I'm Forever Blowing....Winning Positions

In the eternal words of some dead Scouse guy, “people think football is a matter of life and death. I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you, it is much, much more important than that”. And if our recent game against West Ham has taught us anything, it’s not only that Bill Shankly may have been on to something but also that there is an extremely fine line between utter devastation and unbridled joy….about 2 minutes to be precise. On 89 minutes, you could almost hear the bottles of Lambrini being uncorked in caravans up and down the country, whilst Spurs fans silently contemplated a brave new world in which Tottenham could finally be defeated. Fast forward 7 minutes and Harry Kane has turned the game (and potentially our season) on its head with another master class in derby day finishing. That's now 17 goals in 16 London derbies for him, not bad for a one season wonder. Now don’t get me wrong, normally the mere sight of a West Ham fan crying in to his fake Burberry scarf is enough to make my weekend but for it to be at the hands of my beloved Spurs, that makes their tears taste all the sweeter...in a salty kind of way. And I have a funny feeling that this result may well have far reaching ramifications, certainly with regards to how the rest of our season will play out. But we will get to that shortly……

They're two of our own, they're two of our own.......

Now, I have hated West Ham for as long as I can remember. No amount of poorly casted Elijah Wood movies are ever going to change that. The club, much like the majority of their fans, now reside in government housing that is funded almost exclusively by the tax payer. That’s a pretty sweet deal right? Yet what do they do as soon as they move in? They turn every Saturday afternoon into some form of low budget pikey fight club! I have said it before and I will say it again - you can take the fans out of West Ham but you cannot take West Ham out of the fans. And just to be clear, that is not meant to be a compliment. Their current situation is the classic example of how modern day clubs, who suddenly come into vast sums of money (ill-gotten or not) seem to abandon any semblance of a strategy almost over night. There is still this tragic misconception that money equates to success and vice versa. West Ham, in the immortal words of Lyle Lanley, are the proverbial mule with the spinning wheel. No one knows how he got it and damned if he knows how to use it! Case in point - having purchased three centre-forwards over the summer, they then start the season by complaining that they have no one to play up front! They signed no fewer than 11 players during the transfer window, simply because they could. Much like a local council, desperately trying to spend the remainder of its budget on the 30th of June, just to ensure that they get a similar amount to spend next year! I suppose this is bonafide proof that if you throw enough shit at a wall, some of it will end up signing a five-year contract with your club. Anyway, enough on West Ham. Despite the fact that they embody everything that I feel is wrong with modern day football, they have only recently lost Alf Garnett, so I really don’t want to rub salt in an already festering wound. In fact, not many people know this but he was actually a Yiddo in real life (the actor who played him) and the inspiration behind "Independent Woman" by Destiny's Child. True story. 

The shoes on my feet....Alf Garnett. The house I live in....Alf Garnett.

But anyway, back to the game. As I eluded to earlier, despite the fact that beating West Ham is always an enjoyable way to spend a weekend, the significance of this result cannot be downplayed. So far this season, for the most part, we have been underwhelming to say the least. Yes, we have had more injuries in three months than we did during the entirety of last season. And yes, they have all been to key players and for significant lengths of time. But still, our performances of late have been pedestrian and as a result, have seen us drawing more often than a cowboy with chronic OCD. A home defeat to a struggling West Ham could have seen our confidence plummet during a particularly tricky set of fixtures and compound what is already Mauricio Pochettino’s worst run as Spurs manager since he took charge in 2014 (which in a weird way, is actually testament to how well he has done). But rather than dwell on what might have been and start to research legal precedents as to how one would go about consciously uncoupling from a football club, we are instead looking at how such a stirring comeback will galvanize the squad ahead of two huge away games at Monaco and Chelsea respectively. And we owe it all to our very own Harry Hotspurs (patent pending).

I remember a time when the name “Harry” would evoke images of an older, twitchier gentleman, hanging out the window of his shiny new Range Rover whilst declaring to anyone in the vicinity that “I like him. I like him a lot. We are trying to get a deal done – we’ll just have to wait and see”. Thank God those days are over and we no longer make any rash, last minute signings for crazy amounts of money……<sigh>. Nowadays however, it seems that the club have developed a conveyor belt of young talent who are exclusively named "Harry" or "Harold" and they appear to be quite good. Very good in fact. We all know about Harry Kane and his proclivity to score when he wants (source: Tottenham 3-2 West Ham) but now we have a new midfield dynamo by the name of Harry Winks to keep an eye on...pardon the pun. For anyone who reads this blog on a semi-regular basis (thanks Mum and Dad, I appreciate your support) you will know that I have mentioned Winks before, having been impressed with him on the recent tour of Australia. But he has now backed these performances up with some very impressive showings in the EFL Cup before scoring on his full Premier League debut in the game at the weekend. In fact, his rapid rise into the first team reckoning asks yet further questions about why Moussa Sissoko is now our record signing, when we clearly didn’t need any more central midfielders in the first place! I know, I know. In Poch we trust and all that....

Sir, we have warned you about this before....please stop pestering the Drive-Thru staff!

Anyway, moving on. Thanks to the two Harrys and an excellent cameo performance from substitute Heung-Min Son, whose direct running and width significantly shifted the impetus in our favour, we were able to claw an unexpected victory from the jaws of defeat. But despite the obvious euphoria that comes from putting West Ham back in their little box, please do try to be the bigger fans come Monday morning. When you are on your way to work and you see their fans, queuing in the rain outside the Job Centre, just take a minute to give them a cuddle before reassuring them that football is only a game and that it really isn’t a matter of life and death. Because when it comes to London derbies, every Spurs fan knows that it is much, much more important than all of that…..