Giving his personal account of the week's events, columnist and supporter Giles Smith examines the power of positive thinking, and other emotions besides.

My favourite moment so far in the build-up to the first Capello-era England match (tonight's hellzapoppin', seat-busting, kill-for-a-ticket friendly against Switzerland at Wembley) was when Steven Gerrard came out and reported that his first impressions of the new man in charge were favourable.

'He's definitely a winner,' the Liverpool captain was quoted as saying.

It sent me all the way back to 2006, when a consortium from Dubai was seeking to take over Liverpool and when Steven Gerrard came out and reported that his first impressions of the potential new owners were favourable.

'The future looks bright,' the Liverpool captain was quoted as saying.

Which in turn reminded me of the time a few months later when, the Dubai bid having been cast aside, Liverpool became the plaything of an American franchise-snaffling partnership and when Steven Gerrard came out and reported that his first impressions of the new men at the top were favourable.

'They want what's right for the club,' the Liverpool captain was quoted as saying.

Clearly, if it's a favourable first impression you're after, Stevie G is your man. They should have sent him out to bat for that leg-crossingly bad Ringo single, 'Liverpool 8', currently serving as the theme tune for Liverpool's reign as City of Culture.

'Ringo's got a surefire smash hit on his hands there,' the Liverpool captain could have been quoted as saying.

Positivity, though - we're all for it in this particular section of the Chelsea website. It's the force that powers the world and we don't mind where it comes from or who contributes to it.

It's why we only allowed ourselves to feel funereal for precisely three and a half minutes after the Portsmouth game before snapping to our senses and raising our eyes once more towards the glowing horizon.

Two dropped points from a game in which we were ahead - yes. And the agony was compounded by the knowledge that Manchester United had managed somehow to bundle in a point-saving equaliser in roughly the 14th minute of time-added-on at White Hart Lane.

Well, I say the agony was compounded, but that was an odd moment, wasn't it? Because on the one hand there's nothing much funnier than Tottenham's fireworks getting blown south in a hurricane yet again. But on the other hand, there is nothing more important - both for the developing situation at the top of the league and for the general feeling among people in general that this is, in the end, a good and beneficent universe - than Manchester United losing.

So therefore, when that particular item of news broke, extreme joy and extreme pain collided in the one split second, leaving confusion as the only possible reaction. I have no wisdom to offer that might ease anyone's bewilderment in that situation, I'm afraid. It's just the way it goes sometimes.

Still, over and above all of this, the fact remains: after Portsmouth, we are still plausibly in the fight for the Premier League; still in the Champions League; still in the FA Cup; and still going to Wembley for the Carling. And all this near the end of a phase in which two thirds of the first team were either in Africa or hobbling about in plaster and about which the general critical consensus was that we'd be doing well to keep our heads above Middlesbrough, going into February.

In the context of which, the loss of two points to a strong side, away from home, after nine consecutive victories, ought, surely, to be quite easy to bear. Indeed, perhaps the deepest or most lasting disappointment arising from Saturday was the failure to bring off a tenth successive victory for Avram Grant.

I liked the idea of him achieving something that José Mourinho didn't manage. There are some, even now, for whom that statement will come smouldering off the screen like the blackest of heresies. But cut the man some slack. You take over from the most successful and most adored manager in the club's history and everyone gives you 10 minutes at best.

And there you are in February, coming off the back of a record-equalling win-streak while the squad under your care takes on a depth of both talent and spirit that may actually be unprecedented.

Whisper it, but some of us are even coming to enjoy the absence of daily controversy.