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A familiar face returned to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday and it proved to be a painful reminder for the majority of the 60,000 people inside the ground
Dele Alli's return on Sunday to the club where he made his name stirred a wide range of emotions among the Tottenham supporters present.
The 29-year-old shot into the stratosphere as one of the brightest young talents in world football, his goals and assists more frequent than many of the Premier League's best who came before and have come since. The former England international, who is currently without a club, still hopes to return to those heights after struggling to recapture his form in his moves since leaving Spurs in 2022.
Dele racked up 126 goal involvements in 269 matches for Tottenham after arriving as a teenager from MK Dons and his return to N17 on Sunday at half-time during the north London derby was one of the most emotional moments this difficult season at the club has brought so far.
Many of the 61,439 fans inside the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium had remained in their seats waiting for the midfielder to walk out of the tunnel to see them again and they greeted him with the chant that still often rings out today, informing everyone that they just don't understand that he "only cost five mill" and he is in fact "better than Ozil".
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The bespectacled Dele stood in the centre circle and looked emotional as the chant boomed out around him. He then lifted the microphone to his lips and said: "It's been a while and I hope you guys have missed me as much as I've missed you.
"I think a lot has happened in both of our journeys since I left but we're back together now and I think that you guys will be my family for the rest of my life."
For Tottenham fans the occasion whipped up a blend of different emotions. It brought back the memories of what Dele was capable of, the eye-catching goals against Crystal Palace, Arsenal, Chelsea and many more and also a sadness that he could not maintain his remarkable ascent and do so at Spurs for longer.
Dele's return and the montage of his wonderful moments on the four big screens around the stadium also served to remind the fanbase just how far their club has fallen.
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The days of Dele combining effortlessly with Harry Kane, Son Heung-min and Christian Eriksen in the DESK attack feel like a lifetime ago. A time when Mousa Dembele would boss the midfield and not let any opposition player take the ball from him. They tried but they just bounced off.
It was a period when Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen marshalled the back line with Kyle Walker and Danny Rose bombing down the flanks while a World Cup-winning goalkeeper in Hugo Lloris often pulled off spectacular saves when anything did manage to get through.
Under Mauricio Pochettino that team packed full of talent grew together with each passing season. It finished in the top three in three consecutive seasons, with two title challenges, before a final full campaign together when Spurs ended up fourth in the table and in their first ever Champions League final.
Just six-and-a-half years later and Tottenham are a complete and utter mess. Some of it leads back to the poor decisions made in those days in failing to bolster and rejuvenate the Argentine's side to prevent it and him getting stale, particularly those two transfer-less windows in that final full season.
Some of it falls upon the poor decisions made since with no clear plan or identity when it came to appointing a string of wildly different managers and styles while also spending money on potential rather than the present and then wondering why the present was not particularly good.
Spurs have gone from regular challengers at the top of the table and one of Europe's most exciting teams to spending back-to-back seasons trudging away down the bottom of the Premier League and now facing the very clear and present danger of relegation.
The swashbuckling style of that young, thrilling Pochettino team is nowhere to be seen in today's Tottenham. The past seven months of the Thomas Frank tenure, not helped by yet another crippling injury list, have resulted in a scarred and scared team that has no sense of how to attack as a unit, relying on set pieces and hopeful punts forward to score goals.
It's no coincidence that set piece coach Andreas Georgson was kept on after Frank's sacking because the Swede has been one of the few positives of a miserable Premier League campaign.
Now the task falls upon Igor Tudor to mould something out of the mess that lies before him. His expression on Sunday after the second-half hammering from Arsenal was one of realisation at what he has taken on.
One of Europe's best football firefighters of recent years has found a blaze that even he is shocked by and it is going to take an enormous effort to contain and eventually put out.
The Tottenham fans deserve better than what they have been served up. They were magnificent for much of Sunday's derby before realising in the final minutes that the chasm between the two north London clubs is just too huge right now and they began to depart for home and anything else to watch.
Many probably walked away turning their minds instead to the days of Dele and that special Spurs team. How that side did not win silverware and was not built upon to become a legacy rather than a distant memory is one of football's biggest missteps. They had Alli, Dele Alli and I just don't think they understood.
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