When Spurs drew with Wolves, it was tragic. When we lost, again at home, to Villa, it was catastrophic. But those terms of despair relate to the football, to the statistical improbability, to the sheer what should and shouldn’t happen in football. Even though it has a habit of happening. Especially at Spurs.

And whilst we’re not exactly ‘cool’ with that shit, while we’re still totally pissed off at our team who can go and stuff Man City at the Etihad one week and lose an ‘easy three points’ (as if) at home the following one, ‘that’, as they say ‘is football’. It’s about the underdogs always having a chance to win. It’s about the inconsistency of all teams, the unpredictability of the game. Why we all love it. Apparently.

But what Thomas Frank needs to understand is that there are some games which are not subject to normal laws. Not the laws of statistics, of probability, nor logic. These are the matches which, for every single Spurs fan, are deeply personal. They’re not subject to analysis as much as emotion.

Obviously we never want to lose to Arsenal. You wouldn’t, would you. No-one ever wants to lose to anyone, but your ‘local rivals’, your ‘sworn enemies’, it hurts to lose such a match. Even though they are pretty good at the moment.

And then there’s Chelsea. The team every ‘neutral’ hates. Even most non-neutrals hate them. For the simple reason that they are hateful. Yet we hold Chelsea in a special place in our dark hearts, at Spurs. We have a ‘history’. Oh my, such a history. Yesterday’s game was the first Chelsea fixture in a long while that’s ended with 22 players on the pitch. Normally it’s about 17. Probably fair to say that they hate us as much as we hate them. Fine by me. If they loved us we’d be doing something wrong. Or sending out mixed messages.

The problem with yesterday’s match was that we have no excuses. No claims of unfairness. Ok, it was brutal, flared up a few times, inevitably, but basically we were the creators of our own demise. The only actually creative moment Spurs had was in manufacturing Chelsea’s goal by a combination of incompetence and sheer arrogance. (Refusal to ‘clear your lines’, preferring to ‘play out from the back’ is nothing but arrogance). We posed no threat. Not to them anyway. We were appalling. The high point of the game was Joey’s burger-and-chips.

So yes, Thomas, that fucking hurt. And I’m not specifically blaming you, but I just have to ask: WTF???

Watching Man City as I write this, I’ve realised that all we really need is Erling Haaland. That’s all.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx