Since we have a melodramatic Italian as our manager, I thought it appropriate to do our season review in opera style. Tottenham Hotspur 2021-22, a Football Opera in Three Acts ACT I, SCENE I, Tottenham's Summer of Discontent After a disastrous season that saw us finish 7th and sack our highly expensive and inept manager Jose Mourinho, Daniel Levy began the interminable search for a new manager. Meanwhile, star strike Harry Kane decided he had had enough and made it clear he wanted a transfer to Pep Guardiola's Death Star. For a while, it looked like we would start the season with no manager and no star striker. ACT I, SCENE II, The Hunt for a New Manager and Harry's Long Farewell Daniel Levy dug in his heels and named his price (150 million quid) while Harry went about his business at Euro 2020, fully expecting to be knocking in Kevin De Bruyne crosses come the fall. Meanwhile, the shambolic search for a new manager saw Paolo Fonseca and Antonio Conte look like done deals only to fall apart, while crazy rumours of a Pochettino return never materialized. ACT I, SCENE III, Enter Nuno, Harry Stays After being linked with every coach imaginable, Spurs finally settled on Nuno Espiritu Santo, who nobody else, including the club he established in the PL, Wolves, wanted. At the same time, Harry Kane gave up on his foolhardy attempt to railroad Daniel Levy and took the scenic route back to London from his summer vacation. ACT II, SCENE I, We're Top of The League... Despite all the doom and gloom, Spurs actually won their first three games, including a famous win over Manchester City. Nuno's football was not the most dazzling, but considering how bad we had been the previous two seasons, this was champaign stuff. ACT II, SCENE II, Back to Reality But this is Spurs and it didn't take long for things to unravel. After a disastrous international break where our South American contingent (Cuti Romero, Lo Celso and Sanchez) defied club and health authority orders to play for their countries, we were blown away by Crystal Palace 3-0. An already thin squad was undermined by the absence of those three players who had to quarantine on their return and what would follow were four defeats in six games which would ultimately cost Nuno his job. ACT II, SCENE III, Nuno's Inferno Nuno was finally put out of his misery following a 3-0 home defeat to Manchester United. With the fans baying for Daniel Levy's head and giving Harry Kane the bird, the Tottenham supremo axed his third Portuguese coach to stunningly replace him with Antonio Conte. The Italian inherited a team that had lost five of ten matches with a goal difference of minus seven. ACT III, SCENE I, Conte's Renaissance It didn't take long for Antonio Conte to leave his mark on the squad. He demanded more from the players, the board and even the fans! Under Nuno we were last in ground covered, under Conte we jumped to first. Spurs went nine unbeaten in the PL under the Italian, including an amazing 3-2 win at Leicester where we trailed 2-1 with almost 95 minutes on the clock, and progressed to the semi-finals of the League Cup, where we were eliminated by Chelsea. ACT III, SCENE II, Antonio's Lament Despite the upturn, this was still a weak squad and defeats away to Mura in the Europa League and to Middlebrough in the FA Cup, along with back-to-back home defeats to Southampton and Wolves showed that there was much work to be done. The turning point came after a 1-0 away defeat to Burnley, after we had stunned Manchester City 3-2 away, when Conte went on one of his famous diatribes. While the delivery was not subtle, Conte's blunt point was received by the players, who would go on to win 10 of the next 14 games. ACT III, SCENE III, North London Glory and Champions League Qualification Eventually, we got there - nine wins in the final 12 games, including a 3-0 demolition of Arsenal in the North London Derby, secured fourth place in the table and Champions League football for the 7th time in the last 13 seasons. The January signings of the elegant Rodrigo Bentancur and the dynamic Dejan Kulusevski from Juventus proved to be decisive as the former solidified our midfield, while the latter scored five and set up eight in just 18 PL games. Sonny won the Golden Boot with 23 goals and 7 assists, while Harry Kane, once he got over his failed transfer saga, was excellent with 17 goals and 9 assists. Hugo Lloris, who had his wobbly moments early in the season, finished with an impressive 16 clean sheets, including a crucial 1-0 vs Burnley when he played despite being ill with fever. The defense, which was a shambles under Nuno, was reshaped into Conte's famous 3-4-3 formation, and all of a sudden players like Eric Dier, Ben Davies and Davinson Sanchez looked like serviceable defenders, while newcomer Romero from Serie A slotted in perfectly. EPILOGUE Our shock elimination from the Europa Conference League turned out to be a blessing in disguise, giving Conte more time to drill his methods into the side. But despite our return to the CL, there is much work to be done. The squad needs to be replenished and a lot of driftwood has to be turned out of the club. Ownership has shown that it is willing to back Conte in the transfer market - if he and sporting director Fabio Paratici bring in the right players, we could finally move to the next level and challenge for major honours. What a strange season! I had absolutely no expectations going in and certainly didn't expect us to land one of the best coaches in the game, let alone get back into the CL. Forza Tottenham!
I will give Levy credit where it is due. He made the ballsy decision that Harry Kane was going nowhere. The opportunity to get 100+ million pounds for him is never going to come around again. Would we have finished top 4 without him? I have my doubts.
One detail missed was that week during the manager search when Gattuso was in the frame. That was a low.
I would have needed to add a whole new opera just to cover our manager search. Was there anyone who was not linked to the job?
Correction: we have qualified for CL 6 times, starting with the 2009-10 season - it should have been 7, but we were screwed out of a spot by Chelsea in 2011-12.