I haven’t spoken about football for a little while, because I temporarily lost interest. You know when your WiFi cuts out for an hour with no apparent reason? Same thing, the football fuse just went, no reason, nothing sinister, nothing untoward. Though I remember precisely when it happened; 16.00hours on Sunday. Such is life.

But now I’m cured! Hard-wired back to the beautiful game. Now that I have something to gloat about once more.

Because Wednesday night’s victory over unfortunate Southampton at Wembley enabled us to leap over both Arsenal (who had TEMPORARILY pushed us down the table) and Chelsea (who would have done if they could have beaten the mighty Wolves) into 3rd position where, for the time being, we’re happy to be.

Yet it remains ‘the funny ole game’. Arsenal went to Man United last night pretty much expecting a win. Even though they never win at Old Trafford, this should have been their year. United are not just shit, in any normal meaning of ‘shit’, they are unmotivated, destabilised, lacklustre, shambolic shit with a manager intent on increasing all those horrible adjectives further. Furthermore (I love looking at ‘form books’ because they’re always wrong) Spurs beat United this season, early on when United where still at least performing as a team, and Arsenal, in case you missed it, beat us last week. Ergo, if 1+1=2 then the Arse should have won.

Football’s not like maths. It’s more like… football.

At the other end of the table its hell. Its always hell. No-one wants to incur the ‘curse of Christmas last’, because if you’re bottom of the table at Yule time, yer fucked. Except for the teams who weren’t, but we don’t count them. A curse is a curse.

Newcastle live just above the drop zone but aren’t doing well. When they lost at home to West Ham (also a bit erratic, even by their won standards) last weekend, I thought: how bad must Newcastle be? To lose to that rabble? And I like Geordies, so its sad. I like Palace too (I have to say that), whereas Huddersfield, Burnley, Southampton, Cardiff… does anyone really care which 3 we lose? On a scale of tragedy from chipped paint on a fingernail) to ‘The Titanic!’, just pick any 3 of them and it would barely rank at all.

Well, in football as in ‘gone with the wind’, ‘tomorrow’s just another day’.

Happy Friday

A xxxx