Tottenham August review: the Dele challenge, a drunk captain, and nine points

Stadium woes

Tottenham were due to begin life in their new stadium against Liverpool on September 15th; but the game, as well as a tie against Cardiff City on October 6th, will now take place at make-shift home Wembley instead. The main reason for the delay was due to ‘critical safety system issues.’

Tottenham will also kick off their Champions League campaign at Wembley and it is still unclear where they will play Manchester City on October 28th as the national stadium will host an NFL fixture that weekend.

It is no surprise that such a colossal project has had a few hiccups but Spurs fans are disgruntled for a number of reasons.

Supporters hate being left in the dark, especially when their money is on the line, and feel there was a lack of transparency regarding the issue. The Tottenham faithful were also already irked by the exorbitant price of season tickets and Levy was hardly in their best books after failing to bring in any new players during the summer.

Rival support, as always, haven’t missed an opportunity to put the boot in with a petition to dock Spurs points receiving almost 20,000 signatures.

The Dele challenge

It all started with a seemingly banal celebration versus Newcastle. After putting Spurs ahead with a trademark finish Dele Alli contorted his fingers and peaked through a hole.

During the following week Dele shared a video of team-mate N’koudou struggling to make the gesture and the internet has been abuzz ever since. In a way it typifies Dele’s style of play: nonchalantly making an act look so straightforward that the rest of us, including N’koudou, couldn’t execute with such grace to save our lives.

Then, just as mere mortals were getting the hang of it, came the Dele Challenge 2.0. The Spurs attacker made two peak holes with his fingers in the kind of sorcery that Lord Voldemort would be proud of.