Something for the weekend sir?

If your barber whispers those words, be careful, because based on the rest of this nightmare weekend, it will have a bloody great hole in it! Spurs beat Chelsea and move to within three points of us (how big a head start do we need to be sure of finishing above the Cockyfools?), Wigan beat Hull with a late goal and move above us into seventh, City look like pulling closer with a victory over Blunderland and, worst of all, Fulham beat United, close up to a point behind us, and give Liverpool and Chelsea extra incentive to pull off a result at Upton Park.

I am not too fussed about qualifying for Europe personally (the competition is absurd already and becomes even more stupid next season) but I do want to see some progress on last year and, if we are not careful, we could find ourselves back in tenth before the season ends. That really would be galling if only because Turds could smugly point to the fact that the club had "stagnated" since his departure.

Of course, Zola can only influence our own results but, as they say, over a full season, your position in the table does not lie. Back in October I predicted Tottenham would finish above us and I fear that will happen. They are on a roll and with Keane back and firing, they are a match for anybody. In fact, but for that terrible start, they would be in contention for a Champions League place. Personally, I'm in favour of West Ham building a statue of Oneday Ramos because without his contribution, Tottenham would definitely be back in Europe next season!

Let's hope the return of Dyer and Cole will see us banging in the goals again. It is a sobering thought that under boring boring Curbishley we scored 42 goals last season, whereas so far this season we have managed just 35, 8 of which were scored BEFORE Zola became manager. That gives Zola a return of just 27 goals from 26 league games, or one a game, less than we managed under Turds. Stats don't lie and for all our pretty approach play, our "goals for" tally is woeful.

Some will stupidly blame Cole for that or point the finger at Di Michele, but the strikers can only score if the team creates chances - and how many openings did we create against West Brom and Blackburn? Dyer may be part of the solution, as may be the return of Collison but to score more, we need to commit more players forward. Clarke is a cleverer version of Curbishley, a member of the safety first, "one point is better than none, if the opposition don't score we can't lose" school of tactics. I would like to see the shackles off at some point soon. Let's trade blows and see if we can score more than the opposition. I would take tenth with free flowing football over 7th secured by circling the wagons and parking the caravan.

Come on Zola, rev up the Ferrari and tell Clarke to leave the brown Volvo in the garage!