Remember that bit in The Simpsons where a group of Springfield kids are focus-grouped about what they want from The Itchy & Scratchy Show? The consensus they reach is that they want a realistic, down-to-earth show that’s completely off the wall and swarming with magic robots.
A great bit of skewering from a golden era episode. Those really were the days. And we found ourselves thinking of that scene when surveying the reaction from online Tottenham fans to the imminent signing of Conor Gallagher.
Now, sure, we could make the point here that online discourse only ever deals in absolutes anyway. That the fact all internet-based Spurs fans appear to be either over the moon or absolutely furious is, in fact, exactly the same issue with online fandom as the point The Simpsons was making about focus groups.
And yes, we can obviously see why Spurs fans and Milhouse would both quite like to win things by watching.
But the absoluteness of the apparent dichotomy in fan response to what we had, in our sweet-summer-child way, thought was basically a pretty good and astute bit of necessary business from a club not renowned for such things has nevertheless caught us off guard.
All season we’ve had this nagging sense that, post-Bilbao, Spurs are a club just aimlessly drifting on and off the pitch. That neither the club nor the fans really know what they actually want in any concrete sense anymore now it isn’t just ‘please for the love of f*ck win a trophy’. More pointedly neither the club nor the fans appear at all clear on who is even actually now in charge of deciding what they want.
The squad is a jumbled mess of a thing, the manager is doomed and flailing wildly, and the off-field structure is a shambles. Only at Spurs could losing one of your sporting directors three months after hiring him back actually look like it might be handy because it at least streamlines things a little bit.
Spurs themselves have spent this season seeking a realistic, down-to-earth show that’s completely off the wall and swarming with magic robots. It’s no wonder the fans have also been baffled into the shadow realm.
But still. The idea that Conor Gallagher represents panacea or anathema just seems a bit mad. And if we had to lean one way or the other, we’d definitely be firmly on the side of ‘good business’ rather than bad. He definitely isn’t Poochie.
The problem, really, is that things at Spurs are such a giant mess everywhere you look that every individual move they do make comes with an impossible brief. Nothing can solve everything, and for many that has morphed into nothing can solve anything.
It’s a form of whataboutery. Yes, Spurs do still have other urgent areas of weakness in their squad to address. But it’s impossible to pretend the giant gaping hole where the midfield is supposed to be hasn’t also become a pressing one as the season’s gone on.
We know from painful and repeated experience that Rodrigo Bentancur and Joao Palhinha must never again be paired together, and that point is now moot in any case with Bentancur set for another lengthy spell on the sidelines.
Archie Gray is rich with promise but not yet remotely ready for regular first-team starter responsibilities and it is a bit unfair that this is, for the second season running, something that has been forced upon him. At least it’s been in his actual position, but still.
Lucas Bergvall has not kicked on this season. He isn’t being helped by either his own injury issues or what looks like a pretty grave mis-profiling by the manager, who imagines Bergvall a functional 10 rather than seeing his true calling of deep-lying playmaker. Again, though, he is in any case painfully young and deeply callow for the responsibility with which he has been lumbered.
Yves Bissouma is persona non grata, and Pape Sarr is still at AFCON for now.
To pretend this constitutes a midfield in no need of attention this month is plain nutty. To insist it’s one that won’t benefit enormously from the acquisition of a homegrown, Premier League-hardened, 25-year-old England international that allows them to pretty much wipe their feet with the cash from Brennan Johnson’s departure just seems stubbornly ungrateful.
You can criticise this deal, we suppose, on the basis that it shouldn’t actually be this easy to sign a player who improves not just the squad but the first XI itself in The Difficult January Window. But that’s the reality of how far and how fast Spurs have tumbled.
So no, it won’t solve everything. But nor would the splashier and flashier and much more expensive transfer ideals some fans still have in their heads. Yes, it would be lovely for Spurs if they signed Adam Wharton, we get it. But it’s also not on the cards right now. This is.
Yes, certainly Bergvall and arguably Gray have higher ceilings than Gallagher. But nobody in the Spurs midfield equation with the possible exception of the unfairly maligned (on his own, at least) Palhinha is better right now or in any plausible immediate future.
And if Gallinha can be compared in worried tones to the legitimately unbearable Bentinha axis of drudgery, then it seems only fair to note if 25-year-old Gallagher is in any way comparable to Bentancur then it’s far more to the really very good 24-year-old, 2022 iteration than the time-and-injury-ravaged shadow of that player he has become.
Spurs fans’ innate and justified suspicion of all things Chelsea, given the recent history of those involved with both clubs, is another factor here. And we do wonder how different the response to gazumping Aston Villa to sign a midfield engine from Diego Simeone’s arch sh*thouse Atletico Madrid would be were that connection not there.
But we’re not talking about a Chelsea reject here, either. Ask their fans how they feel and felt about his enforced balance-sheet departure in 2024. Chelsea supporters are, we suspect, far more united in their views on him joining Tottenham.
If Gallagher and a teenage left-back from Brazil are all they bring in during this month they will still have fallen short on what they needed to do. But as permanent January signings go, it appears low-risk to the point of no-brainer.
No one thing can solve everything at Spurs but let’s not pretend this doesn’t solve something. Spurs have rotted and decayed for so long now that this is how it is. This cannot be repaired and resolved within one or two windows. They can only set about the gradual and sometimes painful process of, step by step, repairing the damage.
Those turning their nose up at Gallagher are in danger of being very choosy beggars here.
He may not be a magic robot, but we cannot look at Tottenham’s injury list or the way Aston Villa spent the first half of Saturday evening’s FA Cup clash passing around and through what passed for Spurs’ midfield like they were training-ground dummies, and then reach any conclusion other than this being a very solid bit of business.
