Five seasons ago, Jack Wilshere stood in front of thousands of Arsenal fans and asked the throngs of Gunners supporters in attendance what they thought of Tottenham.
The answer thrown back at him wasn’t very flattering to Spurs but it served as an almost eternal reminder that the club were the little brother among North London’s biggest football clubs.
Tottenham had finished sixth in the league that season, they had been knocked out in the third round of the FA Cup, they had finished in the second round of the Europa League and they had lost their best player in Gareth Bale to Real Madrid.
Emmanuel Adebayor was their top goalscorer and Tim Sherwood was their manager. Just in case you misread that, Emmanuel Adebayor was their top goalscorer and Tim Sherwood was their manager.
Arsenal by comparison had just won their fourth FA Cup since 2000. They had finished in the top four once again and had secured qualification to the Champions League group stage qualifiers, just months after they had lost 3-1 on aggregate to Bayern Munich, the defending champions at the time, in the last 16 of the competition.
Mesut Ozil had just completed his first full season at the club and Alexis Sanchez was on his way that summer. Things were definitely on the up for Arsenal.
The following season Wilshere once again stood there in front of the Gunners fans with a microphone in hand and asked the same question, to the same response, to the same tune of another FA Cup win.
Tottenham had finished fifth in the league this time and were still North London’s little brother, however, they did add Ben Davies, Dele Alli and Eric Dier to their squad, following on from the previous season’s signings of Erik Lamela and Christian Eriksen.
A young striker by the name of Harry Kane had also broken into their first team and had scored 31 goals in 51 games. A young manager by the name of Mauricio Pochettino had also been appointed their manager on a five-year contract.
Spurs haven’t won any trophies in the time since Wilshere first grabbed that microphone on stage, but they have established themselves as one of the world’s biggest clubs while Arsenal have added one FA Cup title, which, incidentally, Wilshere watched while playing on loan at Bournemouth.
Times have changed in North London and the little brother has now become the more prominent figure in not only the English capital, but in world football too.
Tottenham now have two consecutive finishes in the top three in the Premier League.
They currently sit four points adrift of second placed Manchester United with 11 games to play of this Premier League season.
They have a new 62,000 seater stadium under construction.
They have a striker in Harry Kane who scored more goals than both Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in the last calendar year and they have a manager in Mauricio Pochettino who is being courted by the two-time defending Champions League champions Real Madrid.
Another day, another @HKane record. pic.twitter.com/Rcpkzx2l4q
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) February 14, 2018
Spurs may not have won any trophies since the 2008 League Cup, but they have some of the finest assets in world football and an away goal advantage in the last 16 of the Champions League against a Juventus team that have contested two of the last three finals of that very competition.
They appear to be set for an extended stay at Europe’s top table which is only buoyed by their performance off the pitch.
In addition to finishing runners up in the Premier League last season, Tottenham’s first foray into the Champions League in five seasons saw increases in revenue from €279.7m to €355.6m.
The club are also now poisted to break into the top 10 highest revenue generating clubs in the world next season according to Deloitte.
An extract from the company’s 2017 Money League report reads:
The Money League top ten appears to
beckon for Spurs who, with participation
in the Champions League, a new record kit
deal with Nike and increased attendances
from playing all of their home games at
Wembley, should see healthy revenue
growth in 2017/18. Interestingly, and
given the impact performance in UEFA
competitions has had on this year’s
Money League, their position in the top
ten next year may well be decided by
who progresses from their Round of
16 Champions League tie, as they are
competing against the club directly above
them, Juventus.
A lot of where Spurs go from here will largely depend on what players they continue to add, as well as more importantly, who they manage to keep.
The definition of what a ‘big club’ is has changed dramatically over the last decade as a club like Spurs – who haven’t won a domestic trophy in a decade – are able to score twice away from home against a side that has kept 15 clean sheets in their last 16 matches, while a historic giant like AC Milan, have sat idly by and watched as that very team have swept their domestic league for six straight seasons.
In a football world of inordinate Premier League and Champions League broadcast deals, a club like Spurs have been able to turn the sale of one superstar into a sustained period of consistency where they went from a club with three top eight domestic finishes in 13 seasons; to a club that have not finished outside of the Premier League’s top six in the last eight seasons.
Spurs are not a big club by traditional measures but some of the biggest clubs by those metrics – Celtic, AC Milan, Ajax, Inter Milan – are either trounced by the big clubs or not there in the first place to even compete.
Tottenham just topped a group containing both Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid.
The football landscape has changed over the last decade and it has allowed a club like Spurs, without a domestic or European trophy in 10 years, to prosper.
Tottenham are one of the biggest clubs in European football for the moment, but the question remains, if they lose Kane, Eriksen, Alli or Pochettino, how much longer will they be there to stay?
Time, and particularly the return leg against Juventus in London, may tell.
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