You can dream. You can hope. You can pray. None of which ever makes things happen the way you’d like. That’s why its called ‘the dream’, or ‘hope’. Because its unlikely to happen without a lot of luck. Or possibly outside influence.

And thus didst the Hotspurs of Tottenham trek to the great, wild northern reaches of Manchester, yesterday, to visit the fearsome force who occupy the little Islamic State of… The Etihad!!!! The force who just last weekend came to London and burst all the bubbles at the the Immorality Stadium to win 5-nil. Such are these soldiers. They take no prisoners.

So having won the League title twice running, they wanted to make their mark in their first home match of the season. Draw a line in the sand. And no Spurs fan was under any illusions that ‘they’re ours for the taking’ or any such bravado bollocks. We’d have happily lost 2-1, 3-2, anything but 7-0. Or worse. Because basically that is not an unrealistic outcome in that stadium. Where the pretty massive gulf between Manchester City and mere ‘normal’ clubs, even top 4 clubs (Spurs, not Arsenal), is a veritable Grand Canyon. We won’t get into the ridiculous overspending, breaking transfer rules, dodgy ‘sponsorship’ deals which write of hundreds of millions of pounds of debt every year. Nor how they got away with a 50 quid fine (relatively) for exactly the same ‘crime’ which for Chelsea resulted in a 12 month transfer ban. That would be out of context. Today. Tomorrow we may speak of it again. Depending on the how far Pep Guardiola chooses arguments of ‘unfair’.

And to break with tradition, I’ll be totally honest. Spurs were total shit. Didn’t start, didn’t come out to play, lacked direction, energy, played without a plan or a clue. And when they went a goal down after 20 minutes the only question was ‘why did it take that long?’ So when Eric Lamela scored an equaliser a couple of minutes later, in probably the crossing of the half way line for any Spurs player, only two words could suffice. ‘Fuck’. And ‘Me’.

Spurs went back into hiding and City scored again. But that didn’t rouse Spurs. Who had, since the start of the match, been in a total ‘rouse-free zone’. We sat back, took the endless onslaught and managed to get to half time still only 2-1 down.

The half time talk must have been in Spanish because it did nothing to improve Spurs, who steadfastly refused to play beyond ‘awful’. Then we won a corner. No idea how because we just hadn’t been that far up the pitch. And before the kick was taken Pochettino brought on Lucas Moura. Who walked on, took up position and headed the corner kick into the net, 10 seconds after his arrival. 2 shots on goal in an hour, 2 goals. Man City also had 2 goals, but from 15 shots. So they must be real shit.

We clung on and clung on, literally for grim death. But death didn’t come. Until the 92nd minute. When, only slightly reminiscent of our Champions League match at the same place just 4 months previously, City scored that ‘winning late goal’ and everyone went berserk. Until…

The referee gave the City fans and players and staff sufficient time to celebrate as if they’d just solved the world’s carbon crisis, then indicated that VAR was being deployed. As it is for every goal. And we all know, VAR is a Spurs fan. Probably Jewish. Possibly Israeli technology like so much hi-tech. And as with the Champions League goal, this one too was then disallowed.

I’m not saying I like VAR, cos I don’t. I’m not saying Spurs deserved to draw because we really, really, REALLY didn’t. I’m not saying that a total of 3 shots on goal in 90 minutes is good, no more than City’s 30 shots on goal was necessarily bad. All I’m saying is: THAT WAS MOST AMAZING, UNDESERVED, SPECTACULAR SINGLE POINT I’VE EVER SEEN GAINED BY A TEAM PLAYING APPALLINGLY AGAINST POSSIBLY THE BEST CLUB SIDE IN THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD.

That’s all I’m saying.

Happy Sunday, Pep.

A xxxx