The Times’ Oliver Kay has written in his most recent article that ‘the consensus among the media pack who travelled to Milan was that Tottenham escape the more frenzied scrutiny that some of their Premier League rivals might attract after a third consecutive defeat.’
1Say what?
It has long been suspected that the media had something of a soft spot for Spurs. This isn’t an Arsenal-bias thing, although I’m sure that’s in play somewhere, but when you compare their coverage to the likes of City, Chelsea, or United there is a massive difference in how they are treated by large sections of the media.
Although he wrote the above line, Kay’s article was headlined ‘Mauricio Pochettino is not under pressure – but he needs to stop the rot at Tottenham,’ which is just remarkable. Here is a manager that has never won a trophy at a club that hasn’t won anything of note since the League Cup a decade ago who are supposed to be ahead of Arsenal now in terms of their ‘bigness’. I mean, who really cares about the League Cup apart from Tottenham fans?
Against Inter, Spurs bottled it once again to turn an impressive three points into an embarrassing defeat with just a few minutes on the clock to see out. It’s standard. Spursy. That’s three defeats in a row, now, and two of them from a winning position.
“There is none of the fin-de-régime narrative that was unavoidable during Arsène Wenger’s final years at Arsenal,” Kay continues, oblivious to the pressure that was heaped on Wenger for a full decade before he left, not just the final few seasons.
Drink driving, sex tapes, and bending the rules of the game. It’s been quite the 2018 for Tottenham, their players, and supporters, but would any other club get away with this much scandal?
Hugo Lloris is sorry, Dele Alli is probably secretly chuffed, Christian Eriksen is refusing to sign while Daniel Levy is furious. For the rest of football, however, we’re all wondering how one club manages to remain the media’s darling despite a series of scandals that would see many others castigated relentlessly.
They are, of course, scandals of varying degrees of seriousness. You cannot compare being arrested for drunk driving with the leak of a sex tape but the collective value of everything that has happened at Tottenham this calendar year should result in significant pressure from the media to sort their sh*t out.
In case you’ve forgotten what Spurs have been up to in 2018 off the pitch, let’s recap some of the events and milestones the media don’t seem that bothered about…