Tottenham Hotspur stepping up

CosminIftode / Shutterstock.com

Tottenham Hotspurs have been improving for quite a while. At a time, their style of football and results against the big teams weren’t doing much to improve their final position on the log, even though they were playing really well. This led to a cross-section of football fans to tag them the unluckiest team in football.

There was probably some logic to this tag considering their habit of playing fantastic football and staying close to the top of the league all season only to fall short in the last games and fall out of Champions League places. Even in the few number of seasons where they have qualified for the competition, there seemed to be a hoodoo that always prevented them from going far, no matter how good the squad is or how well they perform in the domestic league, but all that seems to have changed now.

When the group H teams were announced by UEFA, and Tottenham was announced in the same group as Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund, fans of the club felt a familiar ominous feeling about their chances of qualifying from the group stage. History have shown Spurs never going beyond the group stage in the Champions League, even from a seemingly easier group on paper, how then are they supposed to survive their current group? Well if last night’s showing at the Santiago Bernabeu was anything to go by, then it would seem like fans and lovers of the club have nothing to worry about.

To the average Spurs fan, the team was supposed to go to the Bernabeu to try as much as they could to limit whatever inevitable damage Madrid would inflict on them, but as it turned out, Spurs was capable of turning on the style just as much as Madrid could, and they did.

Watching the match, one could be tempted to say that it was just one of those nights where things just didn’t go Real Madrid’s way, (and Hugo Lloris had a lot to do with that), but Spurs also had times when they worried the Champions League veterans.

Harry Kane, playing with Fernando Llorente upfront was a constant problem for Real Madrid defenders as the hosts tried to adapt to the unusual formation put out by Mauricio Pochettino. Harry Winks also held his own against two of the best central midfielders in the world; even though he was playing in front of a three-man defensive set-up, the youngster looked every bit as assured on the ball as his two opposing and more experienced colleagues.

Make no mistake, Spurs might not have come away with all three points, but earning a point against Real Madrid who have won twenty-one of their last twenty-three Champions League home games is no mean feat, and Pochettino’s boys should be proud of themselves.

Spurs may not be completely home and dry, considering that they still have three matches to play before they qualify from group stage, but if their last three performances and results are anything to go by, then they are well and truly on their way to the knockout stages of the competition. A massive improvement on their previous record.

In the Premier League they are also doing quite well and Sunday’s hammering of Liverpool is a strong proof of that. Manchester United made a mistake in their trip to Huddersfield and allowed Spurs to catch up on them in the table. It is too early in the season, but surely Tottenham look a formidable force that can compete for the Premier League title.