Ah, gloomy hue of disappointment, how I've missed thee. After the dashed unfairness that was
Chelski pilfering our Champions League spot with the final act of last season, a couple of months
on and our heroes were straight back in the groove, slinking off home with nothing but empty hands
and slightly hurt expressions, when they deserved to hold aloft the carcass of a freshly captured
point.
Opportunity lost, as I'm sure all my fellow geniuses have also noticed. Should make for a
frightfully exciting final-day finale though, what? As it happens our lot gave a dashed competent
showing at Villa, so no particular complaints there. Plenty of intent, flair, movement and
opportunity amongst our heroes, with the Lennon-right-and-Bale-left gambit loosely (though not
rigidly) employed, creating a pleasing balance, while VDV and Modders crafted their usual array of
intelligent triangles, and Sandro had another of his magnificent Chuck Norris days.
Times a-changing? Keep up - they've already a-changed. ‘Tis now generally agreed, either
publicly or otherwise, that Tottenham are the best team in North London; the "St Tottingham's Day"
bet with my Arse-supporting chum Hawthy is fast becoming redundant; and following the weekly
toasting of our own latest bravura successes we lilywhites as a regular side-note are also able to
amuse ourselves by sniggering at the ongoing and quite spectacular implosion of that ‘orrible lot
down the road.
Casual lobotomy is one of my less typical weekend pursuits, but I'm willing to hazard that were
one to pluck out the respective brains of BAE and Scott Parker, the two would be as dissimilar as
medically possible. At one point in the second half yesterday I'm fairly sure Benny executed a
scorpion kick, seemingly just to pass the time.
Many a time and oft my Spurs-supporting chum Ian has peddled the theory that Gareth Bale should
be shoved right up the top, through the middle, and play as an out-and-out centre-forward.
Outlandish it may be, but last night actually provided a glimpse of how the world would be run if
Ian were King.
Old hat it may be for everyone else, but here at AANP Towers we bounce around the walls like
toddlers on a strict diet of fizzy drinks and E-numbers as we await the start of our Premiership
season. Still, rather than pacing the corridors, rubbing hands together in feverish anticipation
until tomorrow night, it occurred to me that the time is rather ripe for making public the various
musings that have echoed around the walls of AANP Towers all summer.
Scandal! Round up the children! Release the honey badgers! Alert the President!
No, we're not talking about Chamakh's increasingly disgusting placenta-slathered
hair, but the fact that he and his Moroccan chum Adel Taarabt have been photographed
huffing on (perfectly legal) sisha pipes in a London bar MERE HOURS after QPR's 2-1 win over
Arsenal at the weekend.
The President of Rwanda wants his buddy Arsene to step down? Robin van Persie is furious with
Arsene...Or is he? And, does Real Madrid really want Arsene?
It's been quite an interesting week for the Arsenal so far. If you haven't been following the
news as much as I have, allow me to illuminate you.
For some reason, a fair amount seems to be being made of this this morning, so I thought I'd
share Arsenal midfielder Abou Diaby has freely admitted that he both owns AND WEARS and Spurs shirt
(a gift from his chum Younes Kaboul) while pottering round in the privacy of his own home.
He's not captain of the best team (at the moment!) in the Premier League for nothing. Manchester
City's Vincent Kompany, also arguably the best centre-half in the Premier League, has revealed how
he once beat a friend with a stick in order to make him run faster.
The whole Carlos Tevez saga is quickly turning into a farcical situation, with the AWOL player
and his club, Manchester City, seemingly growing further and further apart by the day.
However, neither side really seems too bothered by the whole affair.
We've already had a butcher's at some of football's most majestic mandible mountainsÂ
this week, so it's only fair to venture, post haste, to the other end of the scale and
examine some of the game's most minuscule facial extremities.
Amid all the bluster about Englands match against the Netherlands last night (a match already
being described by some as "That Thing That Happened At Wembley"), Mark Critchley thinks that he
may have spotted the real reason why Stuart Pearce cannot succeed as the England manager.
Last season, teams in the bottom half of the league were the collective bane on our lives and
arguably the reason we dropped out of the top 4. We failed to break down the so-called lesser teams
as our competitors could. And so, we arrive at this match rock bottom of the league, with a very
real danger of remaining there after Saturday.
This morning I was looking back through the archives to see if I could do an 'On this day', kind
of feature. I think I picked a bad day.
My choices were: the day after Thierry Henry left (2007), us being linked very heavily with
Alexander Hleb (2005), Jens Lehmann talking about how we should sign Miroslav Klose (2006),
Barcelona talking about wanting to sign Thierry (2003), vaguely hoping Igors Stepanovs might
cripple Ruud van Nistelrooy in the Euros (2004) and a quote from Chris Waddle talking on 5Live
about the Swedish back four at the 2002 World Cup:
The Swedish back four is amongst the tallest in the world cup.
