The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur News and Links for Tuesday, April 3

Hello, everybody!

Let’s take a deep dive into an overlooked part of Sunday’s victory over Chelsea.

Ramble of the Day

I stumbled upon this image yesterday, and thought it was worthy of sharing.

My first thought when I saw this picture was that it looked like a cover for a bad romance novel. (Ben Davies looks very upset, after all.) I quickly took this to the Cartilage Free Captain virtual writers’ room, where a few of us brainstormed titles for this theoretical novel. I came up with absolutely none of them (partly because I am not great at coming up with titles). Here they are, in all their glory:

• A Left Back Scorned
• The Remains of the Davies
• 50 Shades of Lilywhite
• Never Ben Kissed

As for plot points, it is obvious that Davies is betrayed, by at least one of Hugo Lloris or Jan Vertonghen, or perhaps both. As I type this, I am deciding that it would be best if Lloris betrayed Davies, but because of some sinister or smart move by Vertonghen. Why? Vertonghen is facing Davies in the picture, and in theory, he could flash a smile at Davies to gloat.

What exactly are they feuding over, though? The affections of the Frenchman is an obvious answer, considering I already said there are some romantic elements to the photograph. In that case, Davies certainly had them first, but Vertonghen is the current choice of Lloris. Which one will he choose at the end? Who knows?!

This could just be a classic Battle of the Left Backs, where Lloris is picking his favorite left back at the club. The choice of Vertonghen is definitely a surprising one, since the Belgian has not regularly played there for years at the club. This would imply that Lloris may have told Davies at some point he was his preferred left back, but then changed his mind. That, of course, begs the question: Where is Danny Rose in all of this? Did Lloris betray him yet, or is he waiting to do so? Will he betray Vertonghen before choosing Rose? Maybe the three left backs are fighting amongst themselves and Lloris is a somewhat innocent participant as the club captain.

I will leave the good guy and bad guy labels ambiguous. It’s more fun for me to see how you all interpret this. Also, I have yet to truly flesh these ideas out, so I do not know who to root for and who to root against.

tl;dr: Doesn’t that picture of Hugo Lloris, Jan Vertonghen, and Ben Davies look like a cover for a bad romance novel?

Links of the Day

West Brom have fired Alan Pardew after just four months in the job.

Kevin de Bruyne believes he deserves to be this season’s PFA Player of the Year, but also thinks Mohamed Salah would be a worthy winner.

Non-league sides Alvechurch FC and Bedworth United had to cancel their match after ducks showed up on the waterlogged pitch.

Today’s longer read: Juan Arredondo’s photo essay on Colombian rebels who put down their weapons and started playing football for ESPN