Go on, admit it, the nerves are a little bit jangled and the trousers are a little bit brown going into this one.  What if it happens again?  Well I might cry if it does, but 500-1 at the bookies and the dearth of wins and goals from both sides in recent weeks suggests not.  Not that any of that means Latics will get anything out of the game, just that it’s not likely to be another 9-1 thrashing, they don’t come along every week.

That 9-1 of course has proved the stopping off point for Latics’ season.  Like, seemingly, every other game since it was one of two halves.  For the first half we did well, were in the game and then, well we all know what happened.  Not stringing two halves together and collapsing, if we could fix either one of those then we wouldn’t be worrying right now would we?

But as I said earlier in the week, I’ve give up worrying; it’s just not worth the hassle.  I’m going to go into each game with a smile on my face and I’ll see what I come out with.  I’m fed up with other people ruining my weekend and it’s about time that we got back some of that childhood naivety that got us here in the first place.  I might never be able to con myself that Latics are the greatest team in the world ever again, but surely I can manage an “of course we can beat Spurs”.

And, yes of course we can.  A side that can beat Aston Villa and Chelsea should be able to beat anyone on their day.  And victories away at Burnley and Wolves show that we aren’t complete mugs.  Yes, Latics aren’t in the best of form but neither are there visitors.  Yes Spurs have more dangerous players than us, but we’ve got so many players who’ve not had their day for so long that surely one of them is going to hit a bit of luck soon?

Oh, and we’ve got Charles N’Zogbia, if only we remember to pass to him.

Ah, passing, do remember that?  “Not on this pitch sonny Jim!”  But of course the pitch is an advantage to Latics, with their 5 foot-odd strike force and no way helps Spurs with their freakish giant of an England forward.  I don’t know really, you can’t see it helping Lennon skip past the left back or Defoe time his shots, but it’s hard to see how it helps us either, maybe we should just go with the mud being a great leveller.

My prediction for this game (if it’s worth anything) is for a similar game to Wednesday, a grind of a game, typified by mistakes with neither side wanting to end up with egg on their faces.  Early goals would settle things both in terms of nerves and result but… but… well there is no but, it feels like there should be, but there isn’t.  If Latics get an early goal, and they’re capable of that then the outlook is reasonably rosy, if Spurs get one then it’ll be a case of hanging on in there.

But that’s not the thought for today, this is: 

When I was a kid, I used to turn up to the game thinking we were going to win and if we went behind, it didn’t matter because it only takes a second to score a goal, and anyway 2-0 is the most dangerous lead and if it stayed like that, then well, if this had happened or that had happened, if the referee had given this, or not given that, we might have won.

It’s called blind faith, if you want rocket science then go to NASA, we’re football fans and what else do we have if we don’t have blind faith?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og1HAkjOuL0&hl=en_GB&fs=1&]

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