Followers of Tottenham Hotspur have every reason to be suspicious of the Carling Cup. After all, winning it proved something of a false dawn for the regime of Juande Ramos last season. Yet while a tougher test awaits this year, with Manchester United the opponents rather than an erratic Chelsea side, the need for victory is, if anything, greater. For winning the Carling Cup would represent the only evidence that Tottenham are still on the up as a club; fail, and this would be a season that equates to the end of an era, even with Harry Redknapp, a new manager, in tow.
It would conclude Tottenham’s status as the club-most-likely-to. The club that the clever money thought was going to break into the top four elite. The club that was waiting for Arsene Wenger’s utopian project at Arsenal to fail, and then it would pounce.
Tottenham have been in that position for several years. Even when they ended up stranded near the bottom of the league as Martin Jol, the manager, was undermined by his board, there was always hope.
It came in the form of Ramos, a coach with pedigree in Europe, who won the Carling Cup in his first season. Tottenham may have floundered in the league, but the message from the win over Chelsea at Wembley was that better times were ahead.
What remains this season if Tottenham lose on Sunday? Another scrap against relegation under a manager who regarded the UEFA Cup, like the FA Cup, as a nuisance. Try to rally around that flag at White Hart Lane. In Redknapp’s defence, his priority was survival and he looks increasingly like ensuring it. But when he fumes at fixture congestion and espouses grim pragmatism, it brings home how seriously Tottenham’s timing is awry.
They have missed the boat. This is the season that Wenger’s stubborn devotion to the beautiful game has caught up with Arsenal, but Spurs are a million miles away from taking advantage. Aston Villa will benefit instead and, with a fine manager in Martin O’Neill supported by an equally impressive club owner in Randy Lerner, may even consolidate that position next season.
Everton, too, are hanging in there, which is more than could be expected with limited funds. Notice anything? Villa and Everton have remained true to the vision of the manager, refusing to complicate affairs with rapid changes of philosophy or superfluous directors of football.
Despite the influence of an American owner at one club and a show-business impresario at the other, Villa and Everton are almost quaintly old-fashioned in their approach.
Next season, others will challenge. Manchester City are going to throw the kitchen sink at it, we can all see that. If Arsenal finish outside the top four, they will have to spend seriously in the summer, too.
Where are Tottenham in this mix? They cannot offer City’s riches, Arsenal’s status or Villa’s growing reputation and, perhaps, Champions League football. If they do not win on Sunday, they will not even be able to offer the UEFA Cup. And while that might please the manager, for a club needing to demonstrate progress it certainly won’t be pleasing anybody else.
Martin Samuel is the chief sports writer of the Daily Mail, where his column appears on Monday and Wednesday