we woz there!

• Equals most goals scored in prem league
• most goals scored by a team in one half
• Defoe equals most goals scored by one player in prem
• Spurs biggest victory in top flight
• Most goals scored since 1977 (9-0 v Bristol Rovers- I was there too)

To say the half dozen Wigan fans that were there looked dejected after the game is something of an understatement. I felt sorry for them as their mini bus collected them, ready for the long drive back to Lancashire. We waved to them but for some reason they didn't wave back. To their credit some actually applauded. I was grateful as my involvement in the victory was at least as signigficant as Defoe's, but who gets all the glory?

I hear that Scharner (who scored after controlling the ball with his hand, having taken lessons from Theirry Henry in midweek) has magnanomously come out and said he's happy for the game to be replayed.

focus and perspective

There are many explanations for the crisis at White Hart Lane at the moment. There's no questioning the quality of individual players but they:
'lack grit'
'think they're better than they are'
'fancy themselves'
'can't focus'
'lose concentration'
'lack the will to play for the shirt'

...and so on. I was pleased when we signed Palacios from Wigan. He was strong in midfield and really up for the game. 'That's the sort of player we need!' I said. Then I read stuff like this article below. It's an awful situation and I wouldn't want to belittle it but surely with this simmering in the background we could lose the player or at least his focus at any time.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — The mother of Tottenham midfielder Wilson Palacios has pleaded with kidnappers to free her younger son more than a year after he was abducted.
Orfilia Suazo sobbed during an interview with local Channel 5 television as she implored the kidnappers to "release my little Edwin Rene." There has been no trace of Edwin Rene Palacios since armed assailants abducted him from his home in October 2007. He was 16 at the time.
Police say the family paid a ransom of US$500,000, but he was not released. In Thursday's interview, Suazo implored anyone who knew of her son's fate to come forward.
Tottenham reached a deal with English Premier League rival Wigan on Wednesday to sign 24-year-old Wilson Palacios.

One thing it does do is put the whole thing into perspective. We get to Wembley on Wednesday but in a manner so unflattering you'd think the Earth was about to implode. Never before has success been so limply embraced. We go to Old Trafford today and face an absolute thumping. The thing is though, when there's no match on, when I'm not in the stands and when I'm not repelling the odious sneer of an armchair Woolwich Wanderer I can see how it really makes no difference whatsoever. Rationally, there's no reason why I should care. Things like the fate of Palacios' brother and the dreadful situations in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe should keep a logical person's brain in perspective. But it doesn't. I've been saying all week that I agree with Harry. If we get stuffed today it's for the best. But when that happens I am going to be pissed off. I will probably shout at someone who doesn't deserve it. I will go all tribal and starey eyed. You can take man from his cave but you can't take the troglodyte out of the man.

Wigan

Even though I have been to Wigan before it had never occurred to me to imagine Wigan Pier as anything other then a wooden thing sticking out to sea with a dishevelled and windswept George Orwell at the end of it. In the car on Saturday on the way to the JJB ('you can't miss it mate, it's round the back of the shops') we passed the pier. It looks pretty dull as it goes. Definitely the sort of place a southerner would get 'a slap' on a Friday night or after a footy match.

In contrast to Birmingham and, to a lesser extent, Blackburn, Wigan near the footy ground had a slightly sinister edge to it. We'd visited relatives nearby and that was all very pleasant and friendly but the stripey herd of Latics fans (I was going to say hoard but that would be an exaggeration) looked almost neanderthal in their gait. Hardly any of them had any hair and they all looked pretty rough, I have to say. I wasn't expecting this at all.

The ground was packed at the Spurs' end and patchy at best elsewhere in the ground. Both I and the boy thought we'd not hear a murmur from the Wigan fans. That they'd evolved sufficiently to master verbal communication was something of a shock so when a little cluster sung their hearts out throughout the game, sometimes humorously, I had to admit that my stereotyping and prejudgement had gone into overdrive prior to the game.

One song about Emile Heskey made me laugh a lot and I hope that we can steal it for Darren Bent when he has his renaissance next season and scores a hatful:

There's only one Emile Heskey
One Emile Heskey
He used to be shite
but now he's alright
We're walking in a Heskey wonderland

Predictably it was 1-1. This was enough to send the Wigan fans into a cup winningesque frenzy of celebration which was bit odd. A similar result at the Lane on Saturday will not send me into a celebratory frenzy. I think we'll buck the trend though. Bolton beware: we're going to score 5 goals.