Eric Dier does not hesitate. The key to the 3-0 home drubbing of Arsenal at the end of last season that propelled Tottenham into the Champions League and pushed their rivals towards fifth place and frustration? “The atmosphere,” the centre-half replies. “That was maybe one of the best atmospheres I’ve played in and it was definitely the best at the new stadium. It felt like the kind of night that the stadium was built for. The atmosphere played a huge, huge part.”
Dier’s answer is unexpected because it was a game in which Spurs bullied their neighbours on a physical level and showed the kind of mentality that Antonio Conte had been desperate to see. Then again, maybe it should not be when considering Spurs’s last few matches, beginning at home to Aston Villa two weeks ago.
That was when some supporters, enraged by the 2-0 defeat, went for their default punchbag and called for the head of the chairman, Daniel Levy. There would be further anti-Levy chants at the next game – the ultimately encouraging 4-0 win at Crystal Palace. Then there was an unusual scene before last Saturday’s FA Cup tie at home to Portsmouth.
On the pitch for an interview was Gary Stevens, the former Spurs player, who was a part of the team that won the 1984 Uefa Cup. He scored in the penalty shootout against Anderlecht and he remembered his windmill arm celebration, teasing the crowd with it at first and probably hoping for a louder roar than he got when he performed it. But Stevens veered into off-message territory when he spoke about the need for the fans to get behind the team, saying the players – believe him – really felt it when they did not, when they showed their exasperation. At one point, Stevens found himself apologising for the pep talk-cum-lecture and yet it was clearly something he felt had to be said.
This is where we are at Spurs ahead of Sunday’s home derby with Arsenal; the climate edgy, the support never too far from boiling point. The corresponding fixture from last May has come to feel an awfully long way away, the perception being that much has changed at both clubs; Arsenal locating an ignition point to spark in spectacular fashion, Spurs crunching into reverse.
Only the first part is true. Spurs are having a decent season, a solid fifth in the Premier League, looking forward to a Champions League last-16 tie against Milan, still alive in the FA Cup where they visit Preston in round four. But decent does not cut it when the mob down the road are top of the table.
Spurs have finished above Arsenal in each of the past six seasons and comprehensively put them in their place at the end of the last one. So how can they be trailing them by 11 points, having played an extra match? Where is the Spurs ignition point? Why are they not doing what Arsenal have done?
Dier does not believe that Arsenal’s fantastic football and form, the way that their moves both on and off the pitch now seem so joined-up, have changed the landscape for the Spurs players, putting them under more pressure. It is because he subscribes to the view that you can only control what you can control. Anything else is a waste of time and energy.
But it has surely changed things for the supporters and they shape the atmosphere around the club, especially during matches. “It’s really not a nice feeling for a fan,” Dier says. “I’m completely sympathetic to that and feel that.”
It was in the 12th minute of the Portsmouth tie that the Spurs crowd bellowed a chorus of Conte’s Christian name and they followed it with a quieter chant about wanting Levy out. It is the tension that stalks the club; the admiration for the popular manager versus the irritation with the chairman.
Why always him? It is partly because he has been in the role for so long – since February 2001 – and, for all his good work, he has done things over the years to annoy many fans. The most frequent line of criticism concerns a lack of consistent big-money backing for managers.
There is no doubt that the thing which hurts Levy most, stripping away his protection, is the lack of trophies. There has been only one on his watch – the 2008 Carling Cup. On the overall balance sheet, there is a constituency of supporters who deem him to be heavily in the black. And so, at testing moments, when blame is to be apportioned, he is the clearest target.
Conte does not help with his complaints about the pace of the project, his leveraging, his inability to say that he will remain at the club beyond the end of the season when his contract expires. Yet everybody knows that a win over Arsenal could be transformative. “Games like these can have a huge effect on teams, on fans, on everything,” Dier says. “From an emotional point of view, there’s a lot more added to a game like this that can propel you in a season. We hope it can do that.”
Back to the Spurs crowd, who stand to be crucial on Sunday. Dier knows what it is like when they sing that they love him. “It’s an incredible rush,” he says. “You’re never out of breath. You feel like you could run and play all night.”
When it flips the other way, as against Villa, it is draining. “Then you do start to feel your legs and your lungs,” Dier says. “It’s a difficult one, a chicken and egg. We need to play in a way which galvanises the crowd and the crowd can galvanise us to play in that way. We need them to be there for us in the tough moments. That support is so valuable. It’s the difference between running into a wind or running with the wind behind us.”
