Not even vibes can save Spurs as they stare into the abyss

Can you vibes your way to Premier League survival? Is football secretly just all vibes? What is a vibe? Roberto De Zerbi appears to have spent the week running the world’s wealthiest kindergarten, his only task to somehow reinstill in Tottenham’s shell-shocked squad that they are special little soldiers, each gifted and talented in their own ways. Everyone’s a winner, no matter whether you’ve actually won a league game this year or not. He took the squad out for a fancy meal, and appeared to make a point of it being fancier than the one Igor Tudor provided. And perhaps most surprisingly of all, it almost worked.

On a bucolic April Saturday in north London, no expense was spared in mass vibesmongering, a positivity offensive of Pyongyang proportions. The DJ played banger after banger, although perhaps should have left off “We Found Love [in a hopeless place]”. The stadium announcer proclaimed “We’re Tottenham Hotspur, for goodness’ sake”, a grim fact no-one needed reminding of. Almost every home supporter was given a club-branded flag, creating what was on one hand an oddly moving tableau of humanity’s capacity for hope, but also 55,000 people literally waving white flags.

And so Spurs started the match like a pack of starving dogs let loose on an overflowing wheely bin, rabidly intense but almost mindlessly chaotic. Micky van de Ven and Conor Gallagher almost conceded a goal-kick running headfirst into each other. Dominic Solanke kept appearing on the left wing. Players fell over as though they were just learning to walk. Van de Ven cleared the ball onto the post from a yard out, a genuinely astonishing piece of defensive skill, minutes after Randal Kolo Muani cleared a shot into the second tier from 12 yards out. But this is what happens when you are fuelled by needing more than wanting, knee-deep in the quicksand of desperation, thrashing and flailing despite all conventional wisdom telling you to stay still.

As was the case with Kolo Muani four months earlier, signing a player low on confidence and self-worth in Conor Gallagher has largely only compounded the negativity. And yet this was a Gallagher game; all harassing and pressing and sprinting, about as relaxing as Requiem for a Dream. Of course, in signing Xavi Simons they largely made the exact opposite error to Gallagher, both physically slight and a child star who had two million Instagram followers at 16 and brings an extensive entourage wherever he goes, while those within the club talk of attitude and timekeeping problems. But here were vindications for both, reminders that they were signed for reasons that once appeared logical, if only ever in a certain light.

This was the full Tottenham Experience in 90 minutes, ability and agonising inability fighting for supremacy like drunks over a bag of chips. On 39 minutes, something genuinely bizarre happened; Tottenham scored a home goal they entirely deserved. Simons’ smart cross was headed in by Pedro Porro, and the vibes machine went into overdrive. Of course, nine minutes later they conceded an extraordinary side-footed volley by Kaoru Mitoma. And yet as they so often have not, they came again, Simons producing a whipping, curling thing almost to make you believe everything would be OK. Of course, because this is Tottenham, it wasn’t and Georginio Rutter calmly equalised in the 95th minute.

There is an argument this is among the most psychologically fragile group of footballers ever constructed. But for all a significant proportion of the fanbase believe it might help, and for all those in power clearly deserve it, there is no upside to relegation.

It doesn’t force a reset, it just leaves you with all the same problems, but less money and influence to deal with them. People will lose jobs, but not the right people, rather kitchen and waiting staff, 19-year-old upside-down-pint-filling supremos. Directors Vinai Venkatesham and Johan Lange will oversee a Very Thorough Review concluding that, yes, Vinai Venkatesham and Johan Lange are best placed to take things from here.

A billion pounds or more will fall off the club’s value overnight. We will discover how many seats are being filled by people who want to experience Premier League football, rather than watch Tottenham. You will still own Radu Dragusin and Guglielmo Vicario, except they are worth even less and have no inclination to leave.

And if they somehow survive, what changes in assessing the past three years? Profitability and sustainability rules mean it has never been harder for a club of Tottenham’s size to be relegated, and they’ve arrived here all the same. What happens next matters materially, but it should not lessen the scrutiny on those who managed this decline, lessen the need for change. From this point, it will be almost impossible to discern whether whatever happens between now and May is more the product of skill or fortune.

As the full-time whistle rang out, Porro and Kevin Danso both collapsed in unison, faces buried in the pristine, contractable turf, begging to be swallowed up into the racetrack below. The problem with betting your soul, your future, on vibes and noise and confidence, is just as easily as they can be manufactured, they can vanish.

Photograph by Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images