Tottenham haven’t had the start to the season they’ll have wanted.
Things took a positive turn in Europe this week, and Mauricio Pochettino will hope that can see the club turn a corner, but Premier League form has been poor and there’s been all kinds of reasons pushed forward.
One has been the bitter blow of defeat to Liverpool in the Champions League final. Jurgen Klopp’s side were the favourites, yet Spurs absolutely had a chance. The match quickly got away from them, and it’s been difficult to get over the loss.
Speaking to Belgian magazine Knack, Toby Alderweireld has explained just how difficult it was for him personally: “That was tough. Nobody knows if you will ever get that chance again. You want to crawl underground with misery, but here too: football goes on, on, on.
“One week after the Champions League final I was part of the national team again. Only after my career will I be able to reflect on what I have won and what has been lost. Now there is no time for that and that is quite difficult. You don’t have the space to let something sink in.”
Given Tottenham’s general troubles this season, Knack edged the defender to reveal the reasons, as he sees them, behind the slump, but he’s at a loss: “I cannot put my finger on it. Lost a few times, the confidence fades away… Bad luck brings bad luck, every footballer knows. Four months ago we played the final of the Champions League, it can’t be that Tottenham suddenly can’t play anymore.”
That’s the conclusion many onlookers have come to, and Pochettino has seemed to make an effort, at least over the past week, to bring his squad back together.
Speaking of having complete confidence in the players he has available, the manager dismissed the idea of making signings in the winter market. Whether that’s true or not, he’ll be attempting to take away a lot of the doubt hanging over the futures of his players.
As for his own Tottenham situation, Alderweireld wasn’t asked directly, although when quizzed on the unlikely possibility of returning to Belgium, he gave some insight on his thinking: “Outsiders have the wrong idea of how such a thing works. Transfers are decisions of the moment. At the end of each season I list it: what level do I achieve, what am I physically capable of, what do I want and what are the options? If the answers lead me to Belgium sooner or later, ok. But from the Netherlands I also get the question of when I return to Ajax.”
