The good thing is that Meghan Markle, aka The Dutchess of somewhere or other, is pregnant. Nothing to do with me. Sadly. But a new royal is currently being growed. The bad news is not that her dad wasn’t told but that the Mail on Sunday deemed as ‘front page worthy’ that ‘he heard about it on the radio!!’. And that’s why we love the Mail. Because they either don’t understand the words ‘they are estranged’ or else they think its only specific to certain events, like the wedding, so have to show their apparent amazement at each and every instance of their estrangement.

And the ‘ugly’. That’s how Spurs won yesterday. Ugly. It’s the new way. Liverpool did it too at Huddersfield. ‘Winning ugly’. A newish term but I actually really like it. You can win a game like Manchester City did against Burnley yesterday (not that the result there was ever any kind of question) with style, flair, amazing moves involving speed and skill and accuracy and wonderful flowing teamwork, scoring 5 unanswered goals in the process. Or you can grind out an almost painful 1-0 win against a team you really should beat with ease and grace but instead just dig in, defend for all you’re worth and pray that you have a world class goalkeeper who can keep your sheet clean. Even if he likes a drink or two… before driving home.

In ‘home’ matches you expect more. And Man City were playing at home indeed. Spurs don’t really have a home as such currently, even though its getting closer every second. (According to a ‘reliable source’; on the first ‘safety check’ they performed on the new stadium, a few months ago, it failed on 98 out of a hundred criteria. Can’t wait to go. You can buy hard-hats in Spurs colours.) But at our temporary (we hope) ‘home’ we play proper. Away from home we look less confident, less flowing, less… Spurs. And yet we manage to win. Ugly. I’m happy with that and will take it any day of the week.

Manchester United were 2-1 up at Chelsea in the 95th minute. The very last minute of added time, when Chelsea equalised. The draw was probably the ‘right result’ (a truly subjective term, its never ‘right’ when you were winning, always ‘right’ when you’d been down) and it was definitely one of those draws that felt, for Chelsea, like the sweetest victory ever. And thus, for Jose Morinho, especially as it was at Chelsea, it felt like the worst defeat ever. And thus he deemed one of the Chelsea coaching staff’s celebration, right in his face, as ‘inappropriate’ and possibly ‘excessive’. So he did what any thinking person would do and tried and kill the sneering motherfucker with his bare hands. For once I think he was in the right.

Happy ugly football days

A xxxx