Another Fine Mess We’ve Got Ourselves Into
Ahoy there, land lubbers. I trust those of you joining us from the Small Isles enjoyed their bumber-sized weekends? Four days baked in unwavering sunshine and the distinctly sweet whiff of summer gushing up the nostrils like a mug of hot Ovaltine. Heavenly. Well, not quite, as it goes. The football’s been nothing short of a bloody nightmare and I’ve been stuck at work since last Wednesday. I swear to all that’s holy, if I see another ruddy-faced holidaymaker packing their boots with beach towels and instant barbecues, while I sit here looking out on the world like James Stewart in Rear Window, I’m going to climb out onto the rooftops and fire a gun into the sky like a certified lunatic. Thus declaring war on pleasant weather until I get a day off.
It’s just not on.
Talking of which, you could say the same thing about our chances of reaching fourth again. Tottenham’s recent adventures, a mixed bag, you could say? Sure. If the mix was one of regret, worn-down fingernails and despair. The midweek derby with Arsenal was suitably ding-donging enough; oohs, boos and aahs in all the right places. We even had the chance to add new lyrics to the ever-changing ditty of such and such and you messed it up. Three goals to our one being the deficit this time around from which Wenger’s lot proceeded to make a swine’s ear of it. We played our own part, too, of course. Van der Vaart being the absolute dog from open to close. My how we’ve missed that.
What was a credible fight-back in North London, though, was another comprehensive meltdown against supposed League dross on Saturday. Woy and his Brom leaving the Lane with a point and smiles aplenty. Did anyone else notice that Liam Gallagher foresaw this one on Football Focus? With the articulacy of a man who’d been given someone else’s mouth to look after for the afternoon- but had not yet become familiar with its settings- the former Britpopper-come-fashion-designer peered mystically into the distance and confirmed, I see goals in this one. Two-all. The slag was right and the sad truth is that he’s not the only one who could see it coming.
It’s become a key plot device for Tottenham’s season. Glaring opportunities to close the gap with City and Chelsea (who’re long gone now), but falling just an inch or two short when it really mattered. We can start counting the fixtures on our toes now; those in which three points seemed likely but rather less is what we were lumped with. Wigan, Wolves, West Ham, West Brom, Westlife. It’s seethingly farcical. To make matters worse, just when it looked like we might resolve the slight crisis we were having with our frontmen- Pav, Crouch and Defoe all finding the net in the last few weeks- it turns out we’re too porous at the back for it to matter anyway. And to really rub it in, just as Defoe was doing likewise against WBA, City’s twenty-seven million pound reserve striker, after a good long think, has remembered where he left his shooting boots, too. So that’s nice.
Chelsea next.
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