Spurs Are Flat Track Bullies

That rather sums Tottenham up over the last few years. We developed a team, a squad who would beat the minnows regularly, but when we came up against the top teams we struggled.

Games against evenly matched teams are decided by a moment of brilliance or a mistake. We tended to make mistakes, rather than have moments of brilliance.

We saw the Achilles heel versus Manchester United yet again, mistakes cost us the game, one from Gazzaniga, one from clumsy Sissoko.

Go back to Jose Mourinho's time at Chelsea and they used to wait for us to make a mistake and then punish us. We were then always fighting an uphill battle. It happens frequently and it is no coincidence.

Under pressure you revert to default, you become anxious and it is how you handle anxiety, your emotions, that determine how you perform. We have struggled to handle them against the top sides.

In the last 62 matches against Chelsea, we have won just 9, drawn 20 and lost 33. 

Now I know they had vastly more money than us and that makes a huge difference so let's look at since Mauricio Pochettino took over.

3-0 L

5-3 W

2-0 L

0-0

2-2

2-1 L

2-0 W

4-2 L

1-2 L

1-3 W

3-1 W

1-0 W

2-1 L

2-0 L

P14 W5 D2 L7

We have won 35.71% and lost 50% since the start of the 2014/15 season against Chelsea. We lost to them in a League Cup semi-final, lost to them in a League Cup final, lost to Manchester United in an FA Cup semi-final as well as losing the UEFA Champions League final, blowing a second-place finish and missing out on our best chance to win the Premier League.

Yes, all are improvements from where we have been, but, to go to the next level takes handling pressure better. Against a pumped up Man United we were clearly second best.

I maintain again, if we were training our players mentally then these mistakes wouldn't happen so consistently, we would handle pressure better and have won at least one, if not more, trophies and all for less than it would cost to pay us for the services of Pochettino.

We have the basics, we have quality going forward as the five against Burnley shows, but then against Bayern Munich, albeit a weakened team, we were terrible.

We couldn't keep the ball which simply put us under pressure for the whole game and when we had chances we weren't clinical. Like I keep saying, being clinical isn't something you can just turn on and turn off, you have to train yourself so it becomes natural.

We could have got away with a draw from that game with better finishing, but yes, of course, we need to improve the defence and midfield.