At what point is it OK to want your team to lose? Well, at no point, they’re your team, you shouldn’t ever want them to lose, right? Wrong. Sorry.

To an impartial observer, the race for Europe might look to be ‘hotting up’ with four teams chasing fourth place and a spot in the Champions League qualifying round.

Manchester United are current occupants and have to be favourites, eight points ahead of Southampton in seventh but there is also the consolation ‘prize’ of at least two, if not three places in the Europa League to be settled, if Arsenal beat Villa in the FA Cup final.

Now I love a nice European away trip with my team Tottenham, don’t get me wrong but I’ve had enough. I want to get off the hamster wheel. If we can’t get into the Champions League, then I’d rather not be in Europe at all.

My view is not universally popular among Spurs fans but there are plenty of them and Liverpool fans to boot, who will know exactly what I mean.

There is no one specific reason why I don’t want to be in the Europa League next season, it’s not the ‘Thursday night - Channel 5’ abuse, or the Sunday afternoon schleps to London, it’s not even the additional workload on a thin squad or the prospect of trips to remote Moldovan outposts that puts me off.

They are all contributory factors but my overwhelming feeling is that a Europa campaign hampers your chances in the Premier League.

Liverpool last season had no Europe, kept their best players fit almost the entire season and almost won the title. That is not a coincidence.

Last summer I assured a Reds-supporting colleague they had no chance of getting back into Europe’s elite this year, not with the additional demands on the squad of competing in the Champions League and... inevitably... the Europa when they got knocked out early. Seems I was right.

Remember when you were a kid and you were told you could take whatever you liked from a sweety jar but could only pick once?

If you tried to grab a handful, then your fist was too big to pull back out and you had to drop all the sweets, leaving you with nothing.

See where I’m going? I want my team to use a thumb and forefinger and try to, if not win the league, then make sure we get into the top-four.

When you’re half-heartedly competing on two, three or four fronts, like Spurs were until the end of February, then you end up going through the motions in the final six or eight weeks of the season, letting the chance of a top-four place slip by.

So here’s hoping Southampton and Swansea can raise their game in the final three weeks – I’d bite your hand off for eighth.

Did you know that since Arsene Wenger took over at Arsenal, they have never finished below Tottenham? The only team in the country not to have fallen foul of that ignominy in that time.

If you had bet me £20 in 1995 that Arsenal would finish above Spurs that season and we did double or quits each season from then on, I would now owe you £10,485,760. Nearly enough to get a season ticket at the Emirates.