Arses V Spurs

If, as most of us do, Spurs fans accept that the usual roller coaster of a season will continue as normal then Saturday's game against the Woolwich Wanderers will be a dismal affair. Afterthe shockingly brilliant performance against Inter at the Lane I was actually excited as we drove towards that monument to banality that is the Reebok Stadium a couple of weeks ago. I joked that we'd probably play like donkeys but felt that we couldn't be that bad. In fact we weren't that bad. We were worse. It was abject from front to back of the team. Half decent Lancastrian pies didn't go far to ease the pain. Pav's goal was the only hight point in a game that made Bolton look like title contenders.

The draw with Sunderland in the week has only just been made to look half decent after their annihilation of Chelski but we were back to winning ways versus Blackburn. The peak of the roller coaster upturn was not the end of the game mind you. It was about 65 minutes in when we should have been cruising comfortably at 4-0. As is usual with both roller coasters and Spurs the downward rush was fast, shocking and yet pretty predictable. Only Spurs could panic at 4-0 and, to be honest, it could have been 4-4 at the end. Mind you, it could just have easily been 10-6. Defences are often likened to leaky buckets full of holes but Spurs' is more like the Maginot line: A big no entry sign in one or two places but some bloody obvious and easy ways round. Gallas is Belgium in this analogy.

With all that in mind we have some way to go before our cart rumbles towards another upturn. Our only hope is that we get there before the end of the Arse match. If we keep the first half down to 3 or fewer goals against we might prevent humiliation by getting a couple back. I can't say I'm looking forward to it.