Once again I feel compelled to invoke all the superlatives laced with abject hyperbole to put across how important the match at White Hart Lane tonight is. “The most important, critical, essential, must-win game EVER PLAYED” is a tragically insufficient description. Because with West Ham losing to Arsenal yesterday (more about that later; much more), this becomes our golden opportunity. Not to ‘become safe’, there’s still way too much of the season left to play for us to be completely safe; but to give us a serious lifeline. A rope to haul ourselves to safety. For want of a metaphor that isn’t stupid.

The problem is this. That although Leeds are pretty shitty and themselves have only just reached ‘safety from their own relegation’, we really couldn’t want for a better team to play. Or, in this case, a worse team to play. But its a home match. Which, for any other team in the world, bestows great advantage. Not Spurs. For some unaccountable reason we just win at home. Having 52,000 of our fans, out of the 62,000 present, simply doesn’t seem to give the team much of a ‘boost’. In fact the opposite occurs. They remain seriously un-boosted. Perhaps because 47,000 of our fans do way more whingeing than they do singing encouraging little ditties. Like ‘YID-ARMEEEE, YID-ARMEEEE’. Though you can’t blame them. They’ve not only suffered but paid small fortunes to be allowed that suffering.

Yesterday’s match at the London Stadium (so named because ‘London’ pays most of the running costs of that God-forsaken cesspit) was special. West Ham (our rivals for ‘the drop’) against Arsenal (favourites to win the league). Both teams desperate for a win, for completely opposite reasons.

And thus I, along with many other Spurs fans, was deeply conflicted. A West Ham win would put us in even deeper doo-doo than we’re currently enjoying. But an Arsenal win makes it virtually impossible for them not to win the Premiership. An horrendously unthinkable outcome. Was it possible for both to lose? I Googled that. A draw would have been perfect. I can’t sacrifice my own team just to prevent Arsenal winning. Though I thought deeply about it.

As it happens, I never had a chance to influence the result anyway. Arsenal won. They cheated. VAR depriving those poor Hammers of what would have been a vital point. The referee having to make a decision that King Solomon would have struggled with as he ‘quite literally’ held the immediate fates of both teams in his hands. After a 5 minute delay whilst the VAR boys were presumably struggling to remember their passwords or whatever takes them so long, he chose Arsenal. They paid him. He couldn’t face Arteta’s rage if he said otherwise. And simultaneously he condemned West Ham to oblivion. We hope.

When I say ‘cheated’, that’s always my default when VAR decides anything. Unless it works in Spurs favour. Then its a ‘correct and proper’ decision. The West Ham player didn’t so much ‘prevent the keeper from getting to the ball’ as held him forcibly to the ground whilst holding both his arms. Is that a crime? When he, himself had been assaulted, almost raped, by an Arsenal player immediately before?

So now its down to ‘us’. Can we capitalise on West Ham’s misfortune? All I can say is: WE FUCKIN’ BETTER DO!!!!

Happy, somewhat tense, Monday

A xxxx