So we’ve gone to Canada. Those Canadians have really gone out their way to stop us going. First they set fire to Newfoundland, well, one end of it, so we had to rearrange. Then having done that mammoth task, Air Canada went on strike. And to get to Canada is easy, because British Airways aren’t on strike and they’re British so therefore perfect. But to get up to Newfoundland you can’t exactly use Ryanair. Its Air Canada or Air Canada. No-one else goes there. They ended the strike yesterday. The flight attendants were chronically underpaid. According to one protester’s placard: ‘delivering pretzels for peanuts’. I like that. Was immediately sympathetic to their cause. But only once it was sorted, obviously. Then we had ‘passport—gate’ last night when I couldn’t check in. Won’t bore you but the BA site can’t handle Canadians, like my wife. I could have left her at home, or taken a different woman. A BRITISH ONE!!! And they’re all much younger. But instead, I called BA and spent a super half hour on the phone to Delhi getting it sorted. But there ya go. First world problems.

But I need to go somewhere bleak and distant and vast. I need the distraction of the open seas. The quiet and solitude (ok, as mentioned, I am taking Mel, but other than that…). I need to escape. From…

Eberechi Eze.

Because, quite frankly, I’m devastated. A word I never use lightly, but often just to exaggerate or attract attention.

I wanted Eze at Spurs. I saw him last year when he came to White Hart Lane and beat us single-handedly, just literally ‘running the game’. And I wanted him. Needed him. Desired him deeply. He was ‘our kind’a player’, but much more effective than any of ours. Efficient. Productive. Then, when Madison went lame before the season even started, out for a ‘long spell’, Eze became the target. Because everyone knew he would be the perfect fit in a position we were deficient. So Thomas Frank said ‘get Eze’ and Daniel Levy spent the next month doing his usual ‘transfer combat games’ of seemingly arguing, to the point of exiting the deal, over who gets the coffees in? And then, after all the agonies and bluffs and tactics, we’re right on the verge of agreeing terms with everyone… and Arsenal nick him. We dilly dally for 30 days; they get an injury to Havertz and 6 hours later Eze’s on the tv pointing sickeningly, maddeningly, at his new Arsenal shirt. On the back of which reads: FUCKING JUDAS!!!!

There is an alternative version of this tale, sort of the other ‘closing doors’ moment, in which Eze was always going to play for Arsenal. Presumably he has a passion for runners up medals. So he and Palace strung Spurs along, with false hopes, either to up the ante, money-wise, or because he was waiting for Havertz to be injured. (??) He played for Palace on Saturday. You don’t do that when you’re 70% sold to another club. But he knew he was never going to that club.

Whichever reality was real, he’s not ended up at Spurs. But that’s no problem. We just need someone else. Who looks like Eze, plays like Eze, scores goals like Eze, but is a decent person with a moral integrity which would preclude him from joining ‘them’.

But I’m not bitter…

Welcome to Canada

A xxxx