Fair enough. As I said, I'm speaking as a fan who, regardless of any history, has spent most of his Tottenham supporting days wondering whether we'll finish in the top half and whether we'll end the season with positive or negative goal difference. Of course there is going to be a mismatch in expectations between us.
And it goes without saying that we don't have a Fergie era Man Utd squad nor do we have Ferguson managing us.
I don't think you can say the club and players have the same attitude as I do. You can't say Poch, AVB, Redknapp and Ramos are all the same in terms of mentality?
And I know you're not trying to get a dig in.
I will also say as a disclaimer that I am naturally quite a pragmatist and have always been one for judging things through cold hard facts, rather than emotions.
In fairness, whether that is a factor or not, I don't think the fans mentality on it will have any bearing on what the chairman, manager or players do.
So if you think our failures are solely down to the mentality within the club, as opposed to a whole myriad of factors (of which that may be one), what do you think can be done to change it then?
Really good post, and most of your points remind me to
your mindset, and I do understand why it's a different mindset.
Regarding the bold, I'm a firm believer that attitude runs from the top down, and that institutions will often end up reflecting the mindset of their ownership even if they don't want to. Few examples...
Fergie's United - A pressure cooker environment in the stadium based solely on winning, pressurizing opponents and almost giving other teams the 'hairdryer treatment' on the pitch via the relentless, wave after wave of attack. And he did this with team after team, it came from his mindset.
Abramovich Chelsea - What's the word people use to describe Chelsea over and over again during his reign...? 'Ruthless'. Read the guy's backstory - 'ruthless'. It makes it's way down onto the pitch but it comes from the decisions that are shaping the club from the top down.
Post Fergie United - people who mean well, but know very little about football but know a lot about money and 'branding'... and what does United look like now? Directionless football, lots of money spent, lots of money in, lots of wages spent, branding-crazy.
Modern Arsenal - Message from the top - "If you get Top 4 we're happy", and then slowly that culture spreads throughout the whole club! Even if the players themselves don't consciously sit around thinking Top 4 is good enough, they just can't help but to find themselves mirroring the attitude.
Now, I'm not saying that Levy is a 'loser', or anything like that. In fact, I respect Levy greatly as a businessman. But somewhere, around the top of the club there needs to be a strong sentiment of, "this ISN'T good enough", rather than back-patting for coming close, a sentiment of "we
should have won that trophy", rather than acknowledging any accomplishment below that.
Think about this, now very regular, media phrase of 'credit to Spurs' - how many times have we all heard that phrase over the last 3 seasons? That's another issue.
'Credit to Spurs' is NOT your friend, it's just patronizing to you as a club. You guys need a mindset of 'feck off, we don't want credit, we want a trophy,
now'.
I just feel that until that mindset, described above, begins to permeate throughout the whole club, on all levels, the falling short will continue.
