SPURS (HOME)
Please, dear god, is a win too much to ask?
This moment we’re in is testing my faith. Shit at home, and now shit away. Yet another 16th-17th place finish, surely please not? The matches start and all seems well... until they're not. Something goes wrong - a missed chance, a misplaced pass - the opposition score and the game is over.
It’s a test of faith because what you pray for, and believe in, almost never comes to pass. But, if everything happens for a reason, then maybe that reason is a change in the dugout. Sacrilege for some, but for others, well three goals from open play at home, all season, is a damning statistic.
Would doubting our leader still be considered sacrilegious if by 9.30pm tonight Spurs have scored more goals from open play at the Amex this season than we have? What if we lose to Norwich? The doctrines governing the cult of Potter portray Graham as a messianic figure, sent from Swansea to lead us into Europe, but allowing dogma to overrule objective thought often leads to ruin. Or the Championship.
I had written 700 words on player recruitment and retention. But yadda yadda yadda. We all know someone, or some people, have fucked up. If it’s Dan Ashworth then good riddance. Not enough defenders, not enough forwards, and no wingers whatsoever. But what can be done to solve it? We are where we are. Eleven players will walk out, and the match will begin.
What is inviolable is that Harry Kane will referee the match, one of Maupay or Trossard will miss an open goal, and Andy Naylor will tell us we’re wrong for feeling what we feel. We should be grateful for the opportunity to watch our team lose most weeks. And that's that.
I guess none of it really matters as we’re all now just waiting to be vapourised. It had been interesting to see a world news event play out with zero polarisation surrounding it... but then along came some Chelsea fans to remind us that if you want to locate the gutter, British football is usually a good starting point.
The spectre of a nuclear war, the spectre of being dragged into a relegation battle, the spectre of finishing below the wankstains in the final league table. These are deeply worrying times.
But please, tonight, let’s do something different. The usual approach is a tried and tested failure.
Eleven men behind the ball? Park the bus? Park two buses? Shane Duffy upfront? Sarmiento? Ferguson? Sarmiento and Ferguson? Let's just try something, anything.
Simple pleasures - I just want to see a football player in blue and white stripes boot the ball into the back of the net, and go home happy.
In the promotion season I developed a superstitious habit - on my way to the station for all home midweek games - of buying a can of lager from the same shop at exactly the same time. 4.30pm.
Superstition is the atheists act of prayer, and so tonight I’m going to rekindle this pastimes ritual. I offer up this crisp golden liquid as a sign of my devotion. Amen