So I'm not able to get back for the game tonight and our friends at Teleclub have deemed it perfectly acceptable that they show Hull v Chelsea tonight (despite 14 sport channels) along with a variety of Bundesliga games so it's the dodgy internet feed or a trip into town to watch Sky Sports. Typically this week has seen the arrival of the wettest weather for ages so it won't be a pleasant trip!

However, watching the derby at the ground is so much easier than on TV, I get 20 times more nervous watching the game on Sky compared to being there. There's no real rational reason for that other than the 4 or 5 beers in the pub before the game that we usually have! Having said that and considering the recent events at Premier League games this season I wonder of the 8.00pm KO could lead to more trouble than normal (though the last two seasons' Carling Cup games passed off with no real problem). Spurs fans don't need much to feel the world is all about to change for the better and despite being bottom the arrival of Sir 'Arry of Redknapp seems to have inspired more rabid delusions of the Spurs revival. I think Arsene has it right with his comments in that the new manager can't do much before the January window (interesting to see the LMA asking for a transfer window for managers too) but he can lift the players (as he seemed to on Sunday) and it's up to our own players to perform well and get the Spurs' players feeling that low confidence again...

I've never been confident of beating bottom of the table teams even if, over the last few years, we have generally managed to win the majority of such games easily (remember Derby last year - we even managed to make them look good for a half at their place before Adebayor came on). I think this stems from the season Stoke City were last in the top division, 1985, and they finished rock bottom. We played them near the end of the season (when they had all but been relegated) and they beat us 2-0 in a year when they only won 6 games all season. For some reason that season has always stuck in the memory and even when we've had some of our best sides under Arsene Wenger it's never gone away.

This irrational fear is increased exponentially when it just so happens that the team at the bottom of the table is our local neighbours and they've just got a new manager. Any slight rational argument fails with me at this point as I remember times in the 80s when we approached the derby as the underdogs and we always seemed to play better on the day (it meant so much more to us) and we managed some great victories (1985 (A) was a favourite when Roberts missed a penalty for them). Despite their position their players know how much this one game can save their season in the eyes of their supporters. If you add the new manager effect and, this is the really intangible one as sometimes it can be one game and then back to the same old rubbish, I'm approaching paranoid fear about tomorrow night. Part of that fear is the absolutly awful feeling of losing to them (thankfully fairly rare but by that argument also more painful) and I know many supporters (especially more recent ones) seem to hate losing to Man Utd more than Spurs but, for me, it's this game that hurts most if we lose.

So I've a need to try and put my optimistic hat on assume our players will want this (Van Persie seems to know it matters) more than they do, that Gomez will continue to whack his own defenders and Adebayor continues his goalscoring run against them.

As the game is not on Teleclub over here (we get Hull v Chelsea and all the midweek Bundesliga games instead) I'll hope to see one of these on MOTD:

Yep it's just two week sbefore the start of the new football season in England, despite what you might think with 100s of Intertoto / Uefa Cup or Champions League Qualifiers plus the obligatory friendlies and pre season tournaments. Do we actually know anything now that will give us a clue to teh upcoming season?

I know, for example, that unsurprisingly the world of football is surrounded in its own hypocritical goldfish bowl that seems to allow everyone to act one way one day and then complain the next day when someone does it to them. Today's examples are Spurs and the way they see the acquisition of Ramos as different from Liverpool's "stealing" of Robbie Keane or maybe Adebayor and his new found love of his beloved Arsenal.  Toss in the words of Sepp Blatter or Alex Ferguson orpretty much any other "name" in football and they all do it all the time - strangely the one who hasn't (YET!) has been old hard case Roy Keane - surely just a metter of time in the universe that is football.

Looking across L'Equipe this morning, the key reported stories are "Gallas keeps his armband" and "Merci Monsieur" - A big thank you following the retirement of Lilian Thuram, one of the few footballers who realise there is a bigger and more important world beyond the corridors of football.Arsene Wenger expressed his sadness at the man's need to retire due to heart problems.