Well that wasn't how I expected things to pan out

War cry back in your box. We've got the hiccups again, although by all accounts the performance illustrated that lady luck will look the other way if there isn't a world class forward up top to serenade her. Didn't peel the tangerines. Got three chucked hard and painfully to our mid drift.

How many clear cut chances did we have? A lot. Lack of defending and naivety in pushing up in numbers (come on Spurs, we know we're more than capable of being patient and mature) allowed for the sucker punches that ended any possibility of a win whilst a reconstruction of the Alamo played out the other end. So I'm told, via text messages and a brief phone call.

I was (yesterday late afternoon/all evening/all night) experiencing my own misery, on my death bed with a virus so potent, you could have stuck it in Lilywhite in a forward position and watched the opposition tremble with the runs. On my death bed indeed. Should have known something was wrong when I woke up to find Harry Redknapp alongside me.

Gone a bit pear-shaped

I guess I need to admit defeat. The only way is the hard way is the Tottenham way. To think we can make it easier for ourselves was/is an incorrect assumption that simply can not co-exist in this particular universe. We function best when obstacles (self-made usually) remain directly ahead of us. When a miracle is required.

We've had a great set of results, and it's come to an abrupt end. It wont matter if we bounce back in the next game. We're likely to go on another run. At least, you hope we will. That's what happened after the Everton loss. Another defeat (following a defeat) and it suddenly all becomes that much harder. At some point it will be a loss too many. But something tells me we'll be fine.

Faith. Doesn't tend to disappoint. Our players on the other hand. But hey, just a bad day at the office, right? Right?

So, over to you now. This is a DIY match report. It will be easy to knee-jerk so I'm hoping you won't. But then I'm sure some of you will. Looking forward to reading your write-ups, player ratings and conclusions when I next get out of bed.