Today’s tell-all wants you to join it, to form a new kind of government for Britain

With just one day to go before polling begins, the Rumour Mill has finally launched its manifesto, which is critical to persuading a wavering readership that we should remain the go-to source of daily football speculation for discerning football fans, despite our occasional tardiness, that controversial decision to do away with the comments section and an occasional over-reliance on spurious hearsay linking Bordeaux’s Marouane Chamakh with a big-money move to assorted high profile English clubs.

We appreciate that a football transfer rumour column is at its best when the bonds between speculation-purveyor and reader are strong and when the sense of purpose is clear. Today the challenges facing those who round-up and regurgitate the world’s football transfer tittle-tattle five mornings a week are immense. Liverpool are in turmoil, Manchester City’s financial resources are bottomless and Hull City are potless. But these problems can be overcome if we pull together and work together. If we remember that we are all in this together.

Some football transfer news columns say: ‘read us and we’ll reveal that Chelsea are on the verge of sticking it to Manchester City by launching a £70m bid for Liverpool striker Fernando Torres. We say: relations between Torres and Rafael Benitez are at such a low ebb that the only slight chance Liverpool have of holding on to their striker is if their manager leaves, at which point he could be temporarily replaced by a Kenny Dalglish and Ian Rush dream-ticket.

Yes this is ambitious. Yes it is optimistic. But in the end all the talk linking Manchester City striker Valeri Bojinov with a permanent £4m move to Parma after his successful loan spell, 25-year-old Sampdoria striker Giampaolo Pazzini with Arsenal and West Brom midfielder Graham Dorrans with a £5-10m move to West Ham is just that: talk, without you and your involvement.

How will we deal with the debt crisis unless Rafa Benitez brings Ajax’s well-travelled Serbian striker Marko Pantelic to whatever club he’s managing at later this summer? How will we raise responsible children unless Bolton manager Owen Coyle quickly decides whether or not to make on-loan-from-Bordeaux striker Ivan Klasnic a permanent fixture at the Reebok Stadium before his recently relegated French owners Nantes flog him elsewhere? How will we revitalise communities unless people stop asking ‘Is Steve Bruce really prepared to give Wigan Athletic £9m for Chris Kirkland and Maynor Figueroa?’ and start asking ‘Is Ipswich Town captain and midfielder Jon Walters worth the £4m Stoke manager Tony Pulis is ready to pay for him?’ Britain will change for the better when we all elect to take part, to take responsibility – if we all come together. Collective strength will overpower our problems and possibly result in watercooler gossip linking Tottenham outcast Robbie Keane with a move to Everton in exchange for Steven Pienaar.

Only together can we can get rid of this government and ease the passage of 20-year-old Icelandic goal-getting midfielder and dead-ball specialist Gylfi Sigurdsson from Reading to Newcastle United. Only together can we get the economy moving. Only together can we encourage pub chit-chat linking Manchester United with bids for CSKA Moscow midfielder Milos Krasic or Tottenham’s Croatian dynamo Luka Modric. Improve the chances of Benfica winger Angel Di Maria agreeing to move to Real Madrid, leaving Sir Alex Ferguson and Carlo Ancelotti feeling rejected. Mend our broken society. Together we can even convince goalkeeping legend Gianluigi Buffon to move to Arsenal if their move for Joe Hart falls through, because his own club Juventus has failed to qualify for the Champions League. And if we can do that, we can do anything. Yes, together we can do anything.

So the Rumour Mill’s invitation today is this: join us, to form a new kind of government for Britain.

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The prospect of Spurs playing Champions League football next season is beginning to fade. Defeat at Wolves made it one win in six league games for Harry Redknapp’s misfiring team, a run of games during which they have scored only three goals.

A goal from Kevin Doyle gave Wolves an unlikely 1-0 win at White Hart Lane in December, leading the manager Mick McCarthy to theorise before this match, perhaps a touch hopefully, that Spurs might be so intent on revenge it could actually work in the home team’s favour.

A more likely motivation for the visitors must surely have been that their failure to break down Aston Villa last Saturday allowed Liverpool to retake the coveted fourth position, not to mention making it only four wins from 13 matches against sides currently in the top 10.

Not surprisingly, Redknapp chose to shake things up, his five changes including leaving Peter Crouch, Vedran Corluka, Wilson Palacios and Luka Modric on the bench – Ledley King, unable to play two games in a week, was the other absentee – and pairing Jermain Defoe with Eidur Gudjohnsen up front. There was also another chance for David Bentley to impress, although the longer Aaron Lennon’s troublesome groin injury keeps him out, the higher the England winger’s stock rises.

The manner in which Bentley waltzed past Wolves’ left-back Stephen Ward in the opening minute, and was fouled in the process, suggested a productive evening might be ahead for the former England international. Gareth Bale swung the free-kick beyond Marcus Hahenemann’s far post, though, and Wolves began to apply themselves to the task of staying solid while pressurising Spurs into error.

Matt Jarvis saw his shot from a half-cleared corner inadvertently blocked, but Spurs should have opened the scoring when neat touches from Gudjohnsen and then Defoe put Nico Kranjcar clear in the Wolves area. As Hahnemann came out the Croatian shot hard and low, but the American got down quickly enough to divert the ball behind.

For all they were being kept on the back foot, however, when they broke Wolves did so with purpose. Sébastien Bassong’s mistimed attempt to play offside gave David Jones the chance to play Doyle into the Spurs’ penalty area, but coming at the goal from an angle, the former Reading striker delayed his shot sufficiently for Michael Dawson to slide in and block.

The warning went unheeded by the visitors. Two minutes later Jones got the ball 10 yards into the Spurs half, and was given the time to stroke a pass out to Jarvis on the left. Criminally, no Spurs player then bothered to pick up Jones’ run into the penalty area, allowing him to arrive unhindered to meet the subsequent low cross and sweep it first time beyond Heurelho Gomes.

Now Spurs really did have to push forward, and Jarvis in particular continued to benefit. Chasing a long ball, he was unlucky to be denied a penalty for what looked like a push by Dawson.

Redknapp’s half-time reaction was to send on Palacios for Jenas, presumably to stiffen the midfield marking, but while his team looked slightly better balanced as a result, Wolves were looking increasingly comfortable at the back. Crouch replaced Gudjohnsen – having told the manager he would like to move to Lokomotiv Moscow as soon as possible, Roman Pavlychenko remained unused on the bench – but for all Spurs dominated possession, still Hahnemann was relatively untroubled.

Redknapp played his final card, sending on Modric for Kranjcar, but though Wolves began to defend more deeply, they continued for the most part to restrict the visitors to shots from distance, none of which required Hahnemann to save. With five minutes remaining Bentley, running on to a pass from Palacios, did finally put the ball into the net, but he had long since been flagged offside.

Palpably downhearted after Kevin Phillips’ late double saw Birmingham take victory in a match they had deserved to win on Sunday, McCarthy and the Wolves players punched the air in triumph at the final whistle. With Chelsea and Manchester United among their next three opponents, this first win in seven could not have been better timed.

Wolverhampton WanderersTottenham HotspurPremier LeagueRichard Raeguardian.co.uk