da imperador bet： It is 50 years since Tottenham Hotspur were last champions of England – and you wouldn’t bet on them winning the title for another half a century. I arrived at White Hart Lane a few months after the double-winning success of 1961 and for the next couple of years we continued to be a genuinely great side, becoming the first British club to win a European trophy in the process. This season was Tottenham’s first European Cup campaign since I played for them in the 1962 semi-final – now they have lost their top-four status, it looks like being a hell of an uphill battle to win it back again.
da cassino： Spurs fans are already calling for the head of Harry Redknapp, which is a long-held tradition at the Lane, dating back to my playing days. Harry is old enough and ugly enough to ignore that sort of nonsense. He is well and truly right to point out that Spurs have not enjoyed any sort of consistent success since the early ’60s.
Ever since that double-winning team started breaking up around 1964, with a series of injuries along with the tragic death of the great John White, Spurs have consistently under-achieved. And I am speaking as a member of the first great under-achieving Spurs side – that of the late 1960s. A team which included Pat Jennings in goal, Cyril Knowles, Joe Kinnear and Mike England in defence, Terry Venables and Alan Mullery in midfield and myself and Alan Gilzean up front really should have won titles and European trophies, not just one FA Cup in 1967. It wasn’t even a case of needing an extra player or two – that team was good enough to achieve a lot more than it did. But we set the tone for decades of flattering to deceive at White Hart Lane.
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The Keith Burkenshaw team which won back-to-back FA Cups, the David Pleat team which came second in everything, the side which Terry Venables built around Paul Gascoigne, then the Gerry Francis team which boasted Jurgen Klinsmann, David Ginola and Les Ferdinand – they all could have won titles. Until the last couple of months, Spurs had enjoyed an excellent two and a half years under Redknapp. But they still haven’t won anything. Now it seems as though this season’s Champions League campaign could be little more than a glorious flash in the pan. One that ended so cruelly in a men-against-boys trouncing by Real Madrid.
Manchester City are only going to get stronger, while Liverpool are on the rise again, with money to spend. The only way I can see Spurs competing for the top four next season is to back Redknapp in the transfer market – and flog Gareth Bale. Bale was magnificent in the two matches against Inter Milan. He is a great kid, but I don’t think he is a worthy Player of the Year and he is not the sort to win you titles. If someone offered £35million or more, I’d bite their hand off.
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Like Rafa van der Vaart, Bale has tailed off severely in the second half of the season. I’ve seen many players like him, who can look world class on their day, but simply cannot do it consistently enough. Whether it is a mental or physical fragility, I’m not sure. The truly great players tick every box and I’m not sure that Bale, though still young, will ever do that.
Whenever Bill Shankly was told about some great potential signing, he’d ask: “Can he always make an accurate 12-yard pass and will he give me a full season?” For him, those were the two essentials. I am not sure Bale would pass the Shankly test, and Shanks was a man who built a club which won titles. Not a club like Tottenham Hotspur, I’m sorry to say.