White Hart pain! How Andre Villas-Boas's $180m Spurs dream team is turning into a nightmare

AFTER Tottenham's drubbing to Manchester City, pressure is building on the Spurs coach and his expensively assembled team.

HIGH up in the boardroom suite at the Etihad Stadium, Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy and director of football Franco Baldini were deep in discussion. Nobody quite knew where to look.

The intimate old boardroom at Manchester City was ripped out over the summer in favour of an open-plan affair for around 200 well-heeled guests. Now everybody gets to gawp at the misery of the visitors: officials from Newcastle, Hull, Manchester United, Wigan, Everton, Norwich and Spurs have all experienced the insincere, sympathetic smiles this season.

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Somehow - with their team pasted 6-0 by City - Levy, Baldini and the rest of the Spurs contingent retained their dignity. Inside, they were ready to explode.

This was the season they were meant to keep City, United, Arsenal and the rest within reach. Instead, they are ninth in the Premier League, eight points behind their north London rivals.

To add to the executive frustration, there is discontent among the players that Andre Villas-Boas came out after the embarrassing defeat and claimed the squad should feel 'ashamed'. A code has been broken and the bond between manager and players is at breaking point. Villas-Boas will struggle to recover some players' trust.

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All this after a summer when Levy authorised Pound107 million ($180m) to be spent on recruits to compensate for the loss of Gareth Bale to Real Madrid.

On Joe Lewis's giant yacht in the Bahamas, where Tottenham's principal owner conducts most of his business in between courses of freshly caught conch, he has been checking the compass.

Spurs were supposed to be heading north after Lewis sent a message to Levy and Villas-Boas that he was releasing the funds to challenge for the title. Lewis, who made his vast fortune in currency trading, is not a man to mess with. He demands results.

There was enormous optimism. Paulinho, Nacer Chadli, Roberto Soldado, Etienne Capoue, Vlad Chiriches, Christian Eriksen and record signing Erik Lamela were all on board. After a streaky 1-0 win over Swansea at the Lane on August 25, the boardroom was awash with talk of winning the title for the first time since 1961.

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Former Spurs manager Glenn Hoddle and former Liverpool midfielder Aussie Craig Johnston, who dates Lewis's daughter, were among Levy's guests. But they were perhaps too intoxicated by success to notice a fundamental change in style.

Tottenham's game, based on the glory, glory nights under Bill Nicholson in the Sixties, had been replaced with 1-0 wins and defensive substitutions. It's the way of their Portuguese coach but it's not Tottenham's way.

Then there is the hidden side to Spurs where, as ever, everybody is blaming everyone else. The transfer policy is complicated, with various personalities influencing Levy. Villas-Boas is distancing himself from the signings now that Lamela, Chadli, Soldado and Capoue are failing.

Lamela, a right midfielder at Roma when Baldini was there, was bizarrely picked at City to make his first league start on the left.

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To imagine the infighting began after the mauling by Manuel Pellegrini's team is wrong. It started in the summer.

Villas-Boas had raised eyebrows on the eve of the season when he claimed Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain wanted him. Why would anyone turn down the nine-time European champions or a French team spending money like mad? Instead, Villas-Boas claimed he was committed to putting Spurs on a pedestal playing attractive football.

The ghost of his predecessor Harry Redknapp stalks the corridors. Everybody loved being around his Tottenham team. Now the ebullient Redknapp has been replaced by a clipboard manager who, at times, is beyond intense.

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Last season there was the mother of all rows when keeper Brad Friedel stormed into Villas-Boas's office following the arrival of Hugo Lloris from Lyon. Friedel accused the manager of lying to him over his role in the team. To Villas-Boas's credit, he apologised and their relationship is solid.

Others, including Emmanuel Adebayor and Benoit Assou-Ekotto, have crossed Villas-Boas too. This has caused discord in a dressing room that once believed they were on the verge of something special.

Against Manchester United on Sunday, they will be fighting to save a season once marked out for great things.