Some stats from this season

therecklessone

Bottom six of the PL as of noon today are:

Blackburn
Birmingham
Blackpool
Wigan
Wolves
West Ham

With West Ham at the bottom of the table.

The top 6:

Man Utd - 73pts
Chelsea - 70pts
Arsenal - 64pts
Man City - 59pts
Spurs - 55pts
Liverpool - 52pts

Each of top 6 sides have achieved the following points vs the bottom six:

Man Utd 25pts from 10 games (31 possible)
Chelsea 30pts from 12 games
Arsenal 32pts from 12 games
Man City 24pts from 11 games (27 possible)
Spurs 13pts from 10 games (19 possible)
Liverpool 15pts from 12 games

Some context:

If we matched Man City's performance vs the bottom 6 we would be 4pts clear of them now with both sides still to play one more game.
If we matched Man Utd's performance we would have 67pts and be sitting in 3rd place 6pts behind the leaders.

It is our failure to beat these teams that has cost us a chance of CL football again.

everdead.ie

therecklessone wrote: »

Bottom six of the PL as of noon today are:

Blackburn
Birmingham
Blackpool
Wigan
Wolves
West Ham

With West Ham at the bottom of the table.

The top 6:

Man Utd - 73pts
Chelsea - 70pts
Arsenal - 64pts
Man City - 59pts
Spurs - 55pts
Liverpool - 52pts

Each of top 6 sides have achieved the following points vs the bottom six:

Man Utd 25pts from 10 games (31 possible)
Chelsea 30pts from 12 games
Arsenal 32pts from 12 games
Man City 24pts from 11 games (27 possible)
Spurs 13pts from 10 games (19 possible)
Liverpool 15pts from 12 games

Some context:

If we matched Man City's performance vs the bottom 6 we would be 4pts clear of them now with both sides still to play one more game.
If we matched Man Utd's performance we would have 67pts and be sitting in 3rd place 6pts behind the leaders.

It is our failure to beat these teams that has cost us a chance of CL football again.

Ya I don't know what's wrong with uswe draw almost every match against them ?

therecklessone

everdead.ie wrote: »

Ya I don't know what's wrong with uswe draw almost every match against them ?

Tactical naivety and a lack of bottle.

yiddo59

therecklessone wrote: »

Tactical naivety and a lack of bottle.

throw in non scoring forwards and a dodgy keeper to complete the toxic mix!

Hatch99

therecklessone wrote: »

Tactical naivety

Nail on the head.

everdead.ie

There were just so many games this year we drew it's ridiculous a more consistent striker and we'd be so much better off.

spursman11

really messed up not signinga striker this January,has definitely cost us CL place as well as Gomes

Dublin Spur

toothless up front

Wendell Gee

It's been frustrating. Not wanting to make excuses, but one of the problems has been the lack of a settled team, or more crucially, the loss of players in peak form. Lennon's loss was serious, he was at the heart of digging out late wins vs Liverpool, Sunderland, and the draw at Newcastle. Kaboul was flying when we lost him, ditto Huddlestone. Van Der Vaart has not been really fit all season.
Bale has not been the same since he came back.
In addition, Kranjcar came in, did a great job, scoring 2 winning goals, and was benched again. Jeans was outstanding against Arsenal, but didn't play enough and lost his sharpness. Palacios was improving when he got injured. Hutton had settled in and we lost him.
The greatest quality of a Ferguson or Mourinho is being able to mix up team selection, but all the time bringing in players with the right mental and physical sharpness to deliver results.
A classic case is Huddlestone. He was played in the 2nd Madrid game, I think, to get game time before Arsenal and WBA. I know he scored the goal against Arsenal, but he was poor, and we were porous. Sandro should have played.
Our forwards have been poor. In so many games, right back to the opening day, when we played Citeh off the park, we have created enough chances to win 5 games, and not won- Blackpool away, Hammers at home, Man Yoo and Chelsea at home, and so on.
The biggest decision is who to play with Dawson. Gallas has done a good job, but we are vulnerable at set pieces and on the break. We need someone with real pace to play beside the yorkshire Yeoman. I don't know who, but I can see why Harry was sniffing around Rio- we have our Vidic.
I don't want to sound like Wenger, but our football has been better than our results. The really annoying thing is that around Christmas we didn't play that well, but dug out a succession of gutsy wins, with a lot of late goals.
There's lots of fight in the squad- we have gained a pile of points from losing positions. But we are very slow starters, and have not turned up for the first 20 mins far too often.

golfball37

Lack of akiller instict is whats wrong with this bunch, how many games have we won by 2 goas or more this season, was it before xmas even since we won a league game by this margin?

Smae old Spurs, pretty and tippy tappy but still lacking that dog attitude to crucify an opponent.

Since December we have won 2 games of significance, away to Milan has papered over a lot of cracks. An awful lot.

Harry is constantly talking about where we were and how little he has spent and that we are doing fantastic. TBH that attitude permeates through to the players who then don't have to develop the killer insticnt needed as what they are doing is deemed enough by the manin charge.

If I were in charge [ie Levy] I would expect that squad of players to be challenging for the title with 2 additions next season. Nobody has a stronger subs bench in the EPL than Tottenham.

Time we took the head out of the sand and started to ask some searching questions as to how we can raise our game against bigger challenges.

The key thing is- we didn't raise our game, we played at our level. We haven't played at that level when facing weaker opposition which is plain and simplly a lack of professionalism imo.

RichMc70

If you go through our fixtures for the season, it is very clear that our results either directly before or directly after and sometimes both around a CL match, was very poor.

We've dropped a total of 33 points from the PL games which were either side of a CL Fixture.

A lot of those games were against the bottom six teams. Lack of focus on the bread and butter games imo.

This is just one example .........The four PL matches played directly before and directly after the two ties against AC Milan, we got only 5 points from possible 12. Those 4 games were against Sunderland (w), Blackpool (L), Wolves (D) & West Ham (D).

We've also had a season plagued with injuries but I also wonder if the resting of key players in certain PL games has cost us the chance of CL 11/12 ?

I rather we finish 6th then get 5th and burdened with a campaign in the Europa League next season.

omegaman3000

Spurs are just shi** overall I'm afraid

RichMc70

omegaman3000 wrote: »

Spurs are just shi** overall I'm afraid

Hey, an intellectual on boards but isnt it way past your bedtime omegaboy.

Offer some basis to your statement and feel free to advise us which sheep flock you belong to.

omegaman3000

i won't hit the hay for a few hours yet. They'd a great season last year yet Harry has mismanaged your forwards. Pav is your top scoring forward yet doesn't seem to get his game. VdV-class act but alot of goalscoring rests on his shoulders.

Alot of the responsibility rests on your manager's shoulders.

They've shown grit (eg both times against Arse) but haven't done it against some smaller teams. Spurs should hope they miss out on the Europa league-poisoned chalice.

RichMc70

omegaman3000 wrote: »

i won't hit the hay for a few hours yet. They'd a great season last year yet Harry has mismanaged your forwards. Pav is your top scoring forward yet doesn't seem to get his game. VdV-class act but alot of goalscoring rests on his shoulders.

Alot of the responsibility rests on your manager's shoulders.

They've shown grit (eg both times against Arse) but haven't done it against some smaller teams. Spurs should hope they miss out on the Europa league-poisoned chalice.

Fair enough.

So you are a Spurs fan then ...?

omegaman3000

Not a Spurs fan but love the Premiership. I follow Arsenal. The recent WHL meeting between the two was was the best match I'd seen in years. Absolutely absorbing, couldn't take my eyes off it.

Obviously you're our main rivals but Spurs play football and I can respect that. Compare them to some of the Man City displays this year-paint drying/grass-growing stuff. Spurs should be in the CL next year again.

Neither Arsenal or Spurs will win a league in the next 3 seasons unless they add more grit to their squads. I think you would do brilliantly with Martin O'Neill

therecklessone

Wendell Gee wrote: »

It's been frustrating. Not wanting to make excuses, but one of the problems has been the lack of a settled team, or more crucially, the loss of players in peak form.

I'll grant you we have missed players, and had others nowhere near their best this season, but an unsettled team does not explain our failure to beat the lesser teams.

Our record vs the other 13 teams is similar to that of the other top 6 teams.

everdead.ie

therecklessone wrote: »

I'll grant you we have missed players, and had others nowhere near their best this season, but an unsettled team does not explain our failure to beat the lesser teams.

Our record vs the other 13 teams is similar to that of the other top 6 teams.

Our record against the other 13 teams is third or fourth best easily. It's weird that we played so badly against them to be honest every year Utd like a machine barely drop any points against teams in the bottom half. If we want to win something we have to do the same.

everdead.ie

If we played well in our last 9 games we'd be third at this stage!

Mr. Guappa

everdead.ie wrote: »

If we played well in our last 9 games we'd be third at this stage!

Since the win in Milan we have won ONE game.. that is shocking. The break in Dubai achieved absolutely nothing. I'll pass over the Blackpool Away game because you'll get a shocking performance like that every now and then, but the games at Wigan and Wolves and at home to WBA, West Ham and Blackpool have yielded at laughable 5 points. Even a mediocre return of 10 points from those games would have us nicely placed right now.

Despite a fairly substantial injury list we have not utilised our squad well enough. Kranjcar has barely been seen since he got the seemingly crucial winners against Bolton and Sunderland. Gallas has played far too many games, and the failure to add a striker in the summer or at the very least in January has cost us big time.