The Warm-Up - MISSING: Jose Mourinho’s bus

Who is this imposter? And what has he done with the real Jose Mourinho?

As a banner of Mauricio Pochettino loomed menacingly over the Portuguese gaffer, a budget Christ the Redeemer casting judgement, there were serious concerns the infamous third-season syndrome was being induced spectacularly prematurely. Spurs were two down, playing abysmally and staring Thursday night football in the face.

With just 29 minutes on the clock, Mourinho turned to summon the Antichrist, Christian Eriksen. Spurs’ hopes now rested on the disinterested Dane, a man only spared from being the most hated in north London due to Unai Emery holding office and the imminent election. A disaster beckoned.

But then something strange happened – Mourinho’s team started to play. After a fortuitous air kick invited Spurs to halve the arrears, Eriksen began to run the show. An enthralling end-to-end game broke out, the drama refusing to dissipate when Spurs drew level despite only needing a point. 3-2. Then 4-2. It should have been more.

Where was Mourinho’s bus? The anti-football? Son Heung-min at left-back? This wasn’t in the (‘did you know we have an upcoming Amazon Prime show’) script.

Anyway, two games dusted. Seven goals for, four against. Sure, it’s only West Ham and Olympiacos and greater tests will come. There will still be a chance to destroy Harry Kane, to bully Ryan Sessegnon out of the sport entirely, to sign Nemanja Matic on a short-term deal. But until then, maybe, just maybe, we can accept Mourinho isn’t finished just yet…

VAR: helping referees escape stadiums alive since 2018.

What do you do if you have second thoughts after awarding a penalty against Real Madrid, sending off their goalkeeper for good measure, at the Bernabeu?

Simple: just rewind the match footage until you can find the smallest of infringements, wipe out everything that occurred after that point and pretend football still has a crumb of credibility.

By this absurd logic, you could chalk off every goal except those scored direct from the first kick-off. The application of VAR is a complete farce, but even worse is the (currently unidentified) BT Sport co-commentator declaring: "You have to agree they’ve come to the right conclusion."

Behave.

It’s the player you want your club to sign despite only seeing a 10-minute goal and assist compilation of him on YouTube (which he does look excellent in, to be fair)

Sadly though, Bruno Fernandes has signed a new deal with Sporting Lisbon.

But don’t despair! Turns out his buyout clause has remained at 100m euros, ensuring he will attract ALL the media coverage in the January transfer window and, potentially, end up at your favourite club after all…

Get Tottenham’s ball boy into your fantasy team ASAP.

The awkward moment when you’re sent off because the corner flag is a wimp.

Stop reading this nonsense article and get the below video in your life ASAP – an absolute epic charting the emotions of Flamengo fans during the extraordinary Copa Libertadores final.

It’s another pompous ‘Team of the Decade’ article courtesy of… just kidding, here’s a glorious cartoon from The Guardian’s David Squires on Jose Mourinho featuring some genius Spurs-inspired spoof bands.

Quit spending the day in regret after missing the deadline to register to vote and wile away the hours with Chelsea’s trip to Valencia (17:55 GMT), Liverpool’s home clash with Napoli and Barcelona’s match with Borussia Dortmund (both 20:00 GMT).