ARSENAL
I LOVE Martin Jol – and Martin Jol loves me.

It sounds silly, doesn’t it? Yeah it does, it really really does.

Bizarrely it’s what Spurs fans used to recite to themselves about their then manager in some weird cultish way.

By the way, I like Martin Jol for his Sean Connery “we got the win mish Moneypenny” voice. But not love. With the Spurs fans, it was all so odd. I love Martin Jol, and Martin Jol loves me, I love Martin Jol and Martin Jol loves me… over and over again. There were placards in the stadium: I love Martin Jol and Martin Jol loves me. On and on went the recitals.

The incessant, unexplained repetition was like the kind of thing actors playing frenzied stalkers do in films.

I LOVE MARTIN JOL AND MARTIN JOL LOVES ME.

NO HE DOESN’T, BILLY ZANE, NOW STAY AWAY FROM THAT HARPOON GUN THING.

I loooove Maaartin Jol and Maaartin Jol loooves me.

No he doesn’t, Jack Nicholson, stop being creepy – this is the Premier League, not The Shining.

On and on. Google it and you’ll find a daft Martin Jol YouTube song and messageboards with entries that read: “My only regret in life is that Martin Jol is not my uncle.”

Let’s say Jol loved a few of the people who said it – give them that. But without even a cursory meeting with some of the others who said it, my hunch is that the thump of love was missing from his beating Martin Jol heart.

Had he really loved them like they said, would he have handed them the almighty end-of-season fishwobbles by beating them with his Fulham team?
RICHARD OSLEY

SPURS
Cancel that night class, call in the babysitters and finish work early, because Thursday nights are the real European football nights. Don‘t believe anyone who tells you any different.

NO one likes a clever clogs but, as you can see from the wise words I used to sign off my Crow last September, that’s what I am.

Champions League? Forget that. Like I said all those months ago without the slightest hint of irony, Thursday nights are the real European nights and last week Tottenham gave us a night to remember.

Sure it wasn’t the “almost perfect” game that ‘Dave’ Giroud reckoned his nine-day holiday Arsenal chums had played against cup final losers Bayern Munich the night before (congratulations on your performance ‘Dave’, just remind me, when’s your next Champions League game again?).

No, Spurs against Inter was scrappy and scary and we almost messed it up à la Arsenal at Fourth Division Bradford City and Second Division Blackburn. But perfection can be hard to find when you’re playing your fourth game in 12 days, you’ve had to fly to Italy to do it and your players have to endure disgusting racist abuse when they get there. So well done Spurs, we’ll continue to cancel our night classes, call in our babysitters and pack in work early because we’re through to the quarters, along with a couple of other English teams whose names I can’t remember.

And perfect Arsenal? They are… hoping for another nine-day holiday because it might be the only way they’ll get to play in the Champions League again.
CATHERINE ETOE