Last year at about this time of the season, Spurs found themselves in the lofty and a bit unexpected position of being the team ‘chasing runaway leaders’ for the title. Long way to go, 14 games or so, but there we were, second in the league and chasing… a pretty much lost cause. Last year we decided that we’d have a startlingly brilliant run, breezing past all who came before us, home or away, with flair, style, strength and brilliance. And then, for our encore, we’d totally self-destruct into chaotic and hapless oblivion. Or ‘third place just behind Arsenal’ as its known in certain parts of north London.

Many saw this as ‘typical Tottenham’, there was suddenly too much oxygen, couldn’t take the pressure (what pressure??), unaccustomed to the lofty heights, blah, blah, blah. I saw it more from a ‘bottom up’ perspective. In that we were usually much lower, and we’d moved up in the world.

To find ourselves, albeit a bit sooner, in a similar position; second in the league to runaway leaders, represents a brilliant improvement in my team. With particular credit to me, personally, for not killing myself, as I’d felt like so often during the dark years. Suicide is painless and is also one of the only things that gets rid of Arsenal. Unless you go to hell when you get to spend all of eternity listening to Arsene Wenger telling you about every foul that wasn’t given, every bad penalty decision that went against his team, all the injustices ever witnessed through the really bizarrely impeded eyes of a serial Frenchman.

Yesterday he saw a ‘foul’ when no-one else did. Thus everyone else is wrong. Obviously. Chelsea annihilated his team, mainly because half of them didn’t turn up. Well, Ozil certainly was somewhere a long way off. And as Spurs Paul commented, Arsenal can only bully poor teams, which they do, and then wimp out against the proper ones. I’ll check but I don’t think Spurs Paul an Arsenal fan.

Liverpool have crumbled. Just lost it totally as they have given up on winning ways. Both Manchesters are under-performing tragically and Everton, despite scoring 6 yesterday (and conceding 3?), are a bit short of the mark.

So once again its left to my boys to try and keep up with the leaders in an attempt to maintain some kind of interest in the rest of the season, for everyone in the country. Even though we’re not doing so in any really impressive way at the moment. But heh, who cares? Free points is free points, innit?

Ahhhh, fairly happy Sunday

A xxxx