. Listen, we're batting around our views on the comical game at Wolverhampton, or tragical, depending on how you saw it. Why not get another voice in on this? You've been listening to Elias Burke and reading him in The Athletic. He's covering Spurs more and more and more. He was at the game, and this is what he saw. Yeah.

And in terms of kind of as the game was going on, I saw some suggestion on Twitter that there may have been some anti-Levy chants from the travelling supporters, which, again, would not be surprised given they're often sung at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. But I didn't hear them myself. We sat on the other side of the stadium from the stand that the Spurs fans sit in. The Wolves fans also sang.

he gets sacked in the morning to Ange but again like on the other side of the stadium so I couldn't tell whether any of the Spurs supporters joined in but yeah like after the game as you might imagine the mood between Pasokoglu's press conference and in Pisa Pereira's was entirely different like during the game there was a Tifa and one of the stands at Molineux which says first the points then the pints I think

And Pereira said the first part in the press, almost like as a call and response kind of situation. And the Wolves journalist finished it, so he said first the points and then they finished it with then the points. You might argue it's a little bit unprofessional, but it was funny. And from the Twitter videos after the game, I think he stuck to his word as well, meeting the fans out for a drink in the Wolverhampton Town Centre after the game.

Yeah, as you can probably imagine, Pastor Coghlu was a little bit more downbeat in his presser.

He spoke, forgivingly I'd say, towards Bergwijn and Romero, obviously two of the players that made the errors for the goals, but pointed out that the defeat was a result of those kind of individual errors, not just from him. He didn't mention Beccario particularly, but I think he's probably alluded to saying he'd probably be more frustrated if it was something that we did from a tactical perspective or organisational perspective.

you know you can look at the goal that they can see it against frankfurt midweek and say that was probably more to do with pasta koglu's style i mean it was an individual individual error from madison but it's almost as a consequence of how many players they commit forward when they're in the opposition half uh but it wasn't the case really in in these goals so yeah and this is one of those results that if they were to beat frankfurt midweek it wouldn't look so bad but because

We don't know what's going to happen right now. I mean, the rotated side and the performance and the result more than anything, yeah, it just doesn't look good on Spurs or possibly. So welcome back to The View from the Lane. You're listening to James Moore, Jack Pitbrook and me, Danny Kelly. What about the leak? What do we know about the leak, Jack? The leak that I don't believe is a smokescreen. There may very well be a leak there.

How important is the leak? How will they find the leak? And how will they punish the leaker? How important is the leak? Not in the slightest. I mean, like you never put it like this. You never really hear of leak inquiries going on at successful teams, you know, like at all football clubs.

information gets out. It's literally your job, for instance. Yeah, not just mine. Absolutely. The football media is full of people who report on things that go on inside football clubs. And as a rule, not always, but as a rule, the bigger the club, the more people there are employed to find out things about what's going on and more information gets out. Lots of

But I've never I cannot think of a single example of a team that was good and winning and healthy. That was also you know, searching for internal internal enemies and internal traitors. This this is just a really common thing at football clubs. And it's not it's not really anything to do with Tottenham. It happens every year.

Every big club, there's always injury. How did that injury news get out? How did that team news get out? How did that thing that happened in training get out? It's as common in the football industry as the weather. It's just part of the landscape. But no, it's obviously not a sign that

that things are going great if this is a matter of concern. Jack, you couldn't be more right. I'm not going to name the names because I don't want to get people into retrospective trouble, but there was a lovely spell over at my other employment at TalkSport where we always knew the England starting line-up well ahead of everybody else because we had a mole in the camp.

and I know who it was and I'm not going to cause some retrospective trouble, fun though it would be to put the name out there but one of the England team would let us know two hours before the kick-off what the side was going to be

Jack, sorry, James. Yeah, it's a big thing. It's, you know, finding out, I mean, a lot of journalistic work goes into finding out how, you know, finding out the England team, like, before games. And also I'd say that it's not as simple as...

I mean, people like to think of it in the context of a leak, but often it's just a case of knowing someone who knows and asking the right questions. You know, it's not as simple as one person with information decides to turn a tap on and then the information flows out. You know, there's usually a lot of the time. That's the definition of not a leak, Jack, if you're formally turning the tap on.

Yeah, but yeah, it's not... The part of Charlie Eccleshare was played by Danny Kelly there. James, you're one of the big beasts, no pun intended, of the sports media. Are you encouraging leaks? Are you receiving the benefit of leaks? Are you paying for leaks? I mean, we're not paying for leaks. Let's just be clear about that. With that England team selection thing, I've said this internally at Athletic, I don't really like the...

publishing the team. I don't think we've ever kind of done a full team. It's more like individual selections, I think. But I'm kind of a bit... Personally, I'm all in on keeping those secrets secret. I mean, as for this Postacoglu stuff, I just think it's a deflection. I can see why he'd be annoyed about it. But as Jack says, if they were winning matches or winning matches semi-regularly, it's not a thing he...

you know, bats an eyelid. What's the phrase? Bats an eyelid. Is that a phrase? Is that the phrase? Yeah. If they're winning regularly, it's not a thing he bats an eyelid over. There is no eyelash batting at all, no. Right, exactly. And, yeah, I...

Like I mean, it's just the latest in a kind of relatively long and growing line of little deflections from like a manager who's clearly feeling the pressure. So I know that he's by no means the first manager to complain about this kind of thing specifically or do this kind of thing in general. It's just it's just what happens when managers are forced to sit in front of the press for 15 minutes twice a week.

when they know they're going to be asked difficult questions. And here's my question for you, James, then. So the leak inquiry is underway. Inevitably, he's going to get asked about it.

Or do we have to wait for someone else, the journalistic stripe, to go and get a leak? But who is the leaker? Maybe one of the ITKs on Twitter will tweet and let us know who the leak was. Yeah, my suspicion is it won't be his problem for much longer. But that's not for me to know either, is it? Let's be truthful. All right, let's move on then to...

Vinay Venkatesham has been, from what we gather, a tremendously successful CEO at Arsenal. Amazing that Spurs haven't turned to Chelsea for one, but there you are. From what you know, Jack, did Spurs need a new CEO? What will be his responsibilities? And how many of those responsibilities are already covered currently by people on massive wages? No, I think they do need a new CEO. I think it does make sense. Spurs are obviously run...

like it's an incredibly tight ship at the top. And obviously, Daniel Levy is the chairman. But in effect, the way that he runs the club is not that different from having a, you know, from being a CEO, like he could plausibly be called CEO, although of course, he is also the chairman. So I think, I gather that for a while Spurs have been interested in this kind of beeping up that corporate structure, you know, adding, you

adding new, adding new appointments to make sure that it's not just Levy and people very close to him who are, who are running everything. So I think it does make sense to bring in some outside, some outside expertise at the top, someone who's had experience running another, you know, another very big club, which is an Arsenal, which has obviously had some of the, some similar challenges and some similar issues to Spurs. So no, like I,

I think in that sense it does make sense and I think it sounds like good news. Other people who I see on social media, I say not the real world but still real people, mostly real people, good morning to all my sex bots, the hope seems to be that he will back Levy down from some of his

intrusive activities at the club. That to me, I don't know anything about it, but that to me seems a very unlikely hope. Why would Daniel Levy change the habits of

two decades. Well, I, we, I don't want to like, guess how that working dynamic is going to be. But I would, I would assume that if he's coming in, if in if Venkatesh is coming in a CEO, that were like, the goal would be that Daniel Levy can maybe do slightly less of this kind of day to day running of the organization that I think would be the theory.

James, are you excited by the appointment? Oh, it's real. It's another game changer for me. I mean, it's interesting and I obviously completely understand that scepticism as you just kind of alluded to. But if Daniel Levy was only really doing this with a view to still just running the club entirely himself, like I don't really see any way in which he would just do this if his plan was still to make all the decisions himself. Like he has sought to bring in

external expertise at that level and as Jack says if you compare the kind of structure right at the very top of the club to sort of I mean maybe these clubs are bad examples because they're not having a great time Chelsea Manchester United Arsenal like there are way fewer people or bodies as we were saying if we were talking about players involved but if you look you know how few people there are between Daniel Levy and

So whichever Spurs manager you're talking about, it's normally one person at most. Whereas other clubs between the manager and the person at the very top, they'll be quite often four or five people. So, you know, I mean, I know you and I wouldn't see it as an area of need quite as much as like a number six. But I can kind of see the logic. And also, that's a really good comparison. Spurs have always been incredibly...

like, streamlined is maybe the best way of putting it, or in the sense that the power at the top is really concentrated in Daniel Levy and the people very close to Daniel Levy who work immediately with him and have done for, you know, for basically the entirety of the Enoch era at Spurs. And that is just very different from, I mean, Chelsea Man United are good examples, right? Because they both have the kind of huge...

of different high-level executives. So much so that Man United constructed this huge collection of executives and then found they didn't actually have room for Dan Ashworth, who they'd moved mountains to bring in Dan Ashworth. And then they found out they didn't have enough room for him and then he left. So I think that...

Whereas I think at Tottenham there's been a bit of a sense that while they've had this way of operating for coming up to 25 years now, it does make sense to make it look more like

not specifically like Man United or Chelsea because I don't think anybody would particularly want to be run that way but it does make sense to add some more like I said like strengthen the corporate structure bring in more executives who can allow for maybe a little bit more delegation and like power to be diffused diffused a bit more through the structure and so I think that like this appointment is very much in line with that you know they have tried this in various forms in recent years.

Welcome back to The View from the Lane, the final section of today's podcast. I suppose this is the biggest game of the season. I guess that's the only way to call it, is upon us. Second leg of the Europa League quarterfinal against Eintracht Frankfurt.

Spurs' away record is no good in Europe. Spurs' away record is no good in general. But James, we cling as human beings to optimism. I'm still, despite the fiasco at Molineux, I'm praying and hoping that the team can pull itself together somehow for one last charge at this season. Yeah, I mean, as we said last week, I mean, I think...

they'll need a better performance than the one they put in last Thursday in the first leg they'll obviously need an infinitely better performance than the one they put in on Sunday again rotation factored in

I mean, people may not be surprised to hear I haven't got massive faith in that happening. There's a possibility. We talked about Frankfurt's kind of focus on qualifying for the Champions League through the Bundesliga and I suspect they won 3-0 against Heidenheim over the weekend. There were some very interesting tweets from Seb on that during the game on how Frankfurt exploited

the way Heidenheim played which seems to me to be very much the way Spurs play at the moment that would be the thing that would give me some confidence the fact that maybe they may just have half an eye on league matters whereas I mean there isn't as much chance you could accuse Spurs of that so maybe if Spurs start the game well and can get in front

they could do it I mean certainly if they fell behind I'd have absolutely no faith I just I want to believe I dearly dearly want them to go through you have no idea how much I really really want them to win I want to be there in Bilbao with you Danny on our little cruise and whatever else

Yeah. Yeah. In our sandals. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to cope with the idea of missing out on playing a Norwegian team in a European semi-final, which is obviously a real possibility.

I mean... Both are glimpses of everything that Spurs aren't at the moment. They are... Going through? Well, they're one going through, but they're also... They're just a team who have... I don't want to use the word philosophy because philosophy doesn't win football matches. They've got organisation, they've got cohesion, they've got belief in each other, they've got belief in the collective and they go out and try and achieve...

do the physical things required to turn those beliefs into actual football results. Spurs is all talk and no action at the moment. That's an interesting point, actually, because our belief is irrelevant, really. It is whether the players believe. And on Thursday night, there were a lot of signs that maybe they do. But I find it hard to picture a world in which you can fluctuate between...

Such bad performances and performances at the level required to win away to a team like Frankfurt. I find it so hard to picture. And yet it has happened over and over again in the history of football. Even in Spurs' recent past, Manchester City, Ajax, these things can happen. But that was a much more self-contained group of players who had faith in each other, even against...

you could argue superior opposition in the case of Manchester City and circumstances in the case of Ajax. Jack, come on.

Well, the closest I can get to summoning optimism would be hoping that Spurs can go through a sort of severance-like procedure. I don't know if you've seen the show Severance, Danny. Mrs Kelly is a great fan of it, but has decided that it's not for me, as she often does. Well, basically, the premise of Severance, right, is that if you get a...

in a court, there's a corporation called Lumon enterprises who can have got this device whereby they insert a chip into your brain. And if you have the chip inserted, that means that when you step into the workplace,

you forget everything you knew in the outside world. You effectively become a new person, right? You have new memories. You are a new and different person. Yes. And I think my only hope for Tottenham Hotspur in the Europa League is that they could have a severance type team

experience, right? Whereby when the Europa League theme tune comes on, they become a different team, a different team made up of different players with no memories of their 17 league defeats. Because if they go into the Frankfurt game on Thursday, burdened by the memory of their 17 league defeats and everything that's gone wrong this season, I don't see how they would be able to play the right way. But if we can put faith in this kind of science fiction, um,

solution, whereby they are utterly transformed and they enter the pitch in Frankfurt a completely different team, then I think maybe there is every reason to believe that they might be able to get a result and make it through to the semi-finals. We're just putting a lot of faith in the power of the Europa League anthem. And also we're putting faith that this

that what we've seen in a sci-fi show on Apple could also become like the physical truth in the real world. So it's unlikely, but... Well, two things, Jack. First of all, congratulations for getting through that with a straight face. Well done. And secondly, I suspect you're going to cause Mrs. Kelly Alex to spontaneously combust the prospect of being able to compare...

it to the game to an episode of succession will be already and then she can watch Spurs lose as well. I think that maybe I may have to take it a hospital to such will be the level of excitement. The severance theory of Spurs going through right, which is that they forget everything that's happened in the league.

and therefore and they become a different team in Europe and then they they go and play this game and they win the problem with that right is that you said earlier Danny that they've been really bad away in the league this season which is true but sadly they've also been bad away in Europe and

Like they've had, you know, they've had five games, they've had five away games in the Europa League so far this season. So they scraped through again, they won 2-1 to Ferencvaros, that was not a great game, but they did well. They got absolutely battered at Galatasaray, you know, they conceded 28 shots, they conceded 3.12 xG, like they lost 3-2, they could have lost 10-2.

They didn't really do... I thought Rangers were the better team when they went to Ibrox. Admittedly, Ibrox is a difficult place to go, but Spurs weren't very good. Hoffenheim? Hoffenheim are not a very good side. I thought they were better than Tottenham that day. They massively outshot Tottenham, 22-8. Beat Tottenham on XG. Yeah, Spurs nicked it 3-2, but I thought...

And then Alkmaar, for many, you know, lots of different Spurs fans have got their own breaking point this season, as in the point at which they gave up hope. But I know more people who said to me Alkmaar away was their breaking point than any other game, I think. You know, that was a game where everything was on the line and Spurs needed to play really well and Posse Cogni talked it up beforehand. And then Spurs almost literally didn't show up for the game.

And they were lucky that they didn't lose by so many that night that they weren't able to turn it around in the second leg. So putting those five European away games together, and now they're playing Frankfurt, who are better than any of the other teams they've played in Europe this season, home or away, I think.

I just think it's, it seemed, I've been, I've been spent like, feels like a month now trying to find like a rational case for optimism. What's the rational case for optimism for this game? And I, I am struggling at the moment. We've still got, you know, it's only Monday morning. The game's not until Thursday night. So we've still got a few days yet for me to find this rational case for optimism. But at the moment, Danny, I'm struggling. James, let's assume that everybody with a posplix, well, we know Dan Soh,

Let's assume it could. Well, look, Van de Ven, Kulosevsky, they've kind of got to play because what are we saving them for if not? Sorry, are we assuming Odober's fit and it was all a ruse or is he actually injured? I don't know the answer to that because that hasn't been leaked to me. Kulosevsky starts, where does he start? I mean, I'd be surprised if he did start, to be honest. It seems to be the way these things are working these days that players are very much eased in

If he is fit to start, then I guess you probably have to have him in there. Probably then you're leaving out Maddison, I think. You probably have to have Benteke sitting and you can't play without Bergwijn at the moment. I don't think you can not play Maddison. He's looked like our only source of creativity, really, other than, as you described, the horseshoe around until we can... That's why you're bringing Kieliszewski back in there, right?

A source of creativity, a better source of creativity. Well, maybe you can create from out wide, Kenny. A more consistent source of creativity, perhaps. Yeah, I mean, I thought we were over that now. Yeah. I also thought you were asking my team, we need to see why I'm going to pick it apart. I'm not the man. All right, I will ask you for your team and I promise not to pick it apart. Yeah, actually, I would put Kolesetsky on the right. Yeah, like any sensible person would in these circumstances.

And, okay, well, the rest are kind of, we know Solanke will play, Son presumably will be fit and will play two of the three fullbacks. Well, here we go. If it's up to you, does Son start on Thursday night? Yes, because if the plane is going to crash, the pilot should be there. The captain should go down with the ship.

simple as that do i think son is playing well no but sonny he's still you know he's been there and done it he's played in tons of these massive games far more than anyone else and i just think he has more of a chance of doing something out of nothing than any of the alternatives um so i think it would be i think it would be bizarre to not play him

You know, and the question would be more important if either Danso or Dragosin was fit. And I know I've flip-flopped 180 degrees on this. I don't care. I wouldn't pick Romero the way he's carrying on.

But that's not an option that we have. Listen, thank you both for that, James and Jack. Thank you all for listening. Remember, you can get in touch with us on social media and at vftl at theathletic.com. We'll be back Friday when we'll be looking back on hopefully a 3-2 victory in Germany. I started with that Pink Floyd quote, I hope I won't be completing it. Let me say goodbye and come on you Spurs.

And this, hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way. The time is gone. The song is over. Thought I'd have something more to say. That's not what I'll be saying on Friday morning. The Athletic.