Published: 19 December, 2013
by STEVE BARNETT

ON Saturday night Spurs fans danced a twerk and had an extra breezer to celebrate Arsenal’s demise at Manchester City.

By Monday morning, as per blooming usual, their team had managed to upstage their rivals for sheer calamity. 

This was meant to be an up week for “the project” at Spurs, but there he was,  André Villas-Boas, the growler who had boasted of throwing Arsenal into a “negative spiral” earlier this year, heading out of the door. Zapped by Daniel Levy, the project incomplete.

Villas-Boas had become something of a raging bore, of course.

Almost painful to listen to. Like a kid draining a list of reasons for not tidying his room.

His worst offence was blaming it all on the club’s own fans for not singing enough, while at the same time providing them with little to sing about.

At that very moment, it was almost possible to feel sorry for the Spurs fans, parting with their hard-earned readies to be insulted by somebody who insists Nacer Chadli is a good idea.

They deserve better, and the underlying fear must be that they might get it.

Villas-Boas had the highest win ratio of recent managers – the stat used by Spurs fans who thought he deserved more time – but the other managers who’ve been burned were not blessed with last season’s constant saviour, Gareth Bale.

The Tottenham fans who were indifferent to the departure of Bale, the best Spurs player in a generation, get it now.

But the distraction of this annual pantomime should not distract completely from Arsenal’s rough patch.

Nicklas Bendtner could yet prove to be their ghosts of Christmas past, present and future.

Even Tottenham’s insistence on being London’s most laughable, does not solve Arsenal’s own jigsaw.

The wish-list is obvious.

Hurry down the chimney, Santa.

A striker would be more than a treat.