Brave New World

by Guillem Balague

  The reason why I said that he was ‘our Messi’ is because Leo is the target. Marcus needs to have the conviction that he can become a top professional and believe in the journey separating him from that destination.

  It’s a shame that injury has now halted that process.

  *

  N’Koudou trained well today. He’s got the message that the only way to push for a place in the starting XI is to work hard. And put the team first.

  *

  22 October. Another goalless draw, this time against Bournemouth. It leaves us fifth, with 19 points after nine games. It’s the sort of game we need to be winning if we want to challenge for the title, but we came up short in front of goal again. We’ve been missing that little bit of quality.

  Since we were contesting the early lunchtime match, we knew we’d move top if we won, if only for a couple of hours. But we made a really sluggish start. We lacked focus and intensity, and in the opening minutes they created what would be their clearest chance of the encounter. Lately, we’ve been struggling to put our game plans into practice. It was a match in which we wanted to attack more down the flanks, rather than centrally, but we only managed to make inroads down one wing in the first half and down the other in the second. We were sloppy and weren’t sharp enough, and that showed in both our build-up play and our finishing.

  The three games over the last week have been tough and we’re going to have to totally reshuffle our line-up for the League Cup clash in three days’ time. Last year, we were able to rotate nine or ten players in different competitions, particularly in the Europa League. That number has dropped to one or two this campaign, three at most, because of the demands of the Champions League. What’s more, we haven’t had a full-strength squad all season.

  Moussa Sissoko, who is usually quite a level-headed lad, elbowed Bournemouth’s Harry Arter and I’ve been told that the FA could take retrospective action because the referee didn’t see the incident. We’ve no grounds to appeal because you can clearly see him raising his elbow in the footage. He’ll get a three-match ban, but it could work in his favour because he was the last to arrive for pre-season and still isn’t in peak condition.

  *

  Today I invited Toni and Jesús – who lives next to us – back to the house. We’d had dinner out, so I brought out some wine and chocolates. Sebas joined us. We watched the end of the Real Madrid match, Marseille v PSG and then the Rosario derby, Central v Newell’s. The game was level with a minute to go and Newell’s, who hadn’t won in ten or 11 matches, got one last corner.

  Someone, I don’t remember who, said, ‘It must be incredible to win a derby in the final minute, and all the more so from a corner.’ And lo and behold: boom! Newell’s scored from a corner, and Sebas and I celebrated as if Argentina had just won the World Cup.

  *

  Today’s League Cup tie against Liverpool was useful for seeing how far some of our young players have come in terms of their development. Given our injury problems, playing at a packed-out Anfield was a wonderful opportunity for them to announce their arrival on the scene. We travelled on the same day because, as it’s our fourth away game in a row, I wanted them to have an extra night at home. We arrived, had a siesta and headed to the stadium which has a redeveloped stand and new dressing rooms to boot.

  Our promising centre-back Cameron Carter-Vickers made his debut. Harry Winks played the full 90 minutes. We found ourselves 2–0 down thanks to a Sturridge brace, but Janssen scored a penalty and Shayon Harrison had a fantastic chance to equalise near the end. We ended up losing 2–1 and were missing a bit in every department. It was a game of men (Liverpool who, like Chelsea, aren’t in Europe and went with a fairly strong line-up) against boys. We have the youngest squad in the Premier League and the fans should be proud of that, but we must also demand more. Nowadays football is physical, technical and increasingly psychological. We have to be stronger mentally. We’ll see what happens next time Harrison is presented with a similar opening. N’Koudou came on towards the end of the game. Onomah didn’t do badly, but they all have to take a step forward. Making up the numbers doesn’t cut it, you have to show something different.

  There was another incident during the game.

  Liverpool debutant Trent Alexander-Arnold went in for a challenge early on in the first half. It was worthy of a red card, but, perhaps being his debut, the referee decided against giving him his marching orders. We didn’t complain about it, but there were a few routine tackles on Liverpool players towards the end of the tie and one of Klopp’s assistants and their fitness coach jumped up out of the dugout. They overreacted and made disrespectful gestures towards me telling me to zip it. When the game ended, Jesús went over to their fitness coach and on the walk towards the tunnel, said to him, ‘Listen, don’t do that ever again. We’re assistants and we should never tell managers what to do.’ The guy started raging, insulting him and speaking in German; it seemed as though he wanted to knock Jesús out!

  The final question in the press conference was, ‘Do you think Liverpool were lucky to finish with all 11 players on the pitch?’ I didn’t want to drop the kid in it because you can get carried away and make mistakes on your debut, but I answered, ‘In the first half I think their full-back maybe should’ve been sent off. That’s why it was strange at the end of the game when they started to complain about us.’

  I didn’t tell the boys all that, but it was a lesson for them in ‘the other football’ that you can’t learn in training.

  *

  It’s Thursday, two days after the Liverpool game and two days before the league clash with Leicester. Miki, Jesús, Toni and I are mulling over what’s been happening to us since the win over Manchester City. We just haven’t got off the ground. We’ve had some niggling injuries affecting three mainstays in the team: Alderweireld, Kane and now Lamela. It’s been an intense period with so many away games back-to-back and it’s affected the players. The first consequence is that we’ll be having recovery-based training sessions today and tomorrow ahead of the Leicester match. We need to tone down the pace to see if the nine players with injuries improve. I’ll wait until the last minute to pick the team.

  Despite all that, we feel we’ve only had one bad half of football all season, which was against Monaco. We struggled in the second half against Leverkusen because they put us under pressure, rather than because we didn’t perform.

  The Lamela situation is worrying. He was a key player for us last season. I started him on the bench against Liverpool partly because he’d had a hip problem since the Sunday before. Nothing serious it seemed. He came on in the second half at Anfield and finished the game unscathed. The day after, we wanted to switch up his training routine, but he said we didn’t need to and he was ready to join up with the group. At the end of the session, however, he told us that he was in a bad way and couldn’t see himself being fit for Leicester. He needs a detailed examination because it isn’t clear what the problem is.

  There’s an atmosphere brewing, which is why I arranged for a video clip to be cut from training this week. I set up a meeting with the players, staff and coaches in which I started talking about how important the people who work around the team are. I asked Danny Rose and captain Hugo Lloris to say something about the topic. Miki handed me a trophy that was around and I unexpectedly awarded it to the winner of Performance of the Week: Stan, the kitman. ‘You did something remarkable, you put your own safety at risk to save the team,’ I told him, very seriously. Everyone looked at me flabbergasted. ‘Play the video.’

  On the big screen we saw how Stan was putting the mannequins that we use in training on the buggy that he drives around. He put one in the driver’s seat. The base of it must have been near the accelerator, because the buggy suddenly started to move off by itself. Stan ended up having to run after it and managed to get it back under control, preventing anyone else from finding themselves in danger. We burst into laughter. He proudly took the trophy away with him.

 
; As you might expect, that lifted spirits and we left the room chuckling, with more energy than when we’d come in.

  Canadian former NBA player Steve Nash visited us. He’s a Tottenham fan and we’d already seen each other in Toronto. He came to the training ground and even got involved in a few rondos with us. I also took part, but my back was not best pleased. Eriksen and Wanyama started showing off their basketball skills, but I have to say they’re better footballers than they are basketball players.

  *

  29 October. Matchday. We were back at White Hart Lane. We met at the training ground to decide the starting line-up to face Leicester City, the reigning champions, who are struggling from second-season syndrome and the challenge of trying to prolong unexpected success. Winning the Premier League is one thing, but backing it up isn’t easy. The injured players stayed at the training ground to work on their fitness away from the rest of the squad. During the briefing, I focused on tactics and set-pieces. It became a long one. I wanted to go into detail about the opposition attack, especially their use of those long balls that can be so hard to stop. We ended up arriving at the ground slightly later than expected. We already knew that Islam Slimani wouldn’t be playing, having been informed by sources close to the player. Information can come from the most unexpected places. It was a pleasure to see Ros Wheeler, the Southampton secretary, and her husband once again who were our guests on the day. Ros may well be the person who’s been at a top-tier club for the longest and she really looked after us when we first arrived in England.

  As for the game, we dropped two points, or, at least, that’s what it felt like. We had a few clear-cut chances which Kasper Schmeichel saved and another one that clattered the woodwork. We need to be scoring goals from more sources when they dry up for Alli, Eriksen and Son, and while Kane is out. It ended 1–1 and Leicester picked up their first point on the road this season.

  The press asked me about the team because we’ve picked up four draws and one loss since unleashing positive vibes with the win over Man City. Next up is Bayer Leverkusen at Wembley and then a trip to the Emirates for the derby against Arsenal. I told them I was calm, the team have been dominating games, the schedule has been tough and we’ve been rotating much less this year because we can’t afford to do otherwise.

  I left it there. It’s a key period and we’ve come into it with fatigue. The risk of illness or small injuries increases with tiredness. The immune system suffers, but the stats suggest we are fine. We’re unbeaten in the league, we’re fifth and only three points behind City, Arsenal and Liverpool at the top. The competition is tougher than ever ten games in and we’re one of the five teams bunched up at the top.

  We’re also discovering what we’re made of. We’ve gone from playing in the hope of giving our best to being a position where we feel we have to win, which is reflected in the management of information coming through from fitness coaches and doctors. Those small details that we may have previously let slide now need to be tracked because they could prove decisive. The pressure is on the up. There’s less time to rest and more trips to embark on.

  Beating Bayer would almost see us through to the next round of the Champions League. Putting in a good showing against Arsenal would strengthen our position as title challengers and provide us with a real platform to build on. Are we ready?

  5.

  NOVEMBER

  The season had reached a crucial juncture. The business end of the Champions League group stage had been reached, with Tottenham needing to beat Monaco and Bayer Leverkusen to qualify for the knockout stages. In addition, they faced three straight London derbies in the league, against Arsenal, West Ham United and Chelsea, the rivalry against the last of which had grown on and off the pitch.

  Simon Felstein just brought in his son Sebastian to say hello. I still remember when he was born and how many months went by before we got to meet him. I kept sending Simon messages saying, ‘Come on, bring him in! You can leave him with me, and you and your wife can go out for dinner.’ He must’ve thought I was joking. He is a delightful kid.

  *

  We lost 1–0 to Bayer Leverkusen at Wembley to a second-half goal. The result has absolutely nothing to do with the stadium. It’s totally irrelevant. Where could be better to play football than Wembley? It’s true that the pitch is bigger than the one at White Hart Lane, but when teams park the bus against us in the league we’d love to have the space there is at Wembley. There is no perfect scenario – just a set of solutions that you have to be able to apply.

  We were poor today. It was embarrassing. We mustn’t hide behind cheap excuses. The reasons lie within us. We’ve lost three times this season. One was against Liverpool in the League Cup, which was understandable, unlike the other two, which came in Europe. We’ve gone winless six games in a row right when the time was ripe for us to push on. Now we need to win both of our remaining Champions League games, or we’re out. Even then, it’s not in our hands. We’re three points behind Bayer and five adrift of Monaco.

  Granted, the build-up to the game wasn’t exactly smooth.

  *

  After the Leicester game, which marked our third consecutive draw in the Premier League, we had a day off and it did us all the world of good. But on Tuesday, the day before our Champions League game, something incredible happened. I’d decided on my starting XI and the training session was all but over. I went to see Kane, who is working on his own with an eye on being fit again for the Arsenal match, and asked Jesús to do some set-piece practice with the starters. Then, in the last attack in a short six-a-side game, when Jesús was about to blow the final whistle, one player went flying into a tackle on another. The latter fell and smashed his nose on the former’s knee, as well as colliding with a teammate. The ball stayed in play and a couple of seconds later, there was another hefty challenge that left two more players in a heap. There were four players on the ground! And one of them was supposed to start.

  Jesús and I decided we should give it four or five hours to see how the players progressed before definitively settling on a line-up. We knew that Kane wasn’t ready yet, while Lamela still hasn’t returned to training. Sissoko is suspended in the league but can play in the Champions League. You have to make do with what’s available, so in the end we opted for the guys who were freshest.

  The match at Wembley made for a frustrating watch. We couldn’t impose ourselves or control the game in the first half, and several players made mistakes. We lacked dynamism on the ball and our movement wasn’t good enough. They pressed us when we brought the ball out. The most important thing when that happens is to outmanoeuvre them to get the upper hand. We’ve worked on that a thousand times in training, but we weren’t able to execute.

  Meanwhile, all of our attacking forays came to nothing. But at least we were still on level terms at half-time. At the break, I showed the players a couple of clips of how we should’ve been building from the back and reminded the defenders that it was paramount that they be bolder and hold a higher line. We often play one clip of something being done well and another showing the same thing being done badly. We have a member of staff who is responsible for editing the videos during every match. Miguel passes on a message detailing what we need – based on what we’ve been discussing in the dugout – and the clips are ready when I get to the dressing room. I wait a few minutes for people to relax a bit and then I play the footage and explain the changes we’ve got to make.

  On this occasion, we didn’t have a single example of good build-up play from the first 45 minutes.

  In the second half, we conceded a goal that was easily avoidable. Bayer are no superclub, they’re actually a younger team than us, but they’ve got more experience than we have in this competition and some top-class players. Maybe we need to ask ourselves if we’re good enough to play two games a week at the highest level. To do that, you need all your players to be on form. Last year, the team was more than the sum of its parts for long periods thanks to the players performing ab
ove their level. That’s not been the case so far this season.

  All we can do is stick to our principles, stay consistent in what we do, analyse things as objectively as possible, hope that this rough patch passes and circumstances change, and in the meantime try to reduce our mistakes to a minimum.

  Jesús, Miki, Toni, Simon and I all had input into the message we wanted to get across at my post-match press conference. After my media commitments, I headed back to the Manager’s Room, where we stayed until shortly after 11 o’clock, ruing what had happened and talking things over. We’re only three points off the top of the league, so still in contention, but we’re all at a low ebb.

  However, when you’ve been working for two and a half years – through video and tactics sessions, plus all manner of speeches – to stamp out certain individual errors and they are still repeated, that likely means they have no solution. What’s the use in getting angry, then? What you have to do is make decisions at the end of the season and hope everyone at the club is brave enough to act on them.

  After getting home, I received a couple of messages from Jesús. He told me I’d done well post-match, both with the squad and with the press. That I’d avoided any further damage. That I’d not sought to make excuses and had exuded calmness.

  That calmness wasn’t just for show. But I know that we’ve got to try to turn everything around in time for the derby against Arsenal. We’ve got four days.

  *

  Tiredness. The tyrant that takes over everything when it arrives. It’s not only the cut and thrust of competing that is tiring; the same goes for being the driving force of a set-up that constantly requires you to make decisions. Hundreds of them, every day. And this fatigue may also flow from another source: expectations, the inner battle between what we’d like to be and what the reality is.