Why Tottenham's 'Spursy' and 'bottle-job' tags make no sense

Just what do pundits and fans mean when they talk about sides bottling things?

At what point does a bottler bottle? Tottenham Hotspur have earned that tag in recent years - often referred to as 'Spursy' - and it's difficult to know exactly why in the wider context.

For a bottler surely must have something to bottle? At the weekend, that expression came back into the mainstream consciousness, with Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville labelling Chelsea as 'blue billion-pound bottle jobs'.

That came in the midst of Mauricio Pochettino's expensively-assembled Blues falling to a Carabao Cup final defeat in extra-time against a Liverpool side full of academy youngsters such as Jarell Quansah, Jayden Danns, Bobby Clark and James McConnell.

Was Gary Neville right in his ‘billion-pound bottle jobs’ claim?

Chelsea, in contrast, had more than £500m worth of recent signings on the pitch and failed to find a way past Jurgen Klopp's side.

The 1-0 defeat ensured that Pochettino's men set a new record as the first team in English football history to lose six domestic cup finals in a row. This latest disappointment at Wembley came after the FA Cup and Carabao Cup defeats in 2022, as well as the 2021 and 2020 FA Cup losses and 2019 Carabao Cup reverse.

Yet, in that same period, Chelsea lifted the Champions League, Europa League, UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup. So are they bottlers or is something just missing in domestic finals?