As our season winds towards an end as predictable as trouble flaring up at a Glaswegian nightspot or a Jägermeister hangover, so a few other anomalies are also correcting themselves and helping re-establish the equilibrium.
Spurs – after a one-year foray into the Champions League – have returned to their rightful position outside the top four, and possibly Europe altogether. After we went out of this year’s competition and they were still in, the ‘Arsenal – watching Eastenders’ chants were annoying. Well, as it turned out, it was just the one episode for us. Dot went out to the launderette to wash Jim’s clothes, in case any of you missed it. In the 15 years they’ve been watching Eastenders as we toured Europe’s finest venues, they’ve seen every plotline from rape to murder to incest and divorce. So they didn’t really have much to shout about did they. Still, it’s good that things have been put back as they should be. All that remains now is for the Redknapp-induced bankruptcy and firesale of their best players to take place, leaving the fans to lament how they chased the ‘Champions League dream’ by putting players on huge wages and contracts that allow them to leave if they don’t have European Cup football the following year. If van der Vaart and Modric, at least, don’t have Champions League get-out clauses in their contracts I’ll don a ‘Neil Lennon is God’ t-shirt and take a stroll round Glasgow G51.
Elsewhere, Blackpool are back in their own rightful place - among the relegation fodder, which means we no longer have to listen to the idiot-talk of how they have been a breathe of fresh air to the Premier League and how they prove that you don’t need to be defensively strong to survive in this league. Well it turns out you do.
Stoke fans are another group to have returned to their rightful place – this time among football’s most distasteful fans - by abusing Aaaron Ramsey through last Sunday’s game because, presumably, he had the cheek to allow his leg to be broken by one of Stoke’s idiot thug players last year, nearly ending his career. As it’s unlikely there will be some bizarre cup final stampede that results in all of Stoke’s fans receiving broken limbs tomorrow, I’ll just have to settle for them getting battered on the pitch. Then that prick Pulis and his mouthy Chairman can crawl back to the Potteries and prepare for next season’s relegation battle. No-one will be watching anyway. The move to schedule the Cup Final for the same day as a round of Premier League games means, together with the fact that recent finalists include Portsmouth, Millwall and now Stoke, the Cup Final is about as prestigious as, well, the League Cup Final.
Finally, Niklas Bendtner has returned to his rightful place too - as the club clown (having wrenched it away from Manuel Almunia, presumably). Bendtner came out with this week with this classic line about where he would like to go when he leaves The Arsenal in the summer: “If it’s a free choice, I choose Barcelona. I’ve never had any idols in the football world but if I had a dream player to play with then it would be Xavi and Iniesta.”
Tottenham... watching TV on Tuesdays and Wednesdays again
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