Having effortlessly coasted through last season without a worry in the world – aside from whether or not Martin Jol’s potato head had actually been used by mistake in the vegetable lasagne on the final day of the campaign – the last couple of months has seen the time-honoured tradition of moaning at White Hart Lane make an unwelcome return.

Jol’s side are suffering this term from raised expectations upon their shoulders, which have been heightened to levels unseen since the days of Christian Gross and his infamous one-day travelcard. Yes, it was so long ago he wasn’t even able to flash an Oyster card.

Were hopes really that high back in 1997, I hear you ask? Well, in view of the fact that Arsenal had succeeded in transforming a relatively unknown Arsene Wenger into a household name, perhaps Sir Alan Sugar assumed that another exotic foreigner would manufacture the success the fans so craved. And, suffice to say, we were happy to go along with him. As it turns out, nine months later Gross was exercising his return ticket and Spurs stuck with British until the Dutch Maris Piper rolled into town.

'During the course of the season, consistency is the measure which balances the fine line between success and failure, not one-off results'


When Spurs fans see some promise - be it on the pitch or in the press - we suffer from what I have diagnosed as ‘gulf in class’ syndrome. This disease is easily contracted and can be spread amongst fans, managers and players alike. Symptoms include pedestrian performances by expensive signings whose names we struggle to pronounce, ticket price rises to rival those on Mr Gross’s preferred transport system, and tougher anti-swearing measures being implemented within the stadium.

When Jol arrived in a package deal with Monsieur Santini (remember him?), the expectations were not overly elevated; we had seen it all before and realised that it does our north London street cred no good when we inflate our expectations prior to acquiring the results to support them.

Then there was last season. The dizzy heights of the top four had been within touching distance until the final day of the campaign, and, in true Spurs tradition, we fell flat on our faces. Still, we naively thought, we’ll be stronger next year and can build upon the experience.

Fast forward to present day and we find that the gap between ourselves and the top four does not seem to be closing at all, as had apparently been in evidence last term. On the contrary, it seems as though the teams who had been challenging the status quo last year – your Tottenhams, Evertons, Blackburns and Boltons – are, in fact, either stagnating or levelling off. This, while the top four pull away even further in terms of domestic dominance.

What does this mean to a Spurs supporter? Well, a good chance to moan if nothing else. I’m not sure when we long-suffering Spurs fans acquired the moniker of top moaners in the land, but I sure as hell can’t deny that it reflects the truth.

The season started brightly enough; still, it’s debatable whether pre-season actually counts and, faced with a newly-relegated Birmingham City and the mighty Stevenage Borough in pre-season, we would have had to try damn hard to lose those matches.

It’s when the matches that mean something started that we fell to pieces. Three defeats in our opening four outings consigned our optimism to the bottom of the pint glass for yet another season. Things haven’t been all bad, what with successful runs in the three cup competitions we have been competing in. Yet the defeat to our arch-rivals in the Carling Cup semi-final hit us hard and by the start of February it seemed as though the gods of football were playing a cruel game and setting up our season as a mirror image to that of the year gone by.

The recent bad press given to Jol on various phone-in shows and by the press was absurd in my opinion. Teams can’t win all the time; however much we wish our club could take home three points week in week out, we have to remember that the opposition turn up every week with the same aim. During the course of the season, consistency is the measure which balances the fine line between success and failure, not one-off results.

Surely it's time we Spurs fans grasped at some realism and admitted that we aren’t yet at the level we like to think we should be at. It will take a good few years for our youngsters – who are extremely promising and really are something to get excited about - to come through and be up to speed with life at the top of the Premiership.

I, too, am not exempt from criticism; I often sit at the Lane, head plonked firmly in hands, wondering what to shout next, having used up my vocabulary of swear words in the first half. However, I hope I am not in the minority when I request long-term stability, both on and off the pitch, if we are to stand any chance of re-affirming our status as one of the top clubs in the country.

With a bit of luck our recent return to form can lead to some consistency going into the final third of the season and silence the critics. In the meantime, though, perhaps the FA can arrange for gulf-in-class syndrome to be treated on the NHS.

What does the future hold for Spurs - continued mediocrity or genuine success? We welcome your views at Sportingo.