A Frank(furt) discussion & Spurs underachievement or anomaly?
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The Athletic FC Podcast Network. Hello everybody and welcome once again to The View from the Lane, the multi-award winning Tottenham Hotspur podcast from The Athletic. I'm Danny Kelly with me today from The Athletic.

James Moore and Jay Harris. We've got a lot to get through today. Frustration against Eintracht Frankfurt. An occasionally very good performance. Luck wasn't really with Spurs. We'll also talk about the 12 domestic clubs who have won a major trophy since Spurs last lifted one. Great piece in The Athletic about this.

about whether it's one of the great historic blips, Spurs not winning a trophy. And we'll debate why this podcast has come bottom of the table compared to all other Spurs podcasts for our lack of swearing. Now, of course, if I was trying to do cheap comedy, I'd have sworn there. Later on, I probably will just lump one in. Hi, Jay. Hi, James. And let's get stuck into this.

Eintracht Frankfurt, the season now balances on the head of a pin. Just one game will decide how we look back on, well, at least most of this season. In some ways, I think it's a very difficult game to actually analyse. But, Jay, what did you make of the 90 minutes against Frankfurt? I think it was one of the best performances I've seen in a while. I was sort of caught in two minds last night. Do you praise the positivity of the performance or do you go down the route of Spurs missed the game?

so many chances will that come back to haunt them? And I thought, you know, we'll go with the positivity for a rare change. That five, ten-minute period in the second half where I think Bergwijn and Bentencourt hit the post, Frankfurt's goalkeeper made a fantastic save from Son, I think Maddison had a shot sort of cleared off the line.

Tottenham just played with an attacking intensity that we've not seen many times this season. And I think credit to them, they started badly. And I was a bit fearful at that point when Eketike scored, especially because he scored so easily. He literally took one pass to sort of open up Tottenham's defence. You're thinking, wow, this is going to get ugly and we're not even in Germany yet. So you have to give credit to the players and Postacoglu because they turned it around. And even though...

I'm sure I was not the only one who was quite surprised that Spence was dropped. So I think we can all agree that he's been one of Tottenham's best players, if not, along with Bergwijn, the best player of the last few months. I think Adogie and Poro did more than enough to justify their inclusion. So I'm looking at this so Possacoglu will be happy. From a glass-half-full rhetoric, not a glass-half-empty rhetoric. So there'll be no...

Not right now. There'll be no turning gold into crap. Ding. James, your glass of liquid, half full, half empty. I was going to hold up my glass of apple juice, but I worry what it would look like, something else. So actually, let's not dwell on that. With the ice cubes. With the ice cubes, yeah. You know how it is. It would be unlikely you're drinking your own urine at this time of the morning, surely. No, it's not on a Friday. No.

No, no, no. It's a shame. I mean, I guess in a way, maybe it's good to be disappointed for different reasons. We've been disappointed so many times this season because the performance has been flat or worse. But this time we're disappointed that the team has played pretty well, or better than pretty well, and not got what they deserved. And actually, to my mind, it's just the first time this season Spurs haven't got what they deserved from a game, for good and for bad. For the most part, it feels like

they've played badly and lost or played well. In that case, they have got what they deserved, haven't they? Over the piece, yeah. I mean, on the day. I know what you mean. I think that's possibly fair to say. I'm trying to wrap my brain of any results before Christmas where they were a little bit unlucky, but nothing jumps out immediately. For the most part. And then in all the games they've won, they played well. So, yeah, it was rare in that sense. And I mean, I guess the shame is... I mean, obviously the tie's not gone. The shame is...

If this had been a performance that we got in January or February, you could kind of look at it and say, even beyond just this competition, you can kind of throw forward and be optimistic about what's to come. I worry slightly that there isn't enough road... I mean, obviously there isn't enough road left in the Premier League to do anything of note this season. It's clearly going to be a very... You would expect it to be a more difficult game in Germany next week. So...

That is a shame, but if you're looking at the performance in isolation, it was incredibly good, incredibly encouraging. Well, I come across as a bit mealy-mouthed then. If I say I'm not quite sure it was incredibly good, I thought it was really good in patches. Where they were good, they were very good, but they weren't sustained entirely, were they? Second half, Spurs were dominant. Let's be honest about that. It

Frankfurt were celebrating at the end because they knew that they, not that they got away with it, because Spurs didn't make a huge amount of chance, but the chance they made was so good. Nobody would be surprised if Spurs had won the game 3-1, 4-1 even, on another occasion. It

Well, look, let's talk about the positives. I think it's such a rare opportunity to talk about positives. I'll get on to the slight negative in a while. And that is that so many players, I thought, James, who, including the selection of Udagi, so many players who had been coming back from injury, so we hadn't seen them for a while, or, you know, had been out of form collectively and individually, with the exception of the forward players, which we'll get on to, I thought...

I suppose players were really, really good. They were at it. They were committed to the game and to the moment almost and got stuck in and played really well most of them. So just to row back to your previous point slightly, I don't think it's very, very rare you'll see in a game of that nature, of that magnitude between two sort of top-ish teams players

That one team will be dominant and absolutely fantastic for the whole game. I just don't think you see that very often. And like playing incredibly well in the second half and merely being kind of okay in the first half, I think is pretty good going in general.

On your other point, yes, I thought there were a lot of good performances from players. Bensinker has been much maligned, I'd say, over the last couple of months. I thought he had his best game since maybe even pre-first injury. It's a long time since he looked like that. It was before Bergwale again, and I will talk about him in a minute. I mean, he is going to be, let's say by the end of next season, I think it's going to be pretty clear that he'll be

top 10 best players in the Premier League I think I kind of expect that to be like a widely accepted thing by that point like so many of your views ignore the fact I basically said that about Udogi last season yeah I just think he has so much going for him there's so many strengths so many of like the key attributes of a player in that position and he's only 19 it's reasonable to expect that in a lot of those areas he would improve as well

Yeah, he is going to be one hell of a player. And I mean, how good would it have been? It would have been one of the great moments, had that shot. Canning in off the underside of the bar rather than hitting the woodwork or whatever. Romero looked interested, which sounds like you're sort of damning someone with faint praise, and I guess you kind of are. But with all the noise of the last couple of months or slightly longer, to see him in the big game kind of, I mean, in a way, still one or two kind of errant passes, particularly in the first half. But in general, on and off the ball, I thought he looked

A lot closer to the kind of Pete Romero that we really haven't seen that much this season. Van der Ven, for the first time post-injury, or this most recent injury, or these two most recent injuries, he dashed back and took the ball off someone. And that was the one thing we hadn't really seen in the last couple of games. I was slightly cautious...

I'm slightly concerned that maybe we won't get to see that anymore. It was very encouraging to see that. You mentioned Udogi. I mean, I was definitely in the camp that Spence should have started. I'm not sure I've necessarily been swayed entirely from that, but I thought Udogi played well and that was his best game for quite a long time too. It is possible to hold the opinion that Spence should have started, but Udogi was fantastic, I thought. I thought he's...

sheer running power. And, you know, he's now decided that if he can't run past Bickley, run through them. And that was really great to see. I mean, the Jed Spence thing was mysterious to me because we don't see him in training. We don't know if he's suddenly got a red line on some sports scientist's computer that says you want to give him a rest. But in the end, at the end of the day, the simple fact was that Udogi played really, really well. Anyone else you want to single out, Jay? No.

Well, I was actually going to say I did a little bit of research after the game last night. You won't stay on this podcast long with that kind of attitude. And if I've checked everything correctly, that was the first time Vicario, Odogui, Van de Ven, Romero and Porro have started a game together since the 1-0 defeat to Palace on October the 27th. So that's five months of a season. The first choice defensive unit, which is just...

crazy when you think about it. So yes, I thought it was a shame Spence didn't start because he's been fantastic recently. But when you contextualise it like that, that defensive unit which helped this side to finish fifth last season, I can understand why Postacoglu went for them instead. And he did exactly what you've just done. Postacoglu praised the doggies' relentless running. I do remember there was one point in the first half where

He just hit top speed and sort of overtook Son on the overlap. And, you know, such a selfless thing to do. He was never going to get the ball. It was to drag the defender away. And there were just constant moments like that. I thought, Poro, in the beginning, there was a couple of errant passes, but then fantastic goal and his set-piece delivery was spot on as well. The defence really stood up and made themselves counted. And look, I'm sure we'll get onto this in a minute.

Eke Tike is a special player. It's no surprise that he sort of created a couple of chances out of nothing. But otherwise...

If you took him out of the team, I don't think Frankfurt really affected Spurs in any way. Yeah, that's interesting because, you know, Seb, when he was on here, Seb Stafford-Glur on the previous podcast was telling us all about, well, the strengths of Frankfurt's team, including, you know, they are, I think, statistically, just about the best team in the top five leagues in Europe on the break with turnovers, whatever this week's jargon is for getting the ball off the oppo and having a go. Yeah.

And Spurs, I thought Spurs did very well with most of that. Of course, the goal came from exactly what Seb was talking about. And it's easy to look at Madison losing possession, but I think it's systemic with Spurs, isn't it? The way they play is that any turnover in the first two-thirds of the pitch puts Spurs under immediate pressure. They never have a spare man. And Eke Teekay finished beyond that systemic weakness in the way Spurs play.

You can't account entirely for a player coming in and beating a brilliant goalkeeper into the corner like that. It was a fantastic goal. And sometimes you have to put your metaphorical hands up and say, bloody hell. I suppose the result might have been better for Spurs. And given the way they've been playing, it's not the worst result in the world. It does keep them in the tie, at least going to Germany. But having praised the back four,

The goalkeeper looks after himself largely. The midfielders, Benton Kerr played well. Bergwell was excellent. Madison did a lot of good things. The front three, if they'd been in any kind of form between them, Spurs might have won this game handily. I don't know what's going on here, James. Is it just the lag between, you know, a number of very poor performances means the team is still not coherent? Or is it that...

Johnson does one thing brilliantly, and if he doesn't do that, he doesn't do anything. And Son and Solanke are just in such strange form. I...

Son, we've talked about a lot. Solanke is in danger of having a very old season now. Everyone praises his work rate, but you can't keep going game after game after game if you're the spear point of a team without scoring a goal. Yeah, I mean, look, obviously he does work incredibly hard and that is one of the things he's in the team to do, to press basically out of possession. The one kind of concern I have, I mean, look, if you're being kind of

kind, you'd say he doesn't really miss many chances, but he doesn't really get many chances, which is true. I also wonder whether he doesn't go looking for chances enough. There are moments where there's a cross in the second half for Moudoghi. He's absolutely fired it across the six-yard box and the keeper's let it go and it's gone across right through the box. But Solanke's dropped right off. He's on the edge of the box. And it's just so rare that you see him

like attacking the penalty area like he doesn't he doesn't get chances partly because he's never really in the box attacking the ball like he's quite often he's quite often the man who like drops off and he's there to have the ball tucked back to him and we saw I mean I think in that Villa game way back in October November he scored at least one of his no only one of his goals yeah one of his goals was from that kind of situation for Charleston who tucked the ball back to him

But those chances have been so few and far between this season. More often than not, they go straight across the box, don't they? From one full-back to the forward on the other side or one attacker to the other on the other side. It's quite often Johnson, as you mentioned. Solanke's just not attacking those kind of areas.

it does strike me I don't know whether that's a confidence thing whether that's a tactical thing whether that's just the way he plays a stylistic thing I mean maybe you could bring up all the data now and I'd be proven wrong but I do feel like he gets so so few chances and if you watched back build up play and moments where Spurs have got the ball out wide and they've got like a bit of space to attack he doesn't make runs like if you sat and watched that with

a prolific striker I suspect they'd say he could move here he could do this he could do that it's that kind of killer instinct I'm just not sure he has for all of his really good qualities and I thought he had a good game yesterday and you know he got like a big ovation when he came off and he walks past the south stand and he looks pretty upset

I guess maybe that you hadn't scored or I suppose weren't winning at that point. It was a competition between him and Son and Maddison to look most upset at being substituted, wasn't it? But yeah, I think it's a fair question. I've seen a few kind of comments on social media pouring scorn on the idea that the conversation needs to be had. It's not necessarily a criticism of Solanke, the fact that he's not scoring goals, but clearly there is an issue there. You can't have...

a centre-forward on a team, even a team that's scoring a lot of goals still, scoring, what was he on, like 10 or 11 goals in all competitions? And I know he's had the injury, which has definitely slowed him down. His numbers before that weren't too bad, or they weren't great. It does kind of concern me though, is that like a killer instinct, like the clinical, like the kind of reading of the game to get in those positions where you're going to get the simple scrappy goals. Put it this way, the Spurs goal was, I love Spurs goal, it was a brilliant goal, and he played a part in that, but I would have been...

Even happier if he'd been the one doing the fancy flick in the six-yard box rather than Porrow, just for the shape of the team and the future of it. What do you make of it, Jay? Because his work rate is becoming almost legendary. Is that enough, though? Well...

I keep saying I'm hoping he's saving up, but now I'm hoping he's saving up the hat-trick for Frankfurt. We'll see. There's a couple of things I was trying to check while James was talking. And the first one is, I don't think Solanke scored in any competition since January the 4th, which was the defeat to Newcastle. Now, as mentioned, he was out with a knee injury for part of that time, but still a significant chunk of the season.

Firstly, before the game, Brennan Johnson spoke to the media. Johnson spoke about hitting 20 goal involvements and how he'd worked on positioning and finishing in training. So then I got the opportunity to ask him and I said, oh, can you give us a specific example? And he spoke about the goal, the first goal that he scored against Southampton, which he should have. He had an opportunity to score a very similar goal last night and he blazed it over the bar. Yeah.

And what he said was they work on that in training where Solanke runs to the front post and almost creates space for Johnson in the middle. So it's almost like the way the team is structured. It's almost as if Solanke is this very selfless striker who creates space and opportunities for others to score from.

Now, on that same topic, I wrote a piece back in October on Solanke, just sort of recapping his journey. And there were some quotes in there from Adi Vivas, who worked with Solanke at Chelsea. Vivas said that...

Solanke, when he was younger, was very rare because he was able to play in a combination of the two positions, number nine and number 10, and have such football intelligence. And so I almost wonder if that works against him in some scenarios, that he's also got these creative abilities, because it means...

sort of as James alluded to, maybe he doesn't have that exact same instinct as other strikers for just scrappy six-yard box goals. He doesn't seem to, as James mentioned, attack that space enough

as much as other strikers that you think of. So his link-up play is phenomenal and he can turn on the ball and he's fantastic at doing that. And that's his creative, almost playmaking-esque abilities. But does that sort of detract from his actual goal-scoring abilities? It's sort of difficult to be good at both things at once. I hope that all makes sense. And my hope is that Spurs are not coaching the poaching out of him. Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm hoping. It's a phase he's going through.

One more chance I think I want to talk about because it would have changed the tone of the tie and the deed of this podcast materially. How did Mickey Van De Ven miss that chance in the last minute? Now, I've got some research here. I assume I've been researching as well. I've gone through the members of my family, Harry Redknapp style, who might have scored that goal. Now, I've carried myself out of this because my knee injury is too bad. I'm carrying too much kneecap.

knee flake to have even got into position. And I've gone through three generations before I got down to my great niece, Rosalie, who I don't think would have got her. She's too short to have got the initial contact on the ball.

And that's nearly 200 people who would have scored that goal in my family alone. What on earth happened to him? He's just too, he's too tall in that moment, right? Yeah, I was going to say. Like it's just an awkward height for him. He's over the ball. He's like stooping to have that ball at a really awkward height. Well, I can, there are several other parts of his body, including reproductive ones that he could have put that ball across the line with. I mean, please, I mean, good God, man, just put some part of your chest, gut, groin, knee to the ball and put it over the line. Yeah.

If he could do the latter there... It's all up in matter, Jay. This is a very serious matter in European football. Good luck to him if he can do the latter there. I mean, is it a mad height? It's unfortunate, but it is a very awkward height for any player other than like Jose Dominguez, probably.

He really has to kind of, he's running into it and he has to stoop. He's kind of caught, he's kind of maybe almost got there slightly too soon so he can't like throw himself at the ball. Does he head it onto his own foot? Yes, he does. It's going wide I think before that. I think it went closer because of his foot I think.

I've just watched it back and forth. And it still required Santos, who played very, very well, to get something on it. That chance is one of those sliding doors moments in seasons. Let's hope I'm wrong and that in Germany in a week's time, we see Micky doing something he doesn't do particularly well. I remember when he signed for the club and I talked at length to Kevin Hatchard, German football expert, about Van de Ven. And he said the one thing he's not very good at is in the air.

for a huge man he's not particularly good in the air and Kevin's words were ringing through my head when I saw the attempt to score that goal but now now I'm looking forward to being proved an absolute numpty and a mug in Germany in six days time when Mickey Rises in the last minute of added on time to score a score an unbelievable header from 15 16 yards out

That's what has to happen. Look, Spurs played well in patches. You thought they played even better than that, James, and I totally get that. They were unlucky. There's no question about that. The goalkeeper is there to save them, but the woodwork saved them as much as the goalkeeper. I think we have to, partially because it is now such an incredibly important game, Jay, we have to be optimistic and say if they – I noticed what I think Andrew was saying afterwards –

The tightrope of walking here is if they play that well again, there's every chance they'll win the second leg. Spurs' record in Europe when they don't win the home leg in two-legged ties is abysmal. I think they've won one of the last 10 games

where if they don't win at home, I mean, that's obvious, isn't it? The away ties are always difficult. I wish this result had been better for Spurs and it could have been, but I'm now approaching the second leg with a bit of optimism. Is that misplaced, Jay? No, I don't think so. Although, you know, Spurs have not been good away from home in the Europa League this season either. I did touch on this in the piece I wrote for The Athletic that there's no hiding away that Spurs have been awful in the league this season. And if you're a team...

suffering from that many injuries and obviously question marks over the tactics etc over the course of a 38 game league season you are going to get caught out it's going to catch up with you but tournament football might just suit this team and there's been moments this season and I know most of them were before Christmas before the injury crisis where they did just pull some incredible results out of nowhere you know they beat Man City 4-0 with the Etihad and

Two weeks after losing at home to Ipswich. And Man City were second in the league at that point. They were wobbling, but they hadn't completely fallen off in the way that they have now. They obviously went to Man United and beat them at Old Trafford. They beat Liverpool on the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final at home. This team has, on occasion, just flipped to switch and been able to produce great results. And as I already mentioned...

That defensive unit's back for the first time in five months. That's crucial. He said after the game to TNT Sports there's a chance that Dejan Kulishevski could come off the bench in the second leg. That would make a massive difference as well. I can tell you're sceptical about that. Only because if he's not fit to start, I'm not sure how much of an influence he can have on the game. That would be great if he was fit, but...

Unfortunately, we're at that point in the season where you just have to take that risk. Hopefully, Spurs are in a comfortable lead in the 60th minute of the game and they don't have to bring Kulosevski on. But if it's tight or they're losing, then I think they have to roll that dice. So, yeah, I think they're more than capable of beating Frankfurt next week. They've got a game this weekend against Wolves, which is a dead rubber, let's face it. That's the type of game where Basuma is going to get a rare start. Sar is probably going to start.

maybe even Richarlison and just give some of those other guys a rest and make sure that they're fully fresh for next Thursday. Should also say, I'm not trying to dig him out, but Tell's booking was so silly yesterday. It was very unnecessary. So I know I've said before that I feel for him and I do wonder if this is going to end

but that just sort of underlines that he's obviously a player who's quite frustrated and is still trying to find his feet in North London at the moment. What did we think of the referee? I thought he was terrible. I thought he was looking for fouls that weren't there. And because Spurs had the majority of the ball, it meant that they were the ones who... Anyway, go on. My take was more that there was a lot of foul

fouls that he missed. It felt like he was refereeing a game from the 1990s to me. It felt like he was just a little bit off the pace and he wasn't like... He couldn't spot cute little fouls and little nudges in the back that were obviously fouls in the year 2025. There's a lot of weird little things like that that I thought he missed. And you could tell the players were getting really frustrated by it as well. Moment with Tell reminded me of that. No point in pretending I'm unbiased when I'm watching this game. I thought he...

The way he refereed the game didn't help Spurs. I'll put it no more strongly than that.

James, the last word on this before we move on to other matters. Optimistic or pessimistic? And we'll come back to this, of course, in three or four days' time about the trip to Germany. I mean, I think they'll need to go up another level again, I think. Most likely. We shouldn't necessarily be beyond them because despite being enthusiastic about how they played, I mean, I don't think it was anything kind of massively earth-shattering. And Frankfurt, I was pretty underwhelmed by, really, for the most part. You know, you see them score that very good goal so early in the game and you think...

This could get a bit ugly. I'm not sure about this. And then...

Yeah, it kind of felt like Spurs kind of basically kind of flattened down and completely took control for the rest of the game, more or less. I know sometimes it was kind of sterile control, but it felt like they had a pretty good grip on it. I mean, I know a lot has been said already about the atmosphere of that game and what it's going to be like, and it's clearly going to be very, very different, particularly for the Spurs players. But I think I saw some of them lost three home games in the last two months or something like that, Frankfurt. So it's not like...

some fortress where nobody ever goes and gets a result and from speaking to Seb yesterday he was saying there are people at the club who kind of think and maybe I've changed my mind now but before the first leg people there were some people at the club kind of thinking that like qualifying for the Champions League through the Bundesliga was still their priority and that even if it wasn't like something they were explicitly leaning towards at least kind of subconsciously

that might kind of be their priority. So I know they've got, I think it's Heidenheim they're playing this weekend. I don't know who they're playing the weekend after. They've had a piece of luck in that their form has been slightly patchy in the last month and a half, but so has everybody at the top of the Bundesliga, with the exception of the obvious two, Leverkusen and Bayern Munich. Teams like Leipzig have shot themselves in the foot over and over again, which means that they have, even with the patchy...

It's played in the Spurs' hands, this, because oddly enough, it has allowed Eintracht to get into a place where the Bundesliga is still very, very important to them, even though they've been out of form, because they've got two bites of the cherry. And the easier one is to keep going in the Bundesliga now. So that may be...

let's not get ahead of ourselves in the other game it's Bodo, Glimt, Lazio game and let's not disrespect Bodo, Glimt but if it's winning a game against a team winning a home game against a team that's 16th in the Premier League or 15th in the Premier League or wherever Spurs are 14th wherever and then beating a team from Norway over two legs to get to a final they probably should bat themselves there really whether that changes their priorities or their thinking even subconsciously who knows

But what I'm saying is that's going to be a thing that's going to be on their mind, I think, in that second leg still. And hats off to the people at Bode Glimt. In the morning of the game, there was a foot of snow on the pitch and on the stadium. No question of it being called off. They just did what they do up there and got the game on in lovely sunshine in the end. Well, under the lights eventually, but they cleared the pitch and the stadium without even blinking. Listen, we'll have a break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about a piece that Elias Burke has written in The Athletic

and one which caused me almost to cry. It's something I've thought about a lot. And he's written a very well-researched piece about the trophy drought between now and 2008 that everyone talks about and whether it's endemic that Spurs just, to use the negative version that people like to use, Spursy,

or whether this is one of the great sporting anomalies that Spurs' team over the past 17 years hasn't won a trophy. Talk about that next here on The View from the Left.

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Now,

Now, that is a brilliant thought, and it's also true, but it's not an original thought. Elias Burke has written a piece in The Athletic about the trophy drought, arguing that it's not something that is almost unheard of in professional football. First of all, James, since it's your stat, why don't you introduce it?

Basically, Spurs have finished fourth and a half over an 18-year period and no team that's finished that high up in the league as an average finishing position has ever not won a trophy except Spurs. Yeah, and by the way, it's not even close. I mean, so I had to go through and do this manually. Our colleague at The Athletic, Duncan Alexander, sent me a list of the best points tallies over a 16-year period since the Second World War. I'm thinking there was kind of...

pre-war there's only the FA Cup in the league and like county cups and whatever you know it's a narrow thing once the European competitions come in and the league cup come in there's more trophies to win so it feels a more valid argument so it kind of stacks back from that so the Spurs team of last season so that's ranking those 16 seasons from 2008-9 to 23-24 obviously not including this season because Spurs could have been a trophy and we don't know whether they're going to finish in the league they are the 157th best performing team over a 16 year period

in the history of English football since the Second World War. And all of the 156 above them have won a trophy in that time period. Two things about this from my point of view, and Jay, you can please, please come in at the end of this and say, here's two Spurs fans clutching any available straw. Two things about this. One, it breaks my heart. The team of, under Pochettino, not the Champions League team, but the team 16, 17, those sort of seasons,

For them not to win something, goodness, I'm trying to think. You can't even compare it with the Ipswich Town team of the early 80s who were so close to winning the title and should have won the title. Aston Villa fans won't agree with me. But they did win a European trophy a little bit later so that they got some reward for being a brilliant team. That team of Spurs is, you know, when we're getting into peak Kane, peak Son, peak Dele Alli, peak Eriksen,

Walker, Rose, Valderverle, Vertonghen, World Cup winning goalkeeper. Astonishing team. And for them to win nothing breaks my heart. Second thing I want to say about it is that if you're of a certain age like me, and there'll be lots of people, I hope, you know, a certain age,

The contrast with being a Spurs fan when I was a boy and a young man is extraordinary because Elias has pointed out the number of finals and semifinals Spurs have lost in that intervening time. He's had four finals and a whole bunch of semifinals. Seven, I think. When I was a young man, Spurs, when they won the FA Cup, whatever year it was, they won their seventh FA Cup. I think I'm right in saying...

that they had never lost a domestic cup final up to then. They'd won seven FA Cups, three League Cups. They'd never lost a domestic cup final. The League Cup finals in Liverpool, up to then, that was the first one. I also think, and I'm often wrong about these things, so please check it out. I don't think they'd lost a semi-final, domestic semi-final, in nearly 100 years. So we've gone from this impregnability in cup competitions to...

to now having, for whatever sets of reasons, a team that gets to the big jump, to the final hurdle, if you want to call it that, and finds ways to fall over. Now, a lot of these times they've been coming up against some pretty brilliant teams, Manchester City teams, Chelsea teams,

that were assembled at monstrous expense. But sooner or later, you think a piece of luck will change Liverpool. The pain, the pain is the contrast with the past and the fact that great team, Jay,

never got to reflect their brilliance by lifting even the League Cup. Yeah, one thing when I read the piece, which actually took me by surprise because I hadn't quite appreciated it at the time. Obviously, everybody talks about that 15-16 season when Leicester City won the league as sort of a missed opportunity because other teams had fallen off. But they only got 70 points that season and the following season they were on 86. I just had no recollection of that.

Spurs basically pushing Chelsea as far as they did and so I just sort of look back into You weren't listening to this podcast during lockdown because that's what we talked about Oh there you go So I just checked a couple of things and Spurs had the best goal difference in the league that season they scored more goals than Chelsea they conceded less goals than Chelsea they lost less games than Chelsea but they just drew too many games sometimes it's hard to know is it just

Bad luck. Don't worry, I'm not going to completely shoot you down in flames. A performance like that, 86 points, only four losses, is like exceptionally good, but it just wasn't enough. And then as you said, you know, you come up against a good Liverpool team in the Champions League and there's a penalty after, what, one minute into the game. Sometimes these things just happen. Well, that points tally, I think I'm right in saying, would have won the Premier League...

I think it's 15 of the previous 24 seasons, I think it is, and zero since. Because of the way, the number of points you need to win the Premier League has just gone through the ceiling. Yeah, as the quality of players have been gathered more and more and increasingly into the top teams in the league and the teams coming out of the Championship,

take up so few points these days, soak up so few points. Of course, you need more and more. I mean, obviously, Mourinho was the game changer here when Chelsea's teams were losing. You used to win the title in England losing five and six, seven, eight games, but Chelsea, Mourinho changed all that. You could barely afford to lose three or four games, as Spurs proved today.

in that year. Elias's piece is devastating in its straightforwardness. I'm glad that Jane's had something to do with it because I want the podcast to be associated with it. Some of it is, Jay, you've hit the nail on the head. Some of it's just plain bad luck. Some of it is bad decisions. You know, the FA Cup was a big decision.

Was it FA Cup semi-final or League Cup semi-final where Son played at left wing-back when Pochettino had a brainstorm and ended up playing as one of Spurs' best attackers as a wing-back. But of course, you can see that because he was having such a struggle with Chelsea in every form of the game. He tried to do something new. Maybe if it has been bad luck, I was going to say maybe we can use that in Frankfurt at the moment.

in the middle of next week. But of course, if you take the run to the Champions League final, Spurs may have used up a lot of their luck quotient against Manchester City and against Ajax. Just on luck, etc. Obviously, Pastor Cogley said last night that the football gods have been looking elsewhere this year. Well, maybe it feels like the football gods have been looking...

somewhere other than Spurs for more than just one year. Why would they do that to lovely people like me and James? Why would they do that? Maybe you've upset them. James probably has, yeah. It should be noted, of course, that winning trophies does not guarantee lifelong happiness. Wigan have won a trophy in that time. They now find themselves 18th in League 1.

Birmingham City, although they've had a brilliant season, are back in League One. They also have won a trophy in that time. Leicester are facing their second relegation, despite their legendary trophy-winning prowess. Portsmouth and Swansea have won trophies in that time. Would you want to be a Pompey fan? Would you want to be a Swans supporter? At the other end of the scale, Manchester City have won 18. We're counting some of these made-up trophies at FIFA and UEFA do. James, correct me if I've got this wrong,

But Spurs have finished above Man United six out of the 11 seasons since Sir Alex Ferguson retired. But then United have won five trophies in that time. And have been pretty abysmal at times and sort of lucked their way in.

So it just goes to show...

but having won trophies in recent memory like if you play for a club who win trophies and a lot of the players in your dressing room have won trophies then you're way more likely to win trophies it's not even just about the ability of the players it's kind of a bit of a mindset thing even now at Spurs there aren't that many players who have won stuff are there I mean obviously Romero has won the World Cup

I guess Madison sort of won the FA Cup but he didn't play in the final did he? But then quickly back on United remember they nearly got knocked out in the semi-finals by Coventry City they were 3-0 up so yes they won the final but it's not like they were exceptional throughout that competition They had the elite mentality to

win on penalties against a mediocre championship team. They had a manager who was under pressure and people were unsure if he was going to be there next season and he defied the doubters. I wonder if there's a similar scenario that any of us could think of. I've got to say, I may be an outlier here, or a schmorrer.

You know, you won something last year. What does that mean? Spurs fans won't thank me for this on the podcast for saying Real Madrid are apparently invincible in Europe because they always find a way to win until they run into a better team than them as they did this week and got smashed into tiny smithereens. Ora, shmora. Play what's in front of you. Play in the shirt you're playing in. What happened last year doesn't matter. What happens next week is irrelevant.

Same as the atmosphere at Eintracht Frankfurt. Of course it helps if the crowd get behind you. But in the end, no atmosphere has ever scored a goal. No atmosphere has ever cleared the ball off the line. That's the players. That's just the players. That's why they get paid the enormous amounts of money they do, to defy aura, to defy atmosphere and say, right, we're doing this now as a group, collectively.

We'll move on to what kind of group may be representing Spurs against Wolverhampton Wanderers next. And we'll tell you about another league table, perhaps a less formidable spreadsheet. The view from the lane finds itself rock bottom of. We must change. That's coming up next here on the view from the lane. At GNC, nutrition's not a department. It's a whole freaking store.

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Welcome back to the final part of today's A View From The Lane, during which James and Jay and myself, Danny Kelly, we're going to be discussing the upcoming game against Wolves. And we'll be asking the question, is this podcast too nice for its own good? Let's start with the game against Wolves.

Sunday at Molineux, football managers don't think like football fans, so I'm going to say the fans thing. Unless they need the minutes in their legs to improve their performance at Eintracht Frankfurt on Thursday, I wouldn't pick any player, with the possible exception of the goalkeeper, who is needed on Thursday. If we have to put out the youth team, put out the youth team. These games in the Premier League are not going to help, not going to decide anything for Spurs. The manager is not going to be saved or further affected

wrecked by them. Let you stay, Jay. You seem a sensible sort. What team would you put out against Wolves? Yeah, I said it a little bit earlier. I think definitely this is the time for rotation and obviously a doggy came off with cramps. So straight away, you'd think that Spence might come back into the side. Reguillon. Or Reguillon and Spence. Reguillon will play left back in my team. Yeah, I think potentially you bring...

Archie Gray back into the starting 11. Now, whether you play him in defence or midfield is another question. Sarr will probably start. I think Basuma will probably start. This might be a nice opportunity to see Mikey Moore again. We've not seen him that much post-Christmas. It feels like it's October. He's a ghost. And we've not seen him much since. I have a feeling Richarlison probably can't start if he only got three minutes off the bench last night. But Richarlison getting minutes off the bench again would be good. Matisse Tell will start.

Odebeer, we never actually found out what happened with Odebeer. I know there was some rumours. That was odd in itself, wasn't it? There was some rumours leading up to the game that he had a hamstring issue and the fact he was an unneeded substitute suggests there might be some truth in that. And I'm sure Potsdam Coghlan will probably get asked about it today. So yeah, I completely agree that Spurs are safe in the league. There's not really that much to be gained by playing the entire same XI that featured last night. Opportunity to rest and rotate players, especially as

as we saw last night, Tell and Spence created that great opportunity for Johnson off the bench. So you want your fringe players or your substitutes to be fit and firing and fresh and ready and feel like they can make an impact when they come on. I don't know what's beyond rotation. I want something beyond rotation. What would you do, James? I mean, the interesting one, I guess, is Son because, I mean, on the basis of how he's played recently, there's almost an argument that you don't play him in the second leg. But then do you play him in this game? I mean, yeah.

That's the question. I kind of agree with Jay. Presumably Richarlison can't start, so you're going to end up with Tell through the middle, I guess, which is not really what you want. You want to see him play off the left. Yeah, I mean, I would just change as much as you possibly can there. I mean, you probably want to leave a couple in just to...

kind of give some sense of continuation but I mean Van de Ven won't play really I wouldn't have thought I'd like to see Gray in the six so would I but I have a feeling he's going to be required elsewhere if you're changing the fullbacks like I mean again it's going to be he'll probably he should play right we're kind of second guessing the team for Thursday and then kind of trying to yeah is that a third guess after that the team before I mean so could we see a back four of

Spence left back, Ben Davies, Romero and Archie Gray? Yeah, very possible. But I wouldn't pick Spence either if Reguilón's fit to play him. Play a child out. I mean, I'm serious. You're laughing at me. I'm serious. What is the point of risking Spence against Wolves? Answer that question directly. Well, you're not going to... You can play Reguilón if you want. Spence will still want to play though, won't he? So you've also got to factor that into account. I think you've got... Look, we can't really know

what the team should be for Sunday without knowing what the team is going to be on Thursday. If Spencer isn't going to start on Thursday night, he definitely would start him against Wolves. Yeah, I guess they'll also be measuring, to come back to reality, Udagi's fitness. It's only crap if that's fine, which is what they reported yesterday.

But Moore's a good example. If he doesn't start, what does that say about him? Timo Werner. That's who... When was the last time he played? I feel like I've not seen him in ages. He's not even been on the bench, has he? He's out of the Europa League squad, but he was in training on Wednesday when I watched it. So he's...

He's about. A front three of Werner, Werner, Tellen, Moore. Say what you want about Timo Werner. He's about. Hang on. Where's Dane Scarlett? Come on. Yeah, exactly. He should play. Let's get further down the rotation here. Yes. Yeah, of course he should play. Scarlett, Moore and Werner as a front three. Moore on the right.

That done, there you go. Yeah, and those fellows who scored in the previous round against Altmar, where are they? They seem like good little footballers. Get them in the team. Nobody needs to play at Molineux. Nobody needs to play. All right. I nearly swore there, but I didn't for a reason. Look, somebody has put together, well, I'm going to give a shout out to another Spurs podcast, inferior, but nevertheless out there. The Poddenham Podspur attempted to...

to use technology to work out from the, is it 13, 14 or 15, you know, highly rated Spurs podcasts and which of us does the most swearing. There's one where there was, you know, 53 swears of one kind and several of another and several of another. But on Monday, we apparently didn't swear at all. Not one person swore on the podcast, although we did discuss the information

interchangeability of the word face and puss at length. I'm surprised they didn't pick that up with their algorithm. Can I just offer an update, by the way? I've subsequently had, I mean, I guess really an apology for

saying that, from Podden and Podspur, suggesting that they had missed a bollocks. If anything, they dropped a bollocks, if anything. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, so actually we are off the bottom ahead of, I mean, interestingly, it's the podcast with journalists on there at the bottom of the table, which maybe isn't a surprise. But Danny, I think you and I swear on this quite a lot. Yes, and look, I do think there is something big and clever about swearing, partially because it was banned in the house I grew up in.

So that, you know, I feel a bit rebellious doing it. But also there is the English language, the Anglo-Saxon version of the English language gives us swearing for a reason. It is for emphasis. And there is a difference between that was a terrible performance and that was a f***.

terrible performance. Of course there is. There's a massive difference. If you pretend to know your way around the palette of the English language and you don't use swear words in their right place, then you're denying yourself a whole level of emphasis. Sometimes it's just a shock as well for a laugh. Danny, I've got a question for you. Yeah. What's your favourite swear word? You see, I'm very fond of f***.

I think it works very well. It is the most popular swear word because it has been tried and tested in every condition, every climatic and road condition possible. And if you throw in... And my favourite way of using it, again, the vernacular here in Ireland, is when you're really giving out to somebody, you say, I threw a few...

into him. I met that bloke. He owes me money. I threw into him. That just sounds like something completely different. We should point out, by the way, this table was drawn up on the basis of podcasts recorded after the Southampton game. Like a sedate, comfortable win over a terrible team. And yet, I'm not going to call out another podcast here, but maybe I am. The game is about glory. Use the word bastard 16 times.

about that game they should have been here after we lost to Ipswich

Are you a big one for the swearing yourself, Jay? I am, yeah, but clearly I must keep it quite professional on podcasts and limit it to, as you said, only extreme moments for a bit of emphasis. We don't want to be at the top of the bollocks table because that is in itself nonsense. Well, look at it the other way, that we're at the top of the non-profanity table. The purity league, yes. Exactly, yeah, the purity league. Is that reflective, do you think, of our personalities in a wider sense? I swear, wasn't there a period of time where...

Maybe I'm talking complete nonsense, but the team that received the least amount of bookings in the league would sometimes qualify for some random... Yeah, Fair Play League. That's us. Fair Play League. Here we come. Yeah. What's the reward for that in podcasts? I don't know. I don't know. Look, swear when it's funny. Swear when it's for emphasis. I can't... James, you're absolutely right.

How anyone could work up passion about that, albeit it was a rare victory, against Southampton, it was beyond me. Well, that's been fun, hasn't it? Spurs are still in a chance of winning a trophy or still in a chance of extending that extraordinary run of...

Bad luck, bad decisions, weird defeats that Elias Burke has written about in The Athletic this week. Listen, thank you to James and thank you to Jay as well. You know all the reasons and you might want to get in touch with us. All the reasons you might want to read about Spurs and The Athletic

They're oft repeated on here and I don't need to do it right now. All I do need to say is the Spurs have got this weird game against Wolves to get through. We'll come back after that and talk about that. And then we'll be once again on here on the Viewton Lane previewing with swear words or without what is now turning. The season keeps narrowing down. It was they can do it, can win a trophy. Okay, they can only win the Europa League.

They've got to win these two-legged tie. It's coming down to one match now before it could widen out again to a two-game semifinal, maybe up near the North Pole, maybe in Rome. Thank you for listening to us. God bless you all. Come on, you Spurs. The Athletic FC Podcast Network.