The final stretch of the football season always delivers a brutal dose of reality. For fans of Cambridge United and Tottenham Hotspur, that reality is currently a double-barreled blast of panic. Cambridge have tumbled out of the League Two automatic promotion places at the worst possible moment. Meanwhile, Spurs are objectively the worst team in the Premier League right now and could be in the relegation zone by Sunday.
It feels like the season just started, yet here we are with only a handful of games left to decide everything. Back in August, sitting in a sports bar in Old Street, there was genuine enthusiasm about Spurs. They may have lost the Super Cup to Paris Saint-Germain in classic Spursy fashion, but there was a pragmatist in charge. A few weeks and a 2-0 win at the Etihad later, a tiny part of the brain dared to think Thomas Frank might deliver a title challenge. We never learn.
For Cambridge United, the journey has been a slow burn of attachment. The weird excitement and indifference every lower-league fan feels as their club announces signings of players they’ve never heard of. Strangers like Louis Appéré, Dom Ball, and Ben Knight now feel like old friends after nine months of watching them run around on CUFC TV in the middle of the night.
Now, that attachment is turning to agony. The U’s have fallen out of the automatic promotion spots at just the wrong time. The stress is palpable. In a spare moment, you find yourself staring at the League Two table, mentally adding back the four points dropped in the last two games. If Ian Holloway is as honourable as we know he is, he’ll give us two points at the end of the season after we battered Swindon 1-1 at the Abbey last Thursday; their 90th-minute equaliser wasn’t even a shot.
Then, on Monday, goalkeeper Jake Eastwood made perhaps his first mistake of the season in the last minute at Cheltenham. The schedule offers no respite: it’s fourth versus third on Saturday as Cambridge entertain Notts County, before a Thursday night trip to leaders Bromley. It’s too stressful a week. We’re on the eve of the apocalypse, studying the run-in of second-placed MK Dons—they have two tricky games out of four, if you’re interested.
In between Cambridge’s crisis, the focus must pivot to the sheer agony of watching Tottenham. The atrophy of the past few months has been staggering. There’s a collective failure to truly comprehend that this club might be in the Championship next season. Even writing it down, part of you doesn’t believe it. It’s not a thing that happens to Spurs.
The appointment of Roberto De Zerbi raised eyebrows beyond the ethics and his necessary, if not totally satisfactory, apology over his Mason Greenwood comments. His managerial record doesn’t scream instant impact: one win in his first 13 games at Palermo, none in his first nine at Benevento, two points from his first five games at Brighton. Perhaps that’s cherry-picking the bad stats, but the concern is real.
Lewis Dunk’s quotes since De Zerbi’s appointment have been telling. The Italian’s first two weeks at Brighton were described as “baffling,” “carnage,” or a “really hard transition.” For Spurs fans, it’s hard to pinpoint why a part of you still believes three points are possible at Sunderland away on Sunday. But that belief is there, stubborn and irrational.
It’s somewhat reassuring to know this anxiety isn’t unique. On the latest Guardian Football Weekly, Arsenal fan Philippe Auclair previewed the Bournemouth game by saying, “There will be pain, and then more pain, and then people with their hands over their faces.” And that’s for the best team in the country right now.
The early kick-off on Saturday just means more weekend to be annoyed about Evanilson’s scuffed equaliser midway through the second half. Look at West Ham—a perma-panic team. If not panic, it’s just angsty frustration. They are improving, but Wolves at home on Friday could be a disaster. Can any West Ham fan genuinely look forward to that game?
Liverpool fans are panicking about finishing below Everton. Chelsea fans are panicking about whatever project their project actually is. Go down the leagues, and it’s the same story. Anyone on the brink of promotion, the playoffs, or relegation is stressed—in Ipswich, Middlesbrough, Oxford, Leicester, Harrogate, Barrow, Newport, and Tranmere.
So, who’s actually enjoying things right now? Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich fans are probably happy with what they’re being served. Coventry? Lincoln? Roy Hodgson? Is that the trick: be in your late 70s, stick on some shades, and get a couple of wins for Bristol City? It’s a niche Blues Brothers remake.
But here’s the brutal truth of football fandom: you can’t have joy without all this panic, angst, and frustration. We all know the deal. For most of us, there will be the stress and the heartache, and you likely won’t get the joy at the end of it all either. You can only blame—or thank—whoever forced this sport upon you. Delete as appropriate depending on the league tables in May.
