Apart from the odd groan, George Graham's second anniversary as Tottenham manager passed quietly this month, though from the moment he nosed his car through the White Hart Lane gates, he knew to expect more brickbats than bouquets.

Any billets-doux would, in any case, most likely have borne an N5 postmark, where he is still remembered fondly by Arsenal fans and where the Gunners' soaring success continues to underscore the distance, at least in footballing miles, between the two north London clubs.

Graham understands that a certain section of the Tottenham crowd, who again chanted for his dismissal last weekend, will never accept him because of his Arsenal past. But though he boasts broad shoulders beneath the trademark designer trench coat, he betrays frustration that fans cannot appreciate that a manager's work is, like an iceberg's mass, four-fifths below the surface.

He says: "When I arrived here, the place was in a mess, just like Leeds was. And a manager's first task is to do what I call the dirty work, making unpopular decisions and getting rid of people. Things had drifted so far here that 50 per cent of the players needed to go. It's impossible to get 50 per cent of players in and 50 per cent out in two years, but I've got rid of most of them.

"Also, players were swaggering off the training pitch because they had avoided relegation. Swaggering! I couldn't believe it. I told them straight off that there'd be no more swaggering and now we've got a proper direction at the training ground, as I hope we have at the club."

Although he admits that he had hoped, by this time, to have travelled a little farther down the road to Damascus, or any Champions League destination, he believes Tottenham fans who cannot see the progress lack a grasp of reality.

The faded prints of the 1960-61 Double heroes which adorn the walls of Spurs Lodge, the Tottenham training complex, including one outside Graham's office, suggest that the club, like the fans, lives in sepiatoned nostalgia. But the terrace chant that most angers Graham is not the one calling for his departure but the one about fans wanting their old Tottenham back.

"I don't know what that means", he says. "Tottenham are no longer one of the top five clubs yet they are supposed to have been playing this wonderful football over the years. And where did it lead to? A cup here and there? If the club is as big as everyone likes to believe, they should have been challenging for the championship. The funny thing is that while I am a villain, Bobby Robson is a messiah at Newcastle - and he has only two points more than us."

Graham talks of the dirty work Alex Ferguson had to perform at Old Trafford, destroying the influence of the Manchester mafia and assorted hangers-on before he was able to start building a successful team. And he dismisses as an urban myth the story that Ferguson came within finger slicing distance of the axe, insisting that the board knew what he was doing and were always going to stick by him.

The White Hart Lane detractors claim that, far from giving them their Tottenham back, Graham is trying to fob them off with a second-hand version of the old Arsenal, playing boring, long ball football. And while Arsenal have been among the biggest spenders in the Premiership of late, Graham and chairman Alan Sugar are seen as men vying for the affections of chancellor Gordon Brown's much vaunted love, prudence.

Graham answers that by pointing to the £11 million spent on Sergei Rebrov. And he says that only the most desperate clubs would spend huge sums of money before the EU proposal to scrap transfer fees is resolved.

He claims that success can no longer be gained quickly because players are much harder to acquire. He can no longer steal players from the lower leagues, as he did at Arsenal when scouting lacked today's computer-aided sophistication, any more than Arsene Wenger can smuggle in any more unknown young French stars.

He says: "We have got some terrific quality of players here but I need six more. To bring those in, I either have to gamble on players no one else spots at low prices, spend £60 million or £70 million for ready made ones, which I haven't got, or bring on some kids. The last one is the route I prefer, domestic players who have a certain affection for the club and I already have a couple of promising ones in Alton Thelwell and Ledley King."

What is threatening to give supporters a collective thrombosis is that their most famous home grown product, Sol Campbell, already has his head halfway over the garden wall and the fear that he will drop over the other side when his contract expires at the end of the season.

If he does, Graham will be blamed for not selling him for £20 million in the summer. But he says: "There is a great myth about that. If selling him had been on the cards, it would have made sense and I think it would have been done. But Sol decided last season that he was going to see his contract out, no matter who came in for him and he won't discuss it with me or the club. He won't even listen to an offer from us until his contract has expired."

Graham believes Sugar will honour his own contract, regardless of the flak he receives. He says: "We are like Newcastle and Everton, big clubs who have lost their way. But the great thing about football is that you must never lose the dream that if you get things right and build properly, you can recover and go on to great things again. Leeds were on their knees five years ago but look at them now."

Spurs fans may not appreciate the irony. But having been condemned as hopeless romantics by outsiders, Graham now accuses them of not believing more strongly in their dreams.