It's a funny old game, isn't it?
One week Jose Mourinho's Manchester United side are coming back from 2-0 down at The Etihad to win 3-2 and prevent their City rivals winning the league against them. The next week they lose at home to bottom side West Bromwich Albion, who are still destined to play Championship football next season barring a miracle. Commentators, non-partisans and bookies joined the chorus of "That's why we love this game of football!" Incidentally this Telegraph article even suggests Mourinho may drop Pogba and Sanchez for our semi-final on Saturday. We'll see!
Congratulations must go to Manchester City, who let's face it were Champions elect before Christmas, such has been their domination of this season's competition, but I admit I had to switch off the Sky coverage after the United game, especially with Thiery Henry in the studio harking back to his Arsenal days. One thing we Spurs fans can say is that after Manchester United, we were the last Premier League team to have a mathematical chance of winning the league, as City went into our game a mere 17 points ahead with 18 points available to us, at least until the City onslaught began!
I've said congratulations, but I will leave the mass praise of Guardiola and his men to the press and pundits. At least we didn't have to give them the traditional guard of honour on Saturday, with their team including our own former favourite Kyle Walker, who mentions Sheffield United, but not Spurs in his twitter profile. To his credit though, Kyle has wished us the best of luck against United in this Saturday's FA Cup semi-final, but of course that gives him "cred" with his City fan base.
From a Spurs point of view, the least said about Saturday's performance the better I suppose. Harry Kane scored only 4.9 out of 10 in the poll, which was his worst mark of the season and indeed his worse since a similar grade when we lost at home (at Wembley) to Monaco in September 2016. Jan Vertonghen was by far our best player and deservedly voted such, improving his lead over Harry in the player of the season vote.
Arsenal's defeat at Newcastle was their 11th of the season. I couldn't remember the last time they lost so many games and found it was 2005-06 (the sad year of "Lasagnegate"). Funnily enough that was the last time West Brom were relegated too. Spurs now need only three points (probably two with goal difference) to finish above Arsenal for the second consecutive season. Now that is something that hasn't happened since 1981-82 and 82-83, which makes it something to relish! With Burnley only two points behind Arsenal, our near rivals could face the prospect of Europa League qualifiers as early as July. Wouldn't that be fun! (I'm backing Atletico Madrid to end Arsenal's Europa League hopes)
37 year old ex-Spur Peter Crouch celebrated his goal for Stoke at The London Stadium last night with as much gusto as he did when he scored that goal at Man City for Spurs in May 2010. Unfortunately, occasional West Ham player Andy Carroll scored a late, late equaliser for "The Hammers", which might be enough to keep his team up whilst preventing Stoke's escape from relegation. Carroll had had a three month break this time, having made only 7 Premier League starts this season.
Referee Jon Moss scored only 3.3 in our post-match survey, which is his worse mark by Spurs fans since he refereed another defeat by City in October 2014. The award of a penalty against Hugo Lloris must have had something to do with it, just as his award of no less than 4 penalties (2 were converted) in that October 2014 game probably influenced his score then. Mr. Moss still hasn't seen us win in three games this season. (Man Utd and Liverpool away, and now City at home).
· See the spursometer in full.
Results 14-16.04.18
S'hampton 2-3 Chelsea
Burnley 2-1 Leicester
C. Palace 3-2 Brighton
Hds'field 1-0 Watford
Swansea 1-1 Everton
Liverpool 3-0 B'mouth
Spurs 1-3 Man City
Newcastle 2-1 Arsenal
Man Utd 0-1 West Brom
West Ham 1-1 Stoke
Premier League Table - 2017-18
P W D L F-A GD Pts
1. Man City 33 28 3 2 93-25 68 87 C
2. Man Utd 33 22 5 6 63-26 37 71
3. Liverpool 34 20 10 4 78-35 43 70
4. Spurs 33 20 7 6 65-30 35 67
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5. Chelsea 33 18 6 9 57-33 24 60
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6. Arsenal 33 16 6 11 62-45 17 54
7. Burnley 33 14 10 9 33-29 4 52
8. Leicester 33 11 10 12 49-47 2 43
9. Everton 34 11 9 14 38-53 -15 42
10. Newcastle 33 11 8 14 35-42 -7 41
11. B'mouth 34 9 11 14 41-56 -15 38
12. Watford 34 10 7 17 42-60 -18 37
13. Brighton 33 8 11 14 31-46 -15 35
14. West Ham 33 8 11 14 41-59 -18 35
15. H'dsfield 34 9 8 17 27-54 -27 35
16. C. Palace 34 8 10 16 36-54 -18 34
17. Swansea 33 8 9 16 27-46 -19 33
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18. S'hampton 33 5 13 15 33-53 -20 28
19. Stoke 34 6 10 18 31-64 -33 28
20. West Brom 34 4 12 18 27-52 -25 24
