The Horror!...The Horror!

I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight... razor... and surviving...

Talking on the official site this morning, Lucas Neill is telling any one who will listen that "the season starts now". In that one factually inaccurate but nontheless revelatory statement, we perhaps move one step closer to understanding the Aussie's hitherto perplexing performances over recent months. Still, if Alan Curbishley never bothered to tell him back in August then I don't see why we should be troubled now. "We have got 13 games left, how many can we win, how far can it take us?" ponders Neill. "Let's forget about everything that has happened and hope that we have got an 80 to 90 per cent squad fit to choose from and start the season now. We have to keep a small eye on our rivals Tottenham now who seem to be gaining momentum and seem to be getting things right. They are only five points behind as a result of our last two performances and not picking up enough points. We don't want to drop out of the top ten, that is the first thing."

That said, the emphasis is still on the other end of the table. "We have lost opportunities but there is still the opportunity to strive for fifth or sixth place," he adds. "We have come along way since last year. As exciting as last year was, this year we are winning games for different reasons and we know that teams are going to make it really hard for us. It is a back-handed compliment to us that teams are going to come and try to frustrate and as a result we might not be able to play that freeflowing football we probably haven't played enough of this season. The fans have been fantastic all season and we need them. We ask for them to get behind us even in the frustrating time."

While Lucas squirms in Gregor Samsa like confusion, Kevin Keen is so startingly out of kilter with contemporary thought that one can only imagine at the kurtzian hell in which he resides. Conducting an internal dialogue from the dark psychological jungle, our reserves boss believes that striker Bobby Zamora should be among the likes of Arsenal ace Emmanuel Adebayor and Liverpool star Fernando Torres as one of the leagues most feared strikers. Keen proclaimed: "Bobby is an outstanding athlete. In my opinion he is one of the best forwards in the Premier League when he is fit and I have told him that on many occasions. We have just got to be a bit careful as to when we bring him back. We haven't got a game this weekend and then we play Fulham away but he could be a real diamond to have in the run-in for Curbs and Mervyn. He can really turn games, he can score goals - I don't want to speak too highly of him because he is a big enough character anyway." The horror... the horror!