Foys Orks 2 Footballers 1

Everyone settled down yet?

In the aftermath of Amir Khan’s defeat in Washington, at the hands of Washington-born Lamont Peterson, one boxing commentator made an excellent point; when you go to fight in somebody else’s back garden, make sure it isn’t close. Go in there and perform so mercilessly there can be no doubt who’s the champion. It could easily have been applied to Tottenham on Sunday.

I don’t accept that they ‘wanted it more’. We generally play controlled, possession football, creating openings by relying on our movement and ability. They played as if they’d each downed a 6-pack of red bull and got told that the lads dressed in purple had cussed their Mums.

The first half hour set the tone for the whole game… in fact, scrap that, the first minute set the tone, with them muscling their way through our shell-shocked back line and forcing Brad into an early save. ‘’But Mister Harry, I thought we were playing the English National Ballet select XI’’. Expecting something and dealing with it are completely different, but lads we thought would stand no nonsense- Parker and Kaboul to name but 2- were brushed aside like a bunch of Crouchey’s, or wacky waving arm-flailing inflatable tube men.

But the ref was to blame! Criiiiiiinge. Foy and his team had an absolute stinker, but when you’ve got a guy with an itchy trigger finger and an overwhelming desire to be ‘the man’, and you’ve already been booked, and your man is running nowhere, just stand him up. It’s pretty simple.

Anyway, I’ve sort of missed the boat on all the post-match stuff, so I’ll leave it there.

I’m getting married on Friday, so this will be the last you hear from your intrepid blogger as a single chap. Sunderland preview and report, I’ll leave to the many other fine wordsmiths out there, but suffice to say, their slice of luck and our somewhat unfortunate sequence of events from Sunday should see the universe realign itself ready for the dust up with Chavski.