Blimey. Some of the rubbish I have had to listen to since the final whistle blew yesterday afternoon. You would never know that we had in the main, put out a very credible performance against a Champion's League side that currently sit fifth in the Premiership with very nearly twice as many points as us.

There are some of you out there who say you support this side, but don't outwardly exhibit any qualities I would associate with support. Now, if you told me you were a season ticket holder at Nitpickers United - I'd buy that.

I'm not advocating a Happy Clappers Club, just lose the clever dick/ know it all routine. Opinion is great. But I don't know of an other club where every ball is analysed, every pass scored out of ten. Frankly, your forensic sniping depresses me more than any shortfalls I might witness on the grass. 

Oh yeah, just in case I've got any readers left, the Adebayor song. The fact that some of you make my stadium echo with it makes me want to self harm. A finer example of cowardly racism I cannot recall.

Cudicini 7 Assured.

Corluka 6.5 Off colour.

Dawson 7.5 Awesome again.

Woodgate 7.5 Imposing.

Chimbonda 5 Like Baldric counting beans. Added nothing.

Assou Ekotto 7 Good, but not at his best.

Lennon 6.5 Like a postman on a Sunday. No delivery.

Palacios 9 Won the ball and really wore the shirt. MOTM.

Jenas 6.5 Usual fare, some good work, some bad. The good just outweighed the bad. Just.

Taarabt 6.5 I like desire and so score it highly. He needs to start a game soon.

Modric 7 A pleasure. Perhaps needs to get in the gym and muscle up a tad?

Keane 6.5 Went beserk in the first half, went missing in the second. Is he fit?

Pavlyunchenko 6.75 Out of sorts.

Bent 5 Made Pav look like a threat.

HH is indeedy the the gift that keeps on giving.

Like h*rpes? Please, that's a cheap jibe.

You know the drill by now. Snappy. Ridiculous. Brash. Borderline funny. This, I believe, may well prove to provide you 'orrible lot with more ammo than the pic of Dame Commoli with her thumb in the air. I said air, not heir. Ooh missus.

HH: We're adding a little something to this month's caption contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? 

HH: Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired.

 Courtesy of unclerico1979

 I remember those cheers. They still ring in my ears

After years, they remain in my thoughts. 

Go to one night I took off my robe, and what'd I do? I forgot to wear shorts.

I recall every fall every hook, every jab

The worst way a guy can get rid of his flab.

As you know, my life wasn't drab.

Though I'd much... Though I'd rather hear you cheer

When you delve... Though I'd rather hear you cheer

When I delve into Shakespeare

"A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse", I haven't had a winner in six months.

And though I'm no Olivier If he fought Sugar Ray

He would say

That the thing ain't the ring, it's the play.

So give me a... stage

Where this bull here can rage 

And though I could fight I'd much rather recite

... that's entertainment.

Arsenal indoors then. This will be a genuinely fascinating game.

Keane's come out and said he couldda been a contender at Anfield. "I've never been left out of a squad in my career and to be left out is difficult,"

Well, there will be few better chances that the NLD for him to reply to all and sundry. 

This will also be Arry's opportunity to prove that he does know what he's doing and has put some guts back into this team.

The manager of the opposition team is apparently still deciding if he will play new signing, Andy  Smoothbum. Apparently the player has not played a game since the end of November and has only had ten days preparation prior to this match.

Without tempting providence, their real problems lie further up the field and it's really a question of who will they look to for goals. My hope is the only ones they see are on the Jumbotron courtesy of our own Russian. As in conversation with OleOle's Arseblogger earlier in the week, my hopes are pinned upon Keane developing a relationship as profitable as the one he struck with the rat faced Bulgarian who used to play for us.

My prediction is a 3-1( at around 100/1) to the Tottinghams. Two Pav goals in there would be nice.

There is undoubtedly a divide in the camp. Rightly so. Hell hath no fury like a Yiddo scorned. Ask Citizen Campbell's legal team, Barrymore, Barrymore, Grayson & Sons.

But where we are, my friends of the finest feather-age, is a place called Gointawar.  Turn left at Hadenough, second star on the right and straight on 'til morning.

Some of you belligerent schmucks wish Keane a career ending injury next time he plays. What can I say other than  - let's be men and chuffing well stick to the code [not so much code, as guidelines] which if you recall, state categorically that no player is bigger than the Club.

Look, I got so annoyed with the tink that I ran (courtesy of PLN) an unpixelated pic of him in his Range Rover.

Keane, for all his treacherous unpleasantness's didn't have to come back. It wasn't like he either a) needed the money or more obviously, b) couldn't get a gig anywhere else.

'I've been weighing up all your possible escape routes and returning to the bear pit looks favourite, Dougal.'

'Ahhh, c'mon Ted, seriously now.'  

Some no mark came on here recently and referred to my support of Keane as some call to arms jingoistic frontier-ism ....or similar. Bless her. And there endeth the blessings.

Well, you can imagine, can't you?

Some of us might not be winning any beauty contests anytime soon, but who would be happy if they looked like him. It's not the aesthetic as such, rather the connotation, you know...

That would put the tin lid on it for me.

May I then introduce... Lucy Smith. The tale of woe is here... CLICKTASTIC

HH coming in your ears.... HERE

Well done Arry. Keane may have been discreetly smuggled in and out of Anfield, but not The Lane. PSB's appointment as captain is the most sensible thing I've heard in a long time.

"He can give an awful lot. He is a big personality and we are a quiet team. If Robbie has something to say, he is going to say it. He is a leader and has the personality to be a captain of Tottenham." said Redschnapps. What he failed to add is that Bob will also be ...on the pitch.

Can anyone explain to me what this business of Ledders' role as Club Captain is all about? Presenting big cardboard cheques to charities? Opening sports centres?

The sooner we bit the bullet on King the better it would be for all of us. We appear to have taken the first tentative nibble at long last, anyway.

We have sailed rudderless for a dog's age. The idea that some how this talismanic figure was having some effect from the third row of the dugout was embarrassing.

""I just felt with Robbie coming in, a fresh face, there would be a new impetus with him as captain." Translated, Arry couldn't make any sense of this King nonsense either.

There will be any number of wry smiles as the pointing and the shouting begins in earnest. But by Christ we need something. Keane has much to prove. And the rest of them need a leader - amongst other things.

Levy's played a blinder.

This window was always going to be horrible for a number of reasons. Spurs approached it from a position of weakness. The winter's fare is invariably less appetising than the summer's for starters. Plus the enormity of the task.

The team that won the Carling Cup was forcibly dismantled and it's ruins left languishing in and out of the drop zone.

Arry Redschnapp's appointment from The Master Guild Of Miracle Workers was heralded as a triumph. Well up until the point he revealed half our squad were a bunch of workshy, big girl's blouses.

How the hottest players in the world must have been queuing up to play for us.

What Levy has done is back Arry and funded the repair job. I say again, Levy's played a blinder. 'But he got us in this mess - he's only in it for the money!' Put down your lit torch, angry mob member and try embracing some actual facts.

Berbatov went on strike. Refused to play. A short while later, PSB poked his head out of his caravan window and announced, 'I've always been a Bindipper in me heart and all, roight'. How do you legislate for that?

What was Levy to do? You can't make them play. The suggestion that you  somehow Court Marshall players and put them in the reserves/under house arrest doesn't actually stack up in the real world.

Under siege from Sir Alex Of Tapup and some Car Coat in a sombrero shouting, 'I am job!' he netted several carrier bags full of used notes. There's no doubting we got 'interfered' with, but at a fierce financial cost to those responsible.

The Friends Reunited approach is easy to mock. The unprecedented often is. I can't hear a word you're saying anyway. The sound of a barrel being scraped is still ringing in my ears. Bellamy, Jones, Owen, Cole, Heskey....

Then there is the argument that Defoe and Keane can't play together. My reply to that is why need they? The issue of games where players are cup tied, the existence of Pav and Bent not to mention loss of form or juries will balance out what you want to masquerade as insummountable difficulties.

The last plea of those wanting to feel shortchanged is, why we didn't but Smoothbum instead?

NEWSFLASH. He didn't want to come. Players are people, not pieces of livestock.

In my comedy dealings with ZSP's director and Vlad the Rent An Agent in the summer it was clear that Tottenham were not favoured. What was the quote? (They thought I was Arry when he was still at Pompey.) 'If you see Andrei in a Tottenham shirt - I will eat it'. Players are people, not pieces of livestock.

Keane's return could be a revelation. His influence on the dressing room will be just what the Blogger ordered. No more of this farcical pass the captain's armband nonsense. Yes, he irritates on occasion. We all do. Don't you?

PSB has much egg on his face. He owes us and he knows it. His apology didn't cut it at all with me. But then words - especially his - aren't worth a w*nk with me. He knows what has to be done. Fight and win. That's his job.

Ours is to support.

www.studs-up.com

...specifically aimed at Sky Sports News.

This is Holly House where you stood in near Artic conditions for hours on end today, waiting for Robbie Keane.