Who was it said that children should be thrashed hard and often? I can’t remember, and neither can google, so perhaps it was me who coined that phrase in response to my own nightmarish offsrproglets. Bless them.

Well its the same with football teams. Spurs are indeed thrashed hard and often but despite the logic of the argument (if there is one) that such things build character, create precedents never to be repeated and demand the sufferers to ‘bounce back’ with a vengeance, it never quite works like that for us. Unless you count a poxy, dire 1-1 draw at Hull as ‘bouncing back’. Personally I don’t see it that way. A thrashing is humiliating, its horrible, it attacks your fundamental need to, if not win, then not to lose too badly, it destabilises your momentum. Basically; it hurts.

In a way England thrashed Scotland in the rugby yesterday, even though the score was only 20-0. Could have been more. Should have been more. We (this is a different ‘we’ than the Spurs ‘we’, this is about patriotism, about Englishism and nothing whatsoever to do with Briitishness) were in a different class to the Scots. They were awful, we were wonderful. The Scots were so bad they couldn’t even sort out their national pitch, which looked like some of the football pitches I used to play on in my youth over at Hackney Marshes, when it was a marsh, before they Olympified it.

But Spurs didn’t play yesterday, they play today. Against Everton. Big match. Massive. 12 pointer (I could explain but you simply wouldn’t understand). Its basically the battle for 6th place. Wow. Doesn’t get much bigger than that. Maybe 5th? The only other match today is also massive in its own not-quite-so-massive way. Manchester United play Fulham. The disappointed against the tragic. And I’m not prepared to say which is which. Fulham haven’t won since Prince George was born and Manchester United are underperforming. Which is the Manc way of saying ‘not top’. Arrogant fuckers, why are their expectations so high that anything except a runaway league-topping season is deemed ‘underperforming’? By that logic there are 91 teams underperforming every year.

But I’m afraid I can delay no longer. No mention of Chelsea’s romp over Newcastle to go top, no-one cares that West Ham beat Villa, and Manchester City have suddenly just run out of goals. Or they’ve used up their quota early in the season and aren’t allowed any more. So much as I’m never one to gloat, nor snigger, jeer or in any way display any kind of schadenfreude, we need to talk about Arsenal.

I didn’t see the game. Who the hell has ‘BT TV’? But I managed to keep up with the score (though only just) during lunch due to the incessant text messages from some of my friends. Nothing spiteful, nothing gloaty, just odd messages that were very informative. And nice. I was in the car when the 2nd goal was scored. By the world’s only living corpse, Martn Skertl. Then the texts; 2-0, bite of chicken, 3-0, sip of water, 4-0, spat the water over the table as I high-fived Rachie. Perhaps a high-four would have been more appropriate at that time but I couldn’t get my thumb out the way. Then it all calmed down in the second half and we had to wait ages for the 5th. Oddly, or perhaps because I’m a Spurs fan, I have this morbid fear that however great the lead in a game, ‘its not enough’. Spurs have squandered so many big leads in so many big games that I almost forget that when other teams are dominant, they generally remain so for the duration. Wankers. That’s not entertainment.

So Liverpool, the season’s other big scorers, managed to throw the table open at the top. Whilst they remain a few points short, Arsenal, Chelsea and Man City are now, to all intents and purposes, neck and neck. But only Chelsea are (horribly, revoltingly) consistent and the Scousers could close the gap if the inconsistencies continue. Everton have hopes and Spurs are just Spurs.

I fully expected Arsene Wenger to find 5 faults with the ref and demand his usual re-count. To blame the officials, the stadium, the rise in fuel tax, anything. But he manned up and took it upon himself. For once.

So come on Spurs; do it for England, for London, for… for… for meeeeeeeeeeee.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx