Five times in the last seven seasons, Tottenham Hotspur have finished in the top four. They’ve reached a Champions League final and a Carabao Cup final. They’ve truly established themselves as one of the biggest clubs in England once more and become a regular concern to the established order on the continent.
They’ve won nothing though.
Harry Kane is 29, in the peak of his professional career, has the most goals for a single club in Premier League history, stands four strikes away from being his country’s greatest ever goalscorer and is on course to be the Premier League’s all-time leader by the time he’s 33.
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But he hasn’t won a bean either.
The closest Tottenham came to winning the league was back in 2016. Their head-to-head battle with Leicester City in the second half of the season looked perfectly set up for them to break their 55-year title duck at a time when many of the modern giants were having a below-par campaign. They somehow finished down in third in the end and would actually finish closer to the top the following year when Antonio Conte’s Chelsea kept everyone at arm’s length for three quarters of the term.
Six years on, that battle with the Foxes, who visit White Hart Lane on Saturday, feels increasingly like the one that got away. Spurs are now a massive club but have none of the silverware to show for it. Leicester, meanwhile, are bottom of the Premier League, Brendan Rodgers’ position as manager is open for debate, the club is struggling to make money available for squad strengthening and at least one season in the Championship looks a likely proposition in the near future.
Yet they do have the trophies. Besides that incredible 2016 Premier League title, they have also won the 2021 FA Cup. Spurs have the standing, they have the near-guarantee of always being at the top end of the Premier League and the Champions League fixtures in their calendar, but Leicester have the one thing the Lilywhites lack. They have the actual success.
It is football’s endless debate in microcosm form. Do you want to be Harry Kane, the captain of your country and dead-eye striker for a club forever competing in the Champions League, or would you rather by Jamie Vardy, your comparatively short international career now over, your prospects for a big-club move having passed you by, but your trophy cabinet boasting far more than Goal of the Month and Player of the Season awards. Those priceless Premier League and FA Cup winner’s medals can never be taken away.
Of course, the same Antonio Conte who made Chelsea too tough a prospect for Spurs in 2017 is now the man tasked with taking the north London side to some form of glory. If Kane is going to win anything at White Hart Lane, you have to believe it is going to be under Conte or not at all. But if they can’t break down that barrier either this season or next, then there is a very real possibility that they will not make the most of this period of relative relevance.
Manchester City, Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Leicester have all collected major trophies during the seven-year spell in which Spurs have threatened to succeed but still haven’t. Their last silverware was the League Cup in 2008. Portsmouth, Birmingham City and Swansea City have each won a major title since then.
It is high time they made the most of their best run in generations and actually got over the line. Otherwise Harry Kane will be left showing his grandkids clips of goals on YouTube rather than handing them actual medals to savour.
*18+ | BeGambleAware
