Spurs 0-1 Wigan: AVB Protects the Fabric of the Universe

In truth, AANP speaks very little of any language beyond the mother-tongue – some impeccably-chosen Latin once the bourbon flows, the odd bon mot in French and bits and pieces of Modric-speak for the benefit of Ms AANP and her kin – so I am hardly an authority on what goes on in the AVB household, but the sneaking suspicion is that there simply is no Portuguese equivalent of the phrase ‘all action no plot’. Certainly the eye-gougingly mental replacement of Defoe with Adebayor as we chased the game yesterday seemed to betray a fervent subscription to meekandmildtinkeringtoprotectthealreadyvastlyovercomplicatedplot.com rather than anything in this neck of the interweb.

That said, tempting though it always is to grumble at the glorious leader, our heroes on the pitch seemed pretty determined to do anything that might be construed as competitive. The two ‘holding midfielders’ would at times be better defined as merely ‘subsisting midfielders’, given that they neither create nor destroy with any particular distinction, nor do anything of note beyond the bare minimum required for existence’ while poor old Dempsey still looks like a man who needs a few jolly good steak-and-chips dinners to bulk up a tad before he will add any particular lustre to the lilywhite cause. Frightfully gaunt, that lad. But carrying considerably less threat than the Walking Dead extras he resembles. Still, with AVB evidently convinced that the simultaneous fielding of two bona fide strikers will destroy the very fabric of the universe it seems that the One-Striker-Plus-A-Dempsey masterplan is here to stay, so we may as well settle down and enjoy it.

As it happens however, by virtue of this lucre-fuelled division and its top-three subset, the realistic goal – of fourth – remains eminently manageable, and is likely to remain so until May ’13, no matter how relentlessly the lilywhite horde peddle their impotence in displays such as these. In the nearer-term, the prospect of redundant, snail-paced sideways passing against Man City and l’Arse ought to keep us all entertained in the coming weeks.