Yesterday afternoon it got dark early, ahhh, life in the northern bit of the world in winter, so I sat in front of the telly with a nice cup of tea and fell asleep as Aston Villa beat Leicester. Two teams I have no care nor contempt for, in fact, no nothing. They’re too weak to be significant and are as inoffensive as teams can be, which is itself quite rare as I’m very easily offended in football.

Why can’t you fall asleep in front of Gone with the Wind? Or Celebrity Makeovers?? Come Dancing? Grand Designs? Kim Kardashian’s arse? Mel inquired. Why is it always football?

The answer to which is 2 simple words: its on.

If it was Spurs playing Arsenal my wife could understand. If it was Spurs playing anyone really. But West Ham playing Swansea? Aston Villa and Leicester? The MK Dons playing Barnsley?? Why would I want to watch that?

The answer of course is that I don’t have to do anything. Its that I want to. Because on the 8th Day G-d gave us football to watch, for all eternity (if my wife is to be believed) and Man watched it, and it was a good thing, So He watched it some more. And then yet more. Amen. I don’t question the word of the Creator.

Spurs drew nil-nil with Crystal Palace on Saturday. And, by all accounts, were lucky to get away with a draw against a team who played better than we did. With all due respect: CRYSTAL FUCKING PALACE!!!!!!! What is the world coming to? What has happened to our ‘forth place’ aspirations? To our pride? To our ability to win the odd game at home. Ok, Everton was that odd game, the rest: total shit.

Spurs have scored 18 goals this season, in 15 games. That’s… errr… well, that’s not very good. Lionel Messi alone has scored about 90 in 4 games. Ronaldo even more. Our 200 million pound team of superstars and legends; 18. Even Chelsea have managed 32 and everyone thinks they’re doing well. Though in their last 2 league games they’ve slipped a bit. Is this the proverbial ‘blip’ that all champs encounter and have to overcome to show how really dominant they are? Or have they just gone to shit, having beaten Spurs as the last decent match they played? Only time will tell. Morinho blamed the fans. If you can believe. Because he has to blame someone and the ref was fine and the players did little wrong, except get beat. Tosser.

West Ham are third in the league. No-one wants that. Even West Ham fans are embarrassed by it. Which they manifest by becoming unbearably gloaty, horrible and gobby, smug and scummy. But I know that’s just a cry for help. Help get them down the league where they feel more comfortable, where they’re more acclimatised. Like in the bottom 5. But with Andy Carroll ‘fit’, the sky is the limit. The man who’s fitness is measured, in between arrests, in single minute units, certainly saw off the Swans yesterday.

And Arsenal played their favorite game of the season. Stoke at the Britannia. The place of dreams. In a ‘Nighmare on Elm Street’ kind of way. But this time it was different. Stoke didn’t need to produce their normal weapons of mass destruction to beat the Arse, they just had to expose their terrible defensive frailty. 3 times in fact, in the first half. Their second half come-back was apparently commendable. Not good enough, but commendable. And, unlike Spurs, at least they had one.

So if I didn’t watch football, where would I get sufficient misery from? How could I understand true depression and sorrow without the beautiful game?

Happy sodding monday

A xxxx