This is it. Time to put your money where your mouth is, lads.
You spent the last two weeks telling all and sundry you were better than Arsenal, that you had moved above them.
Spurs being Spurs, the world and their dogs expected an epic, slow-motion collapse against West Ham to follow. Under Upton Park lights, bubbles streaming merrily into the air, Bobby Moore's memories lighting up the stands, white-clad defenders making mistake after mistake, losing a lead and then going 2-1 down.....
But it didn't happen. The inevitable bottling was no where to be seen, come full time.
Somehow, you pulled it out of the fire. In a cauldron of ferocious intensity, you managed to leave everyone of a Tottenham disposition astounded. You showed mental strength, resilience, courage, and an unbreakable team spirit. You mobbed the manager that was so brutally castigated by everyone in England last season, and you rammed the gloating sneers of thirty thousand bitter Spammers back down their voiceless throats. You showed, for perhaps the first time, that you really, really believed what you said.
Well, time's come to prove it. To put names to faces, to stare into the eyes of your enemies, to march out under the orange rays of a setting sun with thirty-odd thousand bellowing you on. This weekend, the time has come to prove you are not the Tottenham of old, and to tear back the pride that was lost last season from your counter-parts across the road.
This is the time, lads. We believe. And for GHod's sake, let's hope you do too.
3-1 Spurs, Bale with the first, then Cazorla with the equaliser, followed by another Bale breakaway goal and then a beautiful, cushioned cross rammed home by a leaping Daniel Levy in front of a delirious home crowd. Still in his suit and tie, no less.
