Big Four Eye The Big Prize

…and it is not quite what you think.

Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, Arsene Wenger and Rafa Benitez will all for differing reasons and varying levels of self-delusion claim to be fighting for two main prizes this season; the Premiership and the Champions League. Privately, some if not all will be content with good showings in each and a domestic cup or two. Indeed they have probably achieved that already in their heads. However this season there is one prize that they must secretly covet above all others; not being the team that drops out of the top four.

Make no mistake about it, this season more than any other the cartel is under threat. In previous seasons, the odd team with a decent run of form has threatened the under performing incumbent but this season there is one team who are more than a match for the rest of the league and play better attacking football than all but Manchester United and Arsenal. They even won the fair play league last season. They have some very good players, a few superb players and one of the best strikers in the world. They are young, predominantly English, have played together for some time and are at a superbly run and stable club. They have finished fifth for the past two season have spent over £30m this closed season without going into debt and have one of the best youth teams and reserves in the country.

Watch out – Tottenham Hotspur are back and they are hungry.

What is more if you are at all a supporter of football, even if you have something against them, you should be willing them on this season. Because if Tottenham cannot break the self-perpetuating monopoly of the top four with a club so well run and a strategy so well conceived and executed then what hope is there for the rest of the league? If you do not want Tottenham to break into the top four with their patient, well-run club and attacking football then you might as well reach into a hat an pull out the name of one of the existing top four to support. That or accept you define your support in the failure of other teams rather than the success – or hope of success – of your own.

Pundits are looking at Tottenham and proclaiming this season as their most important. They say that it is absolutely vital for Tottenham to make that move this season. They are right of course. Failure this season and they stand to lose the Bulgarian jewel in the crown, Dimitar Berbatov; the player at Spurs who could genuinely be the difference for them when playing at the Nou Camp, Olympia Stadion or San Siro rather than just Villa Park or Craven Cottage. Lose Berbatov and breaking the cartel becomes harder by several magnitudes. What is more, if it came it would be more as a single, lucky season as opposed to a repeatable achievement and the culmination of years of planning.

However while it is an important season for Tottenham, it is an absolutely vital one for the Premier League and the fans of the other 16 clubs that participate in it. Make no mistake, the money a team gets from the Champions League is enormous and it is seven or eight times as much as Sevilla got for winning the UEFA Cup. Ever year the top four finishes like it did last season it becomes progressively harder for any other team to finish in there. Tottenham have done everything right (including how they play on the field), they are the model of how a club should be run and should believe – as every other team should believe – that given enough time the ceiling of their ambitions is winning the Premier League. Not Champions League qualification, not top six, not staying up.

After all, what is the point of being in a league which you know you cannot win?

This year, Tottenham are a year older, a year wiser and a year better acquainted with each other. They will play the type of football they played last year, only at times better and for longer and with a larger squad to cope better with injuries. There is every chance Tottenham will not require any appreciable dip in form from one of last seasons top four to usurp them. But for a better start to last season (when Berbatov was still getting used to the league), they might easily have gained another 10 points which would have put them in third place.

So this season I suggest that West Ham, Fulham, Manchester City, Aston Villa, Everton, Blackburn – all of you, whether you hate Tottenham or not, put aside your prejudice for one season. Support your team as vociferously as you always do but hold a little something back for Tottenham. You may have been taught to dislike them but this season they have a great shot at ending the potentially most damaging aspect of the English league and they are going about it the right way.

So please, secretly support them for whatever reason you want; style of play, Berbatov, Keane, King, English players it doesn’t matter.

The most important reason is this; if Tottenham cannot do it, neither can anyone else.