How our Champions League place was finally secured

We began the month of May in fourth place, still needing to secure our place in next season's Champions League. Chelsea were five points behind us, and we were clear favourites to win a third consecutive place in the elite Euopean Club competition, and with Liverpool only one point ahead we even had third place in our sights.

An unconvincing performance and a very late goal by former Spur Jake Livermore for Darren Moore's battling West Brom gave us the jitters, but when Liverpool lost at Chelsea the next day, we knew that we still had third place in our hands.

However, Chelsea had drawn to within two points, and there were end of season nerves present as we scraped home against Newcastle in our penultimate league game at Wembley. However, Huddersfield got a miraculous draw on the same night at Stamford Bridge to ensure their survival, and our place in the Champions League. Harry Kane scored a fine goal against "The Toon" and two more good goals in our last day 5-4 win against Leicester when we came back from 3-1 down.

All was well, as we held third place, despite Liverpool's 4-0 win over Brighton. Erik Lamela scored two goals - the first of which was his first league goal since August 2016.

Hugo Lloris was our player of the month for May. Quite often when the goalkeeper wins a man of the match vote it is an indicator of a relatively poor team performance. When he was our player of the month in October Hugo had an astounding performance in The Bernebeu Stadium, Madrid. Hugo was our man of the match against Newcastle when he did come to the rescue of some haphazard defensive play.

Toby Alderweireld appeared in all 3 games - once as sub when Kieran Trippier was injured late in the game against Newcastle. Toby was not the only player to appear in all three games played this month, but his presence was of note bearing in mind the uncertainty regarding his future. Toby was also voted our man of the match in the 1-0 defeat at West Brom.

Mousa Dembele and Serge Aurier were absent from all three games.

Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Eric Dier, Kieran Trippier and Danny Rose were all selected by Gareth Southgate for England's World Cup squad. This selection of five Spurs players matches the number selected for South Africa in 2010 (Dawson, King, Lennon, Defoe, Crouch). Hugo Lloris is in the french squad, but Moussa Sissoko is a stand-by player only.

Erik Lamela was man of the match in his first appearance of the season against Leicester in November, and in his last match of the season, also against Leicester. Erik could not be selected for our Champions League group game in December, because he was not named in the squad of 25 for the group phase, and was rested for the FA Cup game at Newport. Otherwise, Erik made a playing appearance in every Spurs game between 28th November and 13th May.

Kyle Walker-Peters started only our first and last Premier League games of the season (he made three starts in other games), and has already signed a new contract which is valid till 2021. Davinson Sanchez has signed an extended contract to take him to 2024! Cameron Carter-Vickers, who has spent his season on loan at Sheffield United and Ipswich playing a total of 38 games (all starts), also has a new contract till 2021, and the injured Harry Winks has signed till 2023.

Look out for the Spurs Odyssey review of the 2017-18 season next week!

· Review the 2017-18 Premier League season here

Don't forget to check out the players' current figures re. appearances, cards, goals scored and accumulated ratings to date at the bottom of this page.

...if you want to read reports of the matches played during this season, then links are on the Spurs Odyssey Fixtures/Reports page here. By working your way back through the previous month's figures, you can review the performances over the last 17 years!