'Lads, it's Tottenham': missing out on Eze is just latest calamity

Supporting Spurs tends to mean imagining the most embarrassing thing and knowing it's going to happen

- Rob Davies

Earlier this month, my Spurs WhatsApp group was debating whether, if you could only have one, you'd sign Eberechi Eze or Savinho. Ever the ray of sunshine, I confessed that my "gut feeling" was that we wouldn't get either. A few days later, I doubled down. Despite reports suggesting Eze was practically on the 149 bus heading for N17, I had the nagging sense that Arsenal might gazump us. The reason was that I'd seen this tragi-comic movie before. Spurs have "nearly" signed everyone from Jean-Pierre Papin to Eden Hazard to Rivaldo.

All clubs miss out on transfers from time to time. My pessimism sprang from somewhere else, somewhere darker and more psychologically deep-rooted.

Supporting Tottenham Hotspur so often means imagining the most ludicrous, embarrassing thing that could possibly befall the club and then knowing, with crystal clarity, that it's going to happen. Fans of other clubs - Wimbledon, Bury or Morecambe - have had it much worse, but no other club so expertly combines the slapstick and the high-profile. At Tottenham we wait until everyone is watching, then we slip on the banana skin.