Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I trust you’ve fastened your seatbelts and your tray-tables are in their upright and locked position. If you need me, I’ll be the one hammering on the door of the cock-pit demanding to speak to the pilot. Come on, open up, you peasant! I know you’ve got a parachute in there somewhere..

A bit late to get off now, perhaps. Marshmallow clouds whiz past the window and the landing strip is in plain view. The only question that remains, after a season of navigating ourselves through an assortment of clear skies and prolonged zones of turbulence, just where exactly are Tottenham going to put this bird down. And what state is she going to be in once grounded.

I have a recurring nightmare that Captain Redknapp’s last act will be a spectacular fiery belly-flop into a dust field two miles short of the airport; the wreckage of which will be picked apart and sold by rag-and-bone men.

But, you know, other than that I’m fairly upbeat.

Fulham at home, then. The last hurrah. I’m sure you’re all aware of the possible incarnations the final table can assume. We’re looking at anywhere between 5^th and 3^rd. And everything (that’s to say, 4^th) in between. All to play for, as our venerable leader reasoned earlier.

Word from the front desk is that professional Rhyme-noceros, Clint Dempsey, is out of action for the trip. Too busy dropping thunder in the studio, no doubt. This, it’s fair to say, is good news for Spurs. Twenty-three goals in all competitions for Dempsey this season and I’m happy for it to stop there. We’ll have enough to keep us occupied with Dembélé and Progrebnyak in residence, of that I’m certain.

Aside from keeping Saturday night’s dinner down- as apose to having it line the inside of their shorts like frothy Bisto- Tottenham’s only real dilemma is at left-back; where an injured Disco Benny and a suspended Danny Rose leave us in a rather tight spot. Gareth Bale springs to mind, but whether he can be relied upon to not go wandering up front/right-wing/ or, indeed, in goal, when the urge arises, it’s difficult to say. Personally I’d take a punt on Gallas and be done with it.

Right, here we go, folks Your thoughts, as ever, are welcomed. Let’s have a happy and prosperous end to the season. Like we know we should. COYS!

I’ll be on Twitter. Praying.

Morning, campers. Before certain corners of the internet are caught in seismic blasts of despair/joy/uncertainty- and before our collective brains deep-fry themselves in the unending catalogue of complicated algorithms and permutations that could unfold this Sunday- I thought I’d look back on the week’s most eye-catching snippets of news and ask the simple question: wasitallabaat?

In plain-speak, then, I’m going to recycle some old quotes like the council recycles my cardboard and you’re going to sit there and bloody well like it.

Ahem.

First up, Disco Benny has pished on a few tabloid bonfires this week, after several of the redtops had picked up the on the remarkable story of him not rating the Europa League and, even more remarkably, not being clairvoyant enough to predict his own future. The dumbo. Here’s the afro’d avenger in his own words:

“I am fully committed to Tottenham Hotspur and proud to represent the club in any match, whatever the competition.

 I am very much enjoying my time here. It is a wonderful club with great support and I am looking forward to recovering from my injury in time for next season.”

Now that’s obviously what he meant the first time around.

Meanwhile Jan Vertonghen looks to be awfully close to joining our illustrious ranks. According to Goal.com, the deal is as good as eggs. Having watched at least twenty minutes of the Belgian in action this season- thus qualifying me as ‘expert’-  and by proxy of Kompany and Vermaelen both being a bit tasty, I can safely say this is a fine idea. Around ten million Euros is the price being ballyhooed around. Here’s the man himself, brazenly whoring himself, like the salacious harlot he is:

“Tottenham is a fantastic traditional club who play football in a way I like.

Ajax was the perfect club for me, but Spurs will be very close in nearing that already. They buy young, eager and offensive-minded players.”

Pure filth.

Right that’s me out of steam. And much earlier than usual.

More later.

Here we are on Twitter.

Well this is getting interesting. Just when the season looked to be shuffling off its mortal coil, to quote the Bard, Tottenham have ploughed the infertile landscape and miraculously found new life. Thrill-seekers or, indeed, masochist will no doubt be enjoying themselves in the current winds. Me, I’m still on the hunt for a quiet life but know in all honesty I chose the wrong club for that. And you can’t say the pure drama of it all hasn’t captured the imagination. Can you? No, you can’t. So there. Two games remain; a single point between 3^rd and 5^th. It’s going down to the wire.

So, one or two arbitrary thoughts on Wednesday’s game, with no particular mind for order or importance. Modric’s opener. My what a thing of loveliness that was. It’s been noted on several occasions- in this very parish, for one- that the Croatian appears incapable of scoring an ugly goal. In fact the thought alone looks to make him quite nauseous. The by-product of this net-bothering snobbery, of course, is his rather meagre return in the goal-scoring charts. I guess we’re supposed to stop belly-aching and just admire the vision. When will I score? This is unimportant. What matters is that when I do, the gods themselves will weep in the wake of its beauty. I am Luka.

As high on the splendid scale that Modric’s effort was, the same won’t be said of Owen Columba Coyle’s touchline attire. I can’t put my finger and what’s so- shall we say- unsettling about the Paisley Panther’s sporty get-up. Ostensibly there’s nothing wrong with a manager dressing like he’s ready to peel back the (considerable) years at the drop of a hat- and I’m sure there’s a certain freedom of movement that comes with prowling the technical area with bare thighs- but I do wish he’d put some bloody trousers on. Maybe I’m scared I’m going set eyes on a shrivelled testicle.

Apologies if you’re just about to have your tea. Maybe watch the highlights to take your mind off things. Doesn’t everybody look happy? Yeah.

In other news, of a less puckered variety. Kyle Walker has been busy with the fizzy this week; scrawling his name all over a brand spanking new contract. Using joined-up handwriting or not, it’s yet to be confirmed, but the important details are that he’s committed himself until 2017 and presumably his bank account is about to get a whole lot more awesomer. Just rewards for a fine season (on the whole) which has seen him play a lung-busting 47 out 51 games for Spurs and pick up the YPOTY gong along the way. Top stuff, Master Kyle.

Now a goal and a clean-sheet against your erstwhile team-mates and we’ll call it quits?

Super.

Twitbook

I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t the popular choice,

I know I am, it’s been everywhere, in every paper every day…”

Harry Redknapp, there, on the burdens of being popular.

A very good morning to you. First up, if I can be so bold, talk of the weekend’s football. It’s been a long while since I watched a Spurs game where the pleasure of viewing wasn’t underpinned by a dreadful sense of unease. That, given the chance and one or two spicy crosses hurled into our six-yard box, we’d collapse like a diving board made of wet Hobknobs.

Thank goodness, then, for Blackburn Rovers. Their monstrous under-ambition meant my doom-o-meter tipped rarely close to ooh-I-don’t-like-the-looks-of-this-much and certainly nowhere near the we’re-going-to-balls-it-all-up-I-just-know-it levels I had bargained for. And for that I was quietly grateful.

Kean’s stiffs just had nothing to offer. The zero-heavy stats were useful in quantifying their terribleness, but the actual viewing would confirm that they indeed were the worst thing to come to The Lane since Chripy contracted bird-flu. Frankly they deserve what’s coming to them. Cowardly stuff.

Still, let’s not try and devalue our efforts too much. There’s not been too much to cheer about in recent weeks. Blackburn may’ve been the footballing equivalent of orange-topped milk but we certainly did everything that was required of us- which is all you can ask in such circumstances.

Rather going beyond the call of duty on Sunday, was recently decorated full-back, Kyle Walker. After sheepishly enquiring whether he might possibly have a crack at this one, Rafa, if it’s not too much bother, he went about slamming it in the top corner with the power of Zeus. Like BAE’s against Everton, there was the slightest hint of a deflection, but nothing as to be consequential to the ball’s trajectory and final resting place. That baby was destined for greatness. Football sex. All over Paul Robinson’s face.

Elsewhere, Sandro was all kinds of fabulous. He can run, he can tackle, he can shoot. In the words of Withnail, imagine getting into a fight with the f*cker. The boy’s the future and it’s probably in your best interests to get onboard.

I’ll leave you as I joined you, then, with our clandestine supremo:

“I am very fortunate, there’s lots of people who would give anything to have the job I have got here.

“I am just so lucky to be working here, working with fantastic players every day. For any manager, or for anyone who loves football, to be doing what I am doing at this particular club is great so I don’t feel like that.

“I suppose it has dragged on. It is no problem, I will just get on with my job here and hopefully we have got a good end to the season to come.

“We’ve had a great season so far and we have got three games to get that Champions League spot now and that is all my focus has ever been on, nothing has ever changed that”

Quite.

Three games to go.

I can also be found on this newfangled Twitter contraption.

Good morning. Well, not exactly good as such, but at least you’ve made it past ten o ‘clock without bursting into tears. That’s something, right?

Huh, big guy?

Heavens above. I think SSG called it right: Chelsea are going to bloody win this thing, aren’t they? Are they? The inevitability seems almost organic; a spirit-crushing finale to a practical joke that has been shaping up for some months. The courting of Modric was the set-up, the semi-final shellacking the delivery. Now, the most convoluted method of denying us Champions League football will be the ultimate, gut-wrenching pay-off. Oh the comedy. The laughs.

Is Gary Neville in on it, too? I wonder. The excitable squeal which imparted from his gob on Tuesday evening, when Fernando skipped merrily beyond Victor Valdes, might as well have been the sound of the brakes of our season screeching to a halt. Or perhaps that’s the noise of our hopes plummeting down a rather deep well. Sqweeeeeeeeeelosh! I can’t quite decide.

Still the important thing is, Arry will be pleased that the Russians have made the final. Those brave, brave lions.

Of course, in truth, we’ve only got ourselves to blame for the muck in which we’re now entrenched. In an extensive line of second-rate results, the defeat to QPR at the weekend was, for a reluctance to over-elaborate, merely more pish to go with the other pish that went before. Adel Taraabt scored; an event surpassed only in the ‘well of course that was bound to happen’ stakes by our own proclivity to do the square route of eff-all once he’d kindly left the field. QPR down to ten-men? That’s unpossible.

It’s been said many times but our chaps looked ruddy exhausted. Physically barren. It’s no shock that we’re failing to dominate games when we can scarcely muster the energy to take a throw-in. Who’s fault is all this? Our esteemed leader probably, or whoever’s idea it was to allow so many international stars to go on loan when, on closer inspection, the squad is uneven at best; downright threadbare at worst.

Kyle Walker has been super, for the most part, and I was delighted to see him get his paws on the Youngling’s Gong; but he’s twenty-one and playing his first full-season of top-tier kickball. Corluka might run like a goat with rickets but at least he could’ve given the young man a breather once in a while. This appears to be just one of numerous accounts of cataclysmic short-sightedness. The actions, perhaps, of someone not in for the long game.

Whatever the case, we’ve got metaphorical bills to pay. And only four games in which to provide the skills to pay them. Time to sort this mess out, once and for all. Before it really is too late.

Twitter and junk.

If ever there was a time to put into practice ‘Arry’s supposed finest attribute as a manager- that of being a devilishly good motivator of men- then perhaps this weekend is that time. Spurs are in a rut. And with very few weeks left of the season remaining, the burden is now not to discover exactly what has gone wrong with a campaign that had promised so much, but to pull the chaps out of this power-sapping funk and back into the rather useful habit of winning football matches.

Of course questions need to be addressed- most notably, how on earth we managed to exhaust a ten point lead and turn it into a five point deficit and why some of our best players appear to have been physically bankrupt through overuse- but this will have to wait for the warmer months. When, you get the sense, the winds of change will be a blowin’ riotously through the gates of White Hart Lane.

I am not going to cry.

Before that particular circus comes to town, however, there’s business afoot; Loftus Road, 5.30pm sharp. Be there or be… well, see if you can catch it on television or something?

QPR, a team who’ve irked out some memorable results in the last few weeks, appear to have been enlivened by those doomsayers who’d taken one look at their final run-in and insisted that it’d been an enjoyable ride while it had lasted and they’d certainly be sad to see them go. Now, home wins against Liverpool, Arsenal and Swansea and Mark Hughes has miraculously given Rangers a fighting chance. There are so-called experts who might suggest that the odds of survival would increase further, if they could keep eleven men on the field at all times. But I fail to see the fun in that.

For Tottenham it’s now very much everything or nothing. With Chelsea, Arsenal and Newcastle’s results all on the board before we’ve taken a whiff of the Spring evening air in West London, there’s every likelihood we could be trying to claw our way back from 6^th. Which, when you say it out loud, is a rather miserable state of affairs.

So what’s the plan, then? I’m of the view that the idea of caution has become somewhat redundant. Home or away, with five games left, we ought to be trying to steam-roller this lot from the get-go, and all those that follow. You know, like the good old days. Off with the shackles, hope to god we’re not leaking like an old watering can at the back and release the bloody hounds, says this hopeful blogsworth. He’d also probably take a scrappy 0-1er but we shouldn’t get too bogged down with semantics. Five games, five wins. COYS!

Doing the Twitter-box like it’s going out of fashion. Which, by the time I get the hang of it, it almost certainly will be.

How could things get any worse, I hear you ask? Well I’ve dreamt of a bleak dystopian future whereby Spurs take fourth spot, only for Chelsea to win the Champions League and deliver us to another season of Euro-Conkers. John Terry is crowned unanswerable King of Football while Modric is sold for spare change in which to power the floodlights for aforementioned dismal nights of second-rate European football. Solomon Kalou is Spurs’ new number ‘9’ and Ashley Cole is dating your grandmother.

Yes, as bad as things feel right now, when Chelsea are involved, there’s always the likelihood of it getting a whole lot worse. A classic Blues versus Reds cup final on the horizon and I’m genuinely concerned for the prospects of the species. Suarez, Terry, Cole, Gerrard, Carroll, Adam, Drogba. You couldn’t cram that many nefarious characters onto an oblong of open space if you were a prison warden during recreation time. Never mind a tea-time kick-off, this is post-watershed.

If it’s good vibes you’re after then I apologise for being in short supply. Monday’s PFA nominations were interesting enough, I suppose. Modern-day hero Scott Parker made it onto the POTY sort-list while Kyle Walker and one Gareth Bale shimmied themselves into the Younglings category where the competition consist of Kun Aguero and an Arsenal winger who’s played 44 minutes in his last 10 games. Somebody check those facts, because I have absolutely no inclination to do so. Without my Hotspur hat on Vincent Kompany and Robin Van Handbags should be duelling it out for the main gong and, ooh I don’t know, Lee Sharpe should win the other one.

Harry Redknapp’s also on another short-list, that of Best Manager in Premier League History, as part of the twentieth anniversary celebrations of the birth of football. I’m a big fan of Harold, and all that he’s done for Spurs, but even I think that’s a barrel of premium-grade nonsense. As much as I deplore of Kenny Dalglish these days, he’s at least won a title and come close on another occasion. In the kindest possible way, Redknapp hasn’t.

Mr. Happy is in all week. Please tip your waitress. I’m also on Twitter.

Good morning, thrill-seekers and high-rollers. I hope yesterday’s National made grotesquely rich swines of the lot of you.

Not a vintage seven days in the history of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, then. And that’s breaking it to you gently. A miserable stalemate at the Stadium of Light (far too much light for my bloody liking- it should’ve been played at the dead of night with the power cut at half-time) was followed promptly by defeat to Norfolk’s finest exponents of the world’s hottest yellow paste, in the words of Partridge.

Norwich, to their credit, had a simple enough game plan and as quick as the blood was sniffed out in our defensive backwaters, the gig was up. Ryan Nelsen, for all his burliness and thick-set features, does not an antidote for Grant Holt make. In fact I’m even not sure what he’s for.

Thank goodness for part-time rhyme-soldier, Clint Dempsey. More than just keep my Fantasy Football team afloat like a polystyrene raft, he spared us the ignominy of going into this evening’s tie with Bobby Di Matteo’s lot in the dust of their wake. League-wise, for now at least, it’s all still in our hands.

And so to the main event. We’re only in the bloody F.A Cup semi-final! If you’d so much as believe it.

While the best domestic cup up for grabs wasn’t flashing urgently on radar at the season’s start, the promise of watching the chaps in the sprawling cauldron of modernity that is Wembley stadium, has rather captured the attention. We’re but a two games away from bona-fide, tangible glory. Liverpool await in the final. Time to find some heroes.

Team news is a mixed bag of potatoes. Amongst all the healthy, eye-catching Maris Pipers there’s one giant rotten spud. That being the injury to Younes Kaboul. This, you imagine, is the type of game the Bull would’ve taken by the nether regions and body slammed into the bedrock. Now it’s over to two of Nelsen, Gallas and, fitness-permitting, King. Ropey.

My view is that we’ll just sneak it. With all the attacking know-how on both sides it’s likely to be a drab, low-scoring affair. In the current winds I’d settle for a Woodgate-esque face deflection in the dying minutes, if only for the prospect of seeing John Terry cry. Not very Tottenham, I know, but this is football and I’ve got bills to pay. The good lady reckons Scotty’s due a goal and I’m not going to argue. One-nil to the Spurs. COYS!

I sometimes do a Twitter.

Good Friday to you. And if you can’t manage good then how about no worse than usual? These are austere times we live in, after all.

A hectic Easter weekend of football ahead, then. First up this very Saturday lunchtime it’s Martin O’Neill’s rejuvenated Athletic Club Mackems. I’ve been harbouring somewhat of a soft spot for the former Villa man in recent times, since he was flown in to sort through the wreckage on Wearside. If nothing else, by hauling them out of the turd-festooned mire they were wading in- and even having the temerity to give the locals something to cheer about- he’s debunked the myth that Steve Bruce was in any way a capable football manager.

Sure enough, if buying ex-United players is a bankable attribute – or, for that matter, being a purveyor of turgid, meat and gravy-brand anti-football- then Master Bruce is up there with the best of ‘em. Here’s the Geordie Chancer, in typically humble mood this week:

“Martin O’Neill is currently getting the pats on the back for what he has achieved. He’s a good manager and he has undoubtedly motivated the players,”

 ”But what is now being seen is the players I brought in bedding down and proving how good they are.

“James McClean and Stephane Sessegnon are the headline stealers but we signed them, of course.”

Classy, classy stuff.

He’s right in certain respects, of course. Stéphane Sessègnon is rather a menace for the Black Cats these days and, indeed, embezzles a headline or three. In truth he’s just one prong of a triple-threat which counts the very direct James McClean (zero appearances under Bruce) and the dependable right bat of Sebastian Larsson among its number. Nicklas Bendtner is enjoying a purple patch recently, too, by his standards, and may just feel he has something to prove on Saturday. Not least of all for the woeful offerings he dished up in the reverse fixture in December. I was almost hit square in the chops by the hilarious spliced volley he attempted in the second half.

Keeping the Black Cats under house arrest could be quite the task, then. In the last eight games at the Stadium of Light they’ve won six and beaten Man City, Swansea and Liverpool along the way. Yes they’ve beaten Swansea and Man City along the way.

For the mighty Tottenham it’s a case of steady as she goes, captain. A repeat performance of the type we saw against Swansea wouldn’t put us too far wrong. The full return of Lennon will certainly spice things up a notch; though if it’s at the cost of the extra protection and dynamism that Sandro offers, for a tough away fixture such as this, it mightn’t be the worst idea to keep the hot-heeled winger on the bench for emergencies only. Either way, I see us sneaking a win.

How do y’all see it?

Follow WFRF? on Twitter. Jesus would’ve wanted it that way.

Welcome one and all. Apologies for the dearth of excitement spilling from the pages of this site in recent days. If it’s any comfort I’ve returned to the keyboard only a shade darker of ghost-white and with a bank balance that I shall cautiously describe as uninspiring. Still, Barcelona is a splendid city and I can only imagine the locals were astounded by my capacity to burble dos cerveza, por favour like one of their own.

But enough about my pathetic attempts to blend in with the human race. The big news this weekend is that Tottenham Hotspur are back™. The encouraging impasse at the Bridge last week was far from a fiasco- neither, too, was progression to an F.A Cup semi- but points in multiples of thrice was the priority yesterday- and boy jiminy were the heroes in Lilywhite determined to get them.

Personnel-wise, the set-up was just about perfect. With Swansea resolved in the idea of not just dressing like Michels’ Dutch side of the seventies, Spurs were always going to be looking toward the triumvirate of Parker, Modric and Sandro to squeeze the space in which the Swans like to play their sex-brand of possession football. Blessed were we, then, that Scott Parker was an inexorable force of nature. Thundering into watertight challenges and generally giving the Welsh a horrid time of it. Sandro, too, was a giant. Full of smart, powerful running and iron-clad tackles. If he’s the future, then here’re my credit card details. I’m onboard.

Gareth Bale. Woof! A near-complete performance from the Cardiffian which lacked only a goal for himself. This was retrograde Bale; heaps of width, roasting full-backs like plump Sunday birds and the kind of delivery most strikers would be happy to receive once a month. With Lennon making a tentative but ultimately vital return this weekend, things could get a whole more awesomer in the weeks to come.

Back on the old Champions League chasing mule, then. The big-hitters are stoking the fires at just the right time and finding form when we need it most. Kaboul, Van der Vaart, Adebayor, Bale; even erstwhile sons have been chipping in for the cause. Disco Taarabt, better late than never, doing the business for Spurs at Loftus Road. Yes, it’s all getting a bit tasty at the top-ish. My advice, if I can offer any, is to try and avoid having a nervous breakdown between now and May. With seven games to go, however, and almost complete parity between ourselves and Arsenal- as well as a surmountable gap between 3^rd and 5^th- it appears the chances are very much on the thin side of slim.

Follow me on the Twitter