Bottom of the table, with a miserable two points after five games. Once upon a time, there was Tottenham: today, perhaps they should officially be called Spurs – the club itself has asked for it – if only to mark a break with the mire of their recent troubles. The problem is that the present is even worse. De Zerbi’s side are stumbling through the darkness on the pitch and the silence in the stands at New White Hart Lane, less a cathedral in the desert – the stadium itself is state-of-the-art, gleaming, multi-purpose and right in the heart of London – than a cathedral that is a desert. Everyone has lost the will to sing.
The clearest symbol of the humiliation came in the closing stages of last weekend’s ugly home defeat to Aston Villa. With Spurs 3-0 down, they pulled one back in garbage time, prompting the away fans to taunt their hosts in chorus: “You’ve scored a goal!” The home supporters’ jokey reply came back: “Yes, that’s true, we’ve scored a goal!” Then came the raspberries, the apathy, the total disconnect with a team sucked into a spiral of negativity that seems to have no end. The more the club’s owners insist they are aiming high, the further Tottenham sink beneath the verdict of the pitch. And if their supporters have historically been among the more lukewarm crowds in London, the price of watching matches at the new stadium certainly does not help: the ground cost more than £1.2 billion, while season tickets this year start at £856. Anyone who can afford that is not exactly the sort to scream themselves hoarse for their beloved team, especially when the spectacle on offer has looked like this for months.
“Winning the Europa League two years ago was great, okay, but if we then undo everything by risking relegation in the league, there’s very little left to celebrate,” one Spurs fan told The Athletic in a desolate report from London. Things are made worse, too, by the diametrically opposite moment being enjoyed by bitter rivals Arsenal, now champions of England. The Gunners’ trajectory gives a sense of just how far Tottenham have fallen: it took Spurs seven years to lose 50 games at their new stadium; Arsenal took twenty. Of their last 36 home matches overall, Tottenham have won just five. A miserable return.
Last season, helped in part by De Zerbi’s arrival midway through the campaign, Spurs scraped to 17th place in the closing stages. Today, even repeating that bare minimum looks difficult. And the apathetic coolness of the supporters, however legitimate and understandable, only makes life harder for a group of players whose morale is already on the floor and whose qualities still need to come together. “I really can’t understand why all this is happening,” the manager said, shaking his head at the atmosphere around the club. Despite everything, Spurs seem to have only one way to turn things around: start winning again. Good luck.