It’s The Hope That Kills You

So I did go to Brentford’s match on Saturday evening and I will get to writing about the game in God’s toilet, which is how a fellow Yorkshire Man described Leeds to me on Saturday afternoon but first, I said that I would be back to bask in some more Spurs schadenfreude once they lost to Nottingham Forrest and I’m a Man of my word…

Perhaps no-one told the Spurs’ board, owner or players that this weekend’s match was a relegation 6-pointer against their biggest competition at the bottom…. cause if you look at their last 3 games it doesn’t seem to have clicked with them that this was the one to bring their best too…

I’ll get to the actual ‘performance’ from the Forest game in a minute, but first a little context for the emotional whiplash that Spurs’ fans are dealing with right now.

The biggest week in the club’s history started so well last weekend with Spurs bouncing back from their Madrid mutilation to go to Anfield and fight like wolverines to wrestle a last minute equaliser out of last season’s champions.

To do so at a ground where they have historically struggled to collect any points, even in seasons where they weren’t otherwise atrocious, and where even their own fans were writing off their chances will have had those same fans believing that just maybe this was the turning point in their season.

If they could run the reigning champs close and snatch a 90th min equaliser against them, why couldn’t they burn through the Forest??

The flames of hope will have been fanned further in midweek when they shocked the entire football world by proving they actually can win at home!!! Not only that but they did so in the least Spursy fashion possible.

They took the lead on the half hour and held it till half-time… then reacted to being pegged back early in the second half by retaking the lead within 5 minutes… and to top it all off they didn’t collapse like a cheap tent in a thunderstorm they continued to fight and for the second time in 4 days they pulled out a 90th minute goal, this time a glorious home winner!!!!

A duet of 90th minute goals and incredibly positive results, a rare delicacy in this part of North London, would have had Spurs’ fans on cloud 9 and with genuine hope that the biggest game in their recent history could actually go their way.

The problem with such blind optimism is that often it doesn’t survive first contact with reality.

So it proved on Sunday as a much changed team from their brilliant midweek revenge were burnt to a crisp by the marauding Forest in-front of a distraught and by the end dwindling home support.

The first half wasn’t too awful for the hosts and if they had made it to half time with parity maybe things would have been alright for the home support, but as soon as Igor Jesus scored in the final minute of the first half everyone knew what was coming next… time to go full Spursy!!!

In the second half all the fight they’d shown in the last week, that true Dunkirk spirit they need to get out of their position, deserted them and they just laid down and took the beating that was coming their way.

From hoping that they would be striding clear of the relegation zone to witnessing a performance so disgustingly inept that even Isthmian League teams, the 7th and 8th tier of the pyramid, could have done a better job must have been hellish for any fans who stayed to boo their team off at full-time.

Where their next win comes from is anyone’s guess, but the relegation that now feels inevitable wont hurt as much as Sunday did cause by the time it is confirmed the hope will have faded into the sunset and as any Spurs fan can confirm after this week “It’s The Hope That Kills You”