Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas loves the Europa League. Apart from regularly discussing his bromantic break-up with former mentor and current managerial rival Jose Mourinho in the public eye, the continent’s second tier tournament could well be his favourite thing in the world.
To be fair to the Portuguese, it is the competition in which he first made his name and began attracting the interests of Europe’s elite clubs. His Porto side claimed the continental accolade in 2011, which, along with a Primeira Liga title in the same season, earned AVB various individual honours in his native Portugal, including the Coach of the Year award, and soon propelled him to his first job in the Premier League with Chelsea.
In England however, we have a slightly different view, summarised best by the Tottenham gaffer’s predecessor Harry Redknapp, who described the Europa League as “a nightmare…it kills you off” in 2011.
So with Andre Villas-Boas already proving this year that he’s once again taking Europe’s second string tournament incredibly seriously, fielding strong sides and including first team regulars such as Hugo Lloris, Moussa Dembele, Michael Dawson, Paulinho and Roberto Soldado to claim decisive victories against continental minnows Dynamo Tbilisi and Tromso IL, it’s time to ask whether the Portuguese’s love affair with the competition will get in the way of Tottenham’s Champions League qualification ambitions this year.
Last term, the Lilywhites made it all the way to the quarter-finals, only to fall short against Basel in a penalty shoot-out. Tottenham’s ill-fated efforts from the spot were undoubtedly affected by the team’s fatigue, having taken on Everton in the Premier League the weekend previous to the Thursday night tie in a vital race for fourth spot clash and then going on to play a full 120 minutes against the Swiss champions.
Overall, the North Londoners played 12 fixtures in the double-legged competition, and the Tottenham faithful must be wondering if such an impetus on the Europa League eventually contributed to them missing out on a Champions League spot in the Premier League by just a single point to local rivals Arsenal at the end of the season.
Aaron Lennon, Gareth Bale and Jermain Defoe all picked up niggling injuries during the home stretch last term as Tottenham honed in on fourth spot, and one can only speculate that the additional eight to eleven games they all played in the auxiliary tournament must have had some influence on their fitness.
Granted, none missed more than five Premier League fixtures as a result, but their brief absences could well have been a determining factor in Spurs finishing below the Gunners instead of above them, considering the minute margins in league standing at the end of last season.
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Before their injury bouts, Defoe was in hot goal-scoring form, with 14 of his 15 goals for the season coming prior to his spell on the sidelines. Similarly, Aaron Lennon’s efforts on the flanks, providing pace and width to the Tottenham cause and also serving as an excellent counterweight for the in-form Gareth Bale, were pivotal to Spurs’ tactics and formation last season, and without the occasional England winger, the North Londoners’ results began to curve.
History has a tendency to repeat itself, but things are quite different at Tottenham this season. The departure of Gareth Bale in the summer triggered an unprecedented spending spree from the North Londoners, in which seven new players joined the club for a combined total of £110million, whilst budding England youngsters Danny Rose and Andros Townsend also return to White Hart Lane after being farmed out to Sunderland and QPR respectively.
If a lack of quality in depth was the leading contributor to Spurs falling short at the final hurdle last year, it’s safe to say it won’t be an issue this season. Barring a few key departments, namely the strike-force and at left full-back, Tottenham have the bodies and quality to handle any serious injury crisis, and AVB now has the luxury of rotating a talented squad at his own digression – not that he’s shown any tendency to rest key players for Europa League affairs throughout his North London tenure.
That being said, the Europa League represents the same conundrum this year as it always has – unless you win the trophy come the end of the season, it’s an incredibly pointless enterprise. It’s an extra 15 games per campaign that Premier League clubs quite frankly don’t need considering the intense physical nature of the English game, especially when it requires such a logistical commitment to bounce around to obscure locations across the continent mid-week to face generally much lesser opposition.
What business do the third-best team in Norway have taking on the fifth-best team in England? For Spurs to lose would only cause embarrassment, and for Spurs to win would only enforce what we already know about the qualities of the Premier League in comparison to the Norwegian top flight.
And as Chelsea proved last year, it’s incredibly easy to stroll your way to the final without even coming up against serious opposition, barring you can spare yourselves from any hiccups along the way. If the Champions League is the tournament of dreams, requiring players to push themselves to the limits against elite opposition, the Europa League is a competition of professionalism and competence, even in its latter-most stages.
At the same time, if you asked the entirety of Tottenham’s fan base whether they’d prefer to claim the Europa League title this season or guarantee their place in next year’s Champions League tournament, the answer would be fairly unanimous.
Villas-Boas doesn’t see it that way however, and the Portuguese is as eager as ever to make the Europa League trophy his first contribution to the Tottenham silverware cabinet.
But the Spurs gaffer must be wary; the current campaign represents Tottenham’s greatest chance to date to break into the Premier League’s top four, or even exceed that expectation, and the White Hart Lane faithful won’t be best pleased if their chances of doing so are scuppered for the sake of a tournament that can be best described as the European equivalent of the Capital One Cup.
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