This was, results-wise, the almost perfect weekend. The ‘almost’ bit was Chelsea’s undeserved win at Stoke. ‘Undeserved’ purely on moral grounds. If ever you needed proof that there is no God, just look at the top of the league table. The very top, obviously. God starts at 2nd place. In all His magnificence.

And we won. We won the first half of the match against Southampton sufficiently well that even though we definitely lost the second half totally and absolutely, it was enough for our 10th successive home win. But without Harry we’re definitely not quite the same team. Good enough for teams like Millwall but lacking really in attack. Its only when he’s not there that you realise the amazing amount of non-goalscoring work Harry Kane does. And Pochettino’s continued reluctance to give Vincent Jansen a game does nothing for the big guy’s confidence. Meaning that for the inevitable 6-minute cameo he gets ‘to show his worth’, he tries way too hard and looks a good distance short of the ‘world class’ we paid for. He looks a bit short of ‘Hackney Marshes’ at the moment but needs time and exposure. I hope. And although Deli Alli scored his penalty, I wonder why Eriksen didn’t step up for it. He’s a dead ball expert. Deli’s penalty, unless he saw the goalie move first, was in fact fairly awful. And worrying. We seem to get a lot of penalties at the moment. And they’re quite useful.

Arsenal lost at West Brom. Even with all those planes flying overhead with messages to their manager. It was like the damnbusters up there in the Midlands. “WENGER OUT!!!” they proclaimed, “WENGER MUST STAY!!!” said others. The man himself remains as ever illusive and enigmatic about the whole thing. There’s 2 important things to bear in mind though. Firstly, Arsenal are currently total shit. The team are not playing for Wenger, nor for themselves, they’re just awful. They did score but only because the West Brom defence didn’t see any reason to mark Alexis Sanchez when he was in their box. Not like he’s any good or anything. And the second thing to bear in mind is that Arsenal are currently 9 points behind Spurs, ok with a game in hand, but still…

Leicester, the new ‘model’ of ‘how to deal with a manager you no longer like’, continue to win under their new boss. Though only at West Ham.

The icing on the cake though for the weekend was the draw at the Etihad between Spurs 2 hottest pursuers, slightly increasing our breathing space, point-wise. Liverpool and Man City gave a superlative demonstration of how fucking hard it is to score a goal in top class football. So many chances blasted over (Aguero… Aguero???), hitting woodwork or just missed (Lallana), the final result was fair. Especially for Spurs. Don’t really care about being fair to northerners, if its good for Spurs, it is, by definition, ‘fair’.

Free points woz hardly ever sweeter.

Happy Monday

A xxxx