Of course there are always talking points but more often than not these days, and unfortunately I must say, those talking point seem to revolve around the decisions of the referee rather than the football itself.
Take yesterday's match between table-topping Manchester City and third placed Spurs. A Spurs win would have put them ahead of Manchester United, albeit only until United's later match against Arsenal.
As a Spurs fan I considered that as much as a win for us would have been a great thing, this was a game where we could actually go out and play, and believe it or not, not be under pressure. City had demolished us 5-1 at White Hart Lane on the opening day of the season and whilst Spurs have improved considerably since then, City have hardly stood still, setting new benchmarks for both themselves and the Premier League.
Talk of Spurs winning the title was, I always believed, premature, and whilst it is an admirable ambition to strive to reach the highest you can, we should in no way be disappointed with a 2nd or even 3rd place finish which in itself would be beyond our expectations at the start of the season. The danger is that having tasted the wonderful free-flowing football and the success it has, up until this point, brought us, fans will lose sight of where we started and start to somehow view not winning the title and losing ground to the Manchester clubs as some kind of failure.
As it happened, Spurs narrowly missed out. After a wonderful fightback from 2-0 down a 95th minute penalty gave City the points - final score 3-2.
The talk, however, has been all about Balotelli, the scorer of that penalty, being allowed to remain on the pitch following an apparent stamp on Tottenham's Scott Parker's head.
To be honest, I don't want to go there. I don't like what he did to Parker and don't condone it in the slightest. But neither am I a Tottenham fan looking for an excuse, or a reason to complain. We can always look for "what if's" in matches but the fact remains that King brought Balotelli down, conceded a penalty, and Balotelli still had to score it. It could have been a foul on another striker, and someone else could have scored it, and so on.
And Spurs had a great chance to win it themselves only minutes earlier, with another storming run and low cross by Bale, met by the outstretched foot of Defoe who toe-poked the ball literally inches wide. Lots more what ifs, of course. What if Bale had played the pass a fraction slower, or a foot further behind? What if Defoe hadn't ever so slightly adjusted his run towards the centre of goal but had continued dead straight, so he could connect fully with the ball?
These things can be debated to death but one thing, for me, was beyond argument. Spurs showed some steel to go with their style and their resilience in not only keeping their heads up and coming back from 2-0 down but then not being afraid to take the game to City and press for the winner was a delight to watch.
I, for one, would much rather be focusing on that, than to become embroiled in the whole row about Balotelli's antics. The authorities may or may not deal with him but nothing's going to bring the points back from yesterday and I would always rather to look forwards than back.
City took the points but to win a game with a bundled second goal and a penalty doesn't scream "we're the better team". Spurs fans, myself included, have absolutely nothing to worry about and maybe, just maybe, yesterday's disappointment will serve only to fuel a run of form in the second half of the season as good as, if not better, than the first.
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