Oh Dear. The Tiny Totts. Blimey. Crystal Palace, who are hardly a team you’d describe as in form, went to the w*nky Tottenham Hotspur and said:

Much obliged.

My brother is a West Ham fan. On my Dad’s side of the family, they are all Hammers. He’s been pretty down of late. But I messaged him when they beat The Scum and said:

The dream scenario. We win the league. Your mob stay up. The Scum go down.

He wasn’t very expectant of that:

I’ll take winning the FA Cup too while we’re at it. But it won’t happen.

I still think Tottenham will, unfortunately, avoid the drop. But it is fun to see them flailing. I also have a Spurs mate I went to school with who, upon them winning the Europa League last season by being the least-sh*t side in the competition, sent me a video of himself swaggering around the Tottenham stadium. That video is being brought out if they go down and we win the league.

But….there is STILL loads of football to play. We can’t count our chickens-on-basketballs just yet. We are in a fabulous position, and we have a little respite from the relentlessness of the Premier League this weekend, but that win at Brighton and the subsequent City draw will have been a huge shot of confidence and adrenaline into the arms of those Arsenal players. Whatever about us playing poorly for the performance, the win and the grind of three points was all that mattered. We leave the bitching and moaning to the pundits, media, and rival fans.

And there’s been a fair bit of it of late. I see Pardew has said this Premier League season will have an ‘asterisk’ next to it because of gamesmanship and time-wasting. But you don’t have to look far to see that it’s a self-fulfilling media narrative that is driving that kind of nonsense statement:

You can put asterisks against any title win if you like:

  • Liverpool 2024/25* = Injuries to rivals and favourable refereeing helped them
  • Man City 2023/24* = 115 Charges
  • Man City 2022/23* = 115 Charges

I mean, I could go on and on with the City charges stuff…

Thankfully, despite some of the hollow and, frankly, factually incorrect nonsense that we have seen from some corners of the online world (here’s another one if you fancy it), we are starting to see some counter-punches being thrown in the media, including this one from Sam Dean in the Telegraph which I quite liked. It’s behind a paywall, but the jist is that we tried playing better football in 2022/23 and we got lambasted for not having the guile or experience of the City side. We are not here to make friends, we have to use this outside noise to create a siege mentality, and we must continue to grind out results between now and May if we want to win this thing. We don’t know whether Everton, in just over a week, will end up being the opposite of what we are feeling right now with our jubilation (remember the 0-0 with Dyche’s Everton last season at The Emirates, anyone?), but as it stands we can be pleased with where the team is at and letr’s keep our feet on the ground and our hopes in the sky.

Arteta will be up in front of the microphones today to talk Mansfield, which I suspect the team will then immediately hop on a coach up to Yorkshire for the game tomorrow lunchtime. It’s a press conference in which I sincerely hope he admits that there will be some players who will just not even be on the coach to head up. The likes of Zubi and Rice I want at home. Maybe Saka, Saliba and Gabriel too, although I suspect you can’t ground too many of your first teamers in case things go a little Pete Tong at Field Mill. It will be a hopefully very well-rotated side, because it’s up against a Mansfield team who currently sit 16th in League One and whose only win in their last 10 games came away at Burnley in the previous round.

I make no excuses for my little knowledge about them, but a quick look at WhoScored can give a wee overview of the type of game we might get. Their strengths are in defending set pieces, which will hopefully be tested tomorrow, whilst their weaknesses show a side that isn’t ball-dominant, isn’t great at aerial duels, and isn’t good at defending against through-balls. They are also described as a ‘non-aggressive’ side, which amuses me when you think about some of the aforementioned characteristics, because we are described as a side who are powerful, strong, a dominating presence, which isn’t too good to watch. Normally, when you think about these kinds of games, you think that a tight ground, lower-league opposition, will make it a tough and physical battle. But the way Mansfield are described by WhoScored, it feels like we’re the ones who might bring more of that to the table tomorrow!

We’ll have to see what Arteta says in his press conference today, but I’m looking forward to seeing what some of the rotated players can do in this one tomorrow, because there are a few players that do need minutes, but we might also get to see the likes of Dowman play too. I’ll do more of an in-depth look at us and what we might do tomorrow as the match preview.

But until then, I shall bid you adieu, and hope you have a fab Friday.

Laters kids.