Beef Bagel

Apologies for not mentioning our er…glorious victory in the Monkey Cup since Wednesday night but needs must as things happen with other things, which very often result in lots of other little things running around when you’re trying to watch the results coming in and suddenly, before you know it, you’re anold thing and those younger things are looking after you while you’re trying desperately not to lose your battle with incontinence in front of them and whatever grandthings they have running around at your feet. Things, eh?

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I’ll have to leave the serious stuff til a little later today as time presseth and has done since Wednesday night and one of the most boring games a football fan could ever hope to witness. If you didn’t see the match, lucky you. Here are the only bits worth watching, seriously…

http://www.megavideo.com/?v=ENAPOZNJ

…but a little more on the entertaining side is this little trick from Brazilian football’s latest next Pele, Kerlon, known as the Little Seal for obvious reasons that did not amuse Atletico’s Coelho. The Cruseiro fans on the other hand loved it…

…right, serious business later. Take a look just after 4.

The Bagel.

It’s all very silly. It’s not so much MJ’s continual management while the sword of Damocles hangs so very obviously above it’s the fact that those in the press think that no one can see it. Every day there are reported “new twist” in a drama that reached it’s conclusion weeks ago. Yes, our man is going whether we like it or not and in all likelihood it’ll be Ramos who replaces him but not until the summer. Yet the tabloids continue to splash page after page about the board lining up a caretaker manager with a short list of none or talking of a £4m pay off for MJ so long as he doesn’t resign.

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It was only moments before I left the Bakery that I first considered the idea that we might not actually win this afternoon’s game. Sure it’s wasn’t a Bolton of Big Face Sam but it was still the same XI that did us at the beginning of last season. So, then why did the point feel like a bit of a let down?

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It was an ever so slightly edgy atmosphere down the Lane last night until Kaboul headed the first. With every day a twist in Tottenham drama, you’re never quiet sure what to expect any Tottenham fan would be lieing if there wasn’t a very small part of their brain saying ‘They could give us a nasty surprise you know.’ Thankfully of course, the shoe was most firmly on the other foot with a little six appeal from the Messers Kaboul, Dawson, Keane, Bent, Defoe and a little help from the ball boy…

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I was already to have a nice half hour snooze when LB got out of bed this morning but even my sleepy ears could pick up the words “Mourinho” and “resigned” from the lips of the dreary, breakfast TV presenters through the wall and in the next room. Suffice to say I was on my feet in seconds.

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The North London feud may have quietened down for most of us, fans and managers alike, but there’s still one player out there to strike a blow for his allegiances. He doesn’t play for arsenal and he doesn’t play for Tottenham either - any more that is.

“I want to make Spurs fans happy and give them something to shout about by scoring against Arsenal,” said the man in the bright orange shirt but with his heart still in the white place.

Yes, Mali and Sevilla’s finest, Freddi Kanoute, is coming to town for his Champions League debut fittingly enough in London after all his years of playing here and what the hell, I’ll be wearing my Sevilla scarf this evening too. I knew I bought that thing for more than just padding against Spanish police batons.

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It’s 00.26 on Sunday night. It’s the first time I’ve been home since……well, you know. I was going to write this report straight after the game - an exercise in time efficiency and cathartic therapy but when I was offered another kind of treatment, alcohol therapy, I took it and I’m glad I did. It wasn’t so much the booze as the company and the oh so painful, but oh so necessary, post match post mortem but like any good doctor, I needed a second opinion.

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There’s nothing that gets me going like the home leg of the Derby, not even sex and that’s nothing personal if you’re reading LB. Just reading the build up today makes me light headed. My fingers are twitching with typo errors (more than usual) as I haphazardly bash at this Bakery computer keyboard.

The Derby. Oh God it’s good. It’s the reason you go to watch football. The anticipation etched on everyone’s face, the expectation, the prayers, the fever, the noise - the sheer fucking noise, the whites of the players eyes as they come close to the sidelines with the fans screams in their ears, the clutching of your sweaty hands and the silent whispers to a God the only exists for 90 minutes a year. Please can we win today. Please.

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Er…so, Pascal Chimbonda’s been arrested. Yeah, interesting that. I must say I was a little panicked when I first read the headlines myself and my mind flitted from fiction to fantasy as I imagined our full back as:

a) a get-away driver, complete with stocking over his head, in a daring attempt at the theft of the artist formerly known as ‘Prince’ from the Millennium Dome,

b) capo of an organised crime football family that goes around getting protection money of the more injury prone wingers in exchange for non-career threatening challenges - Damien Duff and Arjen Robben always though they were safe with their own Russian mafia protection. Apparently their policies did not cover fire, theft or acts of Bonders,

c) a closet flasher with an irrepressible urge to expose himself to children, caught with another well known Frenchman from the football world but infinitely more identifiable by his dreadlocked pubic hair. You know what, I didn’t really want to picture that. I doubt you did either. In fact, let’s get back to the picture that counts here and that’s the one of Pascal in interrogation room 3 with Inspectors Pc and Plod in Severn Sisters constabulary in the small hours of Monday night.

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