Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

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Watched it on MotD and it was amazing AV did not score at least one in the first but then second half 'good' Spurs decided to play and the result was another three goals. The Kulusevski one in particular was indeed excellent, but they were all clinical finishes.

HK's flick on headers for both that and Son's second goal reminded me greatly of classic Teddy Sheringham style strike partnership assists.

[EJG1980]

Yeah, you can certainly imagine Sheringham flicking on a header like that for Klinsmann or Shearer to score. At the moment Kane is putting me in mind of Francesco Totti, although Totti started out as a number ten and added more number nine striker qualities as he got older, whereas Kane has done it the other way around.

Speaking of Sheringham, I saw yesterday than Son has now moved into the top ten all time Tottenham goalscorer list, his hat-trick taking him one goal above Teddy.

Son has also quite quietly snuck up to second in the Premier League scoring charts, he's now only three behind Salah, 17 to 20. If both players keep up their current form until the end of the season (with Salah having a bit of a lull the past couple of months by his standards) there's a very real chance that Son could win the golden boot this season.

[TonyDA]

Well, this season has taken a lovely twist, hasn't it? What a weekend - Man Utd, Arsenal and West Ham losing, then Tottenham not being Spursy and actually winning to take full advantage. Has Poch come back?

Some lovely goals yesterday - the team work and build up to the third and fourth goals was rather special. All set up now for us to keep our heads and finish fourth, but there are bound to be a few twists before the end of the season.

Went to see if I could get two tickets for Leicester today, without a membership. Yeah, that was rather stupid - as was my decision to let it lapse at the start of the season as I feared I'd be paying for nothing, as I had the last two years.

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Spurs have two undoubtedly difficult games to come (Liverpool and Arsenal) but Brighton, Brentford and Leicester, in particular, are serious potential stumbling blocks too.

Then there's Burnley and Norwich possibly both fighting for their Premiership existence.

We let Burnley beat us not so long ago and if we'd won that game we'd be in a position to be worrying Chelsea instead of where we are. Holding on to fourth place will not be easy and, if Spurs do it, fully deserved

[EJG1980]

Yup, you never quite know when the worm might turn, but I'm hoping that we've come into form at just the right time and will be able to maintain it for the rest of the run in.

Brentford away is my biggest worry in the upcoming few matches, signing Erkisen has really improved their form and they've been getting some great results recently, that might be a very tough match.

Some bad news though, it looks like Doherty's injury is quite serious and reports last night said that he's likely to be out for 12 weeks, missing the rest of the season. Such a shame when he's been so good in recent weeks. Royal hasn't done badly in the last two matches though, playing the full match in a 5-1 and 4-0 win, but he's more prone to a defensive lapse than Doherty and hasn't shown himself to be as good going forward either. Hopefully Royal sees it as a big chance to impress Conte and ups his game the way Doherty himself had over the past month or two.

Went to see if I could get two tickets for Leicester today, without a membership. Yeah, that was rather stupid - as was my decision to let it lapse at the start of the season as I feared I'd be paying for nothing, as I had the last two years.

You might still be able to get a couple of tickets, as for all our recent matches the club has opened up the ticket exchange so season ticket holders than can't attend can sell their tickets, and there are quite often groups of seats together than are put up for sale. You just have to keep an eye on the club's twitter account for the announcement that the ticket exchange is open.

Of course it's not that simple as according to the FAQ's on the web site, if it's a "Ticket Exchange General Sale" then you don't need a membership to buy tickets. But there's also a "Ticket Exchange Guest Sale" where you do need a membership or season ticket to buy tickets. It's not 100% clear (as is often the case with Spurs ticketing matters!) how they decide if it's a general sale or a guest sale But at least there's a chance you might still be able to get a couple of tickets.

[TonyDA]

Thanks for that. I'll keep an eye as I'd like to get to a game if I can. My fault for not continuing with the membership really. Did you say that Tottenham ticketing isn't always straight forward? Really?

Definitely a shame if that's true about Doherty, as he has been very good the past few games - and Emerson looks more suspect defensively and offers less going forward. Still, expecting to get through the last 10-12 games of the season without an injury or two is wishful thinking, really - and there are a few players I'd rather not lose!

[EJG1980]

Gah, massive chance to really put some extra pressure on Arsenal today and we've passed it up. It was probably asking too much to go mistake free until the end of the season but a win today would have been so big.

Can't complain about the result at all, Brighton were the better team, had the better chances, and we simply didn't turn up. Could have nicked a draw at the end with a glorious chance for Bergwijn a minute after they'd scored, but unfortunately it was 'miss easy chance Bergwijn' rather than 'last minute heroics at Leicester Bergwijn' that took the shot.

Still technically in our own hands I think, thanks to having to play Arsenal, but we've removed any margin for error with that result today. Hopefully Southampton can do us a favour and give that margin back, but they're not exactly in good form having lost 6-0 last week.

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I just did not believe that score when I heard it - one of the games Spurs could and should have won and now we're having to hope Southampton do us an, indeed, unlikely favour.

Spurs never do things easily.

[EJG1980]

I just did not believe that score when I heard it - one of the games Spurs could and should have won and now we're having to hope Southampton do us an, indeed, unlikely favour.

Spurs never do things easily.

Thankfully, neither do Arsenal! Thanks Southampton, got us out of jail with that result Man Utd have closed the gap a bit which we need to keep an eye on, but the main thing was that Arsenal didn’t take advantage of our gift.

Hopefully Conte really drills it into the players how costly today could have been (and how good it'd have been if we'd actually won!), and they get back on track against Brentford. We did respond well to losing to Man Utd, we need to do the same again. It’ll be important to beat Brentford too as Man Utd are playing Arsenal next, so it’s a chance to increase the gap to one or both of them.

Edit: not quite right above, I forgot about the midweek matches. Man Utd play Liverpool on Tuesday and then Arsenal play Chelsea on Wednesday, then Arsenal and Man Utd play at the weekend. Some huge matches there, fingers crossed the results are ones that help us out in the fight for fourth.

[TonyDA]

Oh Spurs, bloody hell! Getting a bit worried about the 'Spursy' trophy passing over to the other side of North London, so we slipped back to type today.....only for Arsenal to grab it back with both hands!

No complaints about the result. Brighton got it tactically spot on and we were rather lethargic in reply, with no zip to our play at all.

Interesting week coming up. We basically have to be Liverpool supporters on Tuesday, Chelsea fans on Wednesday (this one will be tough), and then hope for a draw between Utd and Arsenal on Saturday. Then we have to beat Brentford. And then Leicester so that we're still ahead of the others when we make the easy trip to Anfield in three weeks time.

[EJG1980]

Yup, that'd be a dream scenario if we got Liverpool and Chelsea wins in midweek and a Man Utd vs Arsenal draw at the weekend, AND took advantage by beating Brentford. I believe that'd put us 5 clear of Arsenal with them having a game in hand, and 5 clear of Man Utd on the same games played. Lots of ifs and maybes in there though! Brentford are on a very good run of form at the mo.

It's that stage of the season where you're looking for any little advantage, and our match against Leicester is sandwiched in-between their two European semi-final matches against Roma. No chance of being relegated, no real chance of getting a European spot through the league, they could well rest a lot of first choice players in the match against us to make sure they're at full strength and fully rested for the Roma matches.

Every silver lining has a cloud though, and Arsenal have the exact same scenario for their match against West Ham. Although West Ham are still currently in the mix for a European place via the league, so may not quite as much incentive to rotate as Leicester, but you'd probably be surprised if they didn't.

This is gonna be nerve shredding for the next month and a bit

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Useful to us MU v. Liverpool result.

With MU losing they're dropping further out of the race for fourth place and it is looking increasingly likely the Spurs match with Arsenal is going to be a crucial one unless we can get something out of the Liverpool game and/or Chelsea and MU do us some favours.

[EJG1980]

Ohh, lovely, a nice new long contract for Oliver Skipp:

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https://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/2022/april/new-contract-for-skipp/

It's a shame he's been injured for the past couple of months, hopefully he'll be back to play a part in at least some of the remaining games this season. Winks has improved under Conte, but Skipp is a class above him, and having all three of Skipp, Bentancur and Hojbjerg available to share minutes definitely makes us stronger.

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[TonyDA]

Useful to us MU v. Liverpool result.

With MU losing they're dropping further out of the race for fourth place and it is looking increasingly likely the Spurs match with Arsenal is going to be a crucial one unless we can get something out of the Liverpool game and/or Chelsea and MU do us some favours.

Yep - BIG Chelsea fan tonight haha. Then, I guess, a draw between Man Utd & Arsenal on Saturday before us doing the very unSpursy thing of beating Brentford on Saturday. And then beating Leicester next Sunday to take a tiny bit of pressure off the following easy peasy game - Liverpool at Anfield, under the lights on a Saturday night!

[EJG1980]

Yep - BIG Chelsea fan tonight haha. Then, I guess, a draw between Man Utd & Arsenal on Saturday before us doing the very unSpursy thing of beating Brentford on Saturday. And then beating Leicester next Sunday to take a tiny bit of pressure off the following easy peasy game - Liverpool at Anfield, under the lights on a Saturday night!

I was thinking the draw was the best result too, but I saw a post on a Spurs forum that said (and it assumes that Chelsea beat Arsenal tonight, fingers crossed!) that a Man Utd win would be the better result:

"A draw would mean that 11 points from our remaining games would guarantee a finish above Utd. But, depending upon the result of the NLD, we could need 14 points in total to guarantee a finish above Arsenal.

A win for Utd would mean that we would need 13 points to guarantee a finish above them; and it would also mean that 13 points would guarantee a finish above Arsenal even if we were to lose the NLD. So a Utd win would reduce by 1 the required points tally to guarantee 4th, as things stand."

I can't be bothered to do the maths but I'll assume it's correct, as nobody has called them out for being wrong yet

Of course, the nicest thing would be for Spurs to win every single one of their remaining games so that we don't have to worry about the results of others teams at all! Which, obviously, sounds exactly the kind of thing Spurs would do

Edit: ahhhhh, had to be tonight that Chelsea decided that they’d make more mistakes at the back in one match than they usually do over a whole season! Although Arsenal still have the same points I’d expect from the last two matches, I just thought they’d beat Southampton and lose to Chelsea but they did it the other way around.

Ah well, it makes things tighter, but it’s still all about making sure we do the business when we play. It’s in our own hands if we win our matches, so no excuses.