Tottenham 1 Crystal Palace 0 - 20th Aug 2016

It was such a long-drawn out game that I begun half watching it while I took more interest in an emerging dialogue on beBee with fellow bee Pamela Williams.  Just as I was concluding a comment finally Spurs scored - mercifully I had not been witness to what would otherwise be a painful 0-0 draw, in a game Spurs should have won hands-down, even with blindfolds on.

Having already seen both Manchester clubs start the season in first gear, what I was watching was the re-establishment of the gulf in class between the Mancunians and the less victorious half of North London.  It is on days like this I think of that year 1968 and that fateful moment in a school playground, that I as a 7 year old was asked to pick a side.  The boy said "which team do you belong to?".  "Dunno" I replied.  He retorted you can either be on the red side or the blue side?", and then the words that sealed my fate as a lifetime Tottenham supporter came out "Blue side, I guess".  There were only two teams in our West London school at that time, the reds of Manchester United and the blue of Tottenham Hotspurs.  I had chosen the blue pill.

a month of Sundays. 

That there was a goal was more the gift of poor marking from Palace and also the removal of a key Palace defender he left the field with an injury.   Harry Kane lobbed the ball aimlessly which found the head of Victor Vanyama, who had an easy tap in from close to the goal-line.  That goal will further cement Vanyama in the Tottenham team, even though he still has a long way to go before he fits with the Spurs system, that on its best days last season did look like the real thing.  It didn't look anything close to the real thing today.

No wonder the movie the Matrix described taking the blue pill as a slip into fantasy.  The fantasy for Spurs fans is that Mauricio Pochettino is building a title winning team.  With Chelsea scraping wins despite two comebacks where its goalscorer should have been sent off well before he scored in both games, Spurs know that there are 3 teams that traditionally sit in the Top 4 of the division, and also know that in the last 20+ seasons Arsene Wenger of Arsenal has never finished below them.  So what chances of a Top 4 finish this year?

That will all depend on the next couple of players that Pochettino buys before the transfer window closes in 2 weeks time.  It better be the right two players, otherwise that blue pill will maintain its efficacy and Spurs will continue their annual tradition of serving long-suffering Tottenham fans.  Surely 55 years is a long-time for the blue pill to keep on working.

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