A St Totteringham's Day Diary.
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Mostly written by Mike Pitt. You can contact me by email on mike-stt@einval.com. Nice
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St Totteringham's Day was the day when Arsenal fans celebrate the fact that Tottenham can no longer catch Arsenal in the League. It is a movable feast, but usually falls in March, April or May. It was the day to collect on bets made by over-optimistic Spurs fans in the close season who think that "this is the year".
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Thu, 09 May 2013
Probably the best result...
The 2-2 draw last night between Chelsea and Spurs was probably the best
result for Arsenal. A Chelsea win and the (admittedly remote) chance of
Arsenal catching them would have been lost.
A Spurs win would have left us needing Spurs to lose in their remaining games to have any chance of finishing above them.
So a quick look at the relevant bit of the table with two to go...
69 Chelsea (+34) 68 67 Arsenal (+31) 66 Spurs (+18)
The run-in is now much shorter:
| Arsenal | Spurs | |
| 12 May | Stoke City (a) | |
| 14 May | Wigan Athletic(h) | |
| 19 May | Newcastle Utd (a) | Sunderland (h) |
Stoke are not mathematically safe but only need one point. Even if results go the required way (and that is a lot of results) their goal difference is much better than Wigan: in summary they have little to play for. Certainly Wigan, Newcastle and Sunderland are in far greater danger and need the points more.
Time to go through permutations...
- Spurs lose at Stoke: If Spurs lose the Sunday lunchtime match at Stoke then it can be St Totteringham's on Tuesday May 14th if Arsenal beat Wigan. Spurs will have 66 points and Arsenal 70, a four point lead with one game to go. If Arsenal draw then a final day draw will suffice, as we have much better goal difference, or matching a Spurs defeat. If Arsenal lose it goes to the final day needing to match Spurs final day result.
- Spurs draw at Stoke: A draw would mean an Arsenal win at Wigan would effectively guarantee that we would see a St Totteringham's, but it wouldn't be St T's. Arsenal would have 70 points to Spurs 67, so bad results on the final day would leave both teams on 70, a theoretical pair of 7-0 wins for Newcastle and Spurs would leave us behind Spurs. So whilst it wouldn't be St Ts, I'd breathe a sigh of relief. A draw or loss at Wigan would leave us needing to match or better Spurs final day result: again the goal difference is probably sufficient to avoid worries about that on the last day.
- Spurs win at Stoke: is the simplest case. It goes to the final day. We would need to beat Wigan and match Spurs result on the final day; or draw or lose against Wigan we need to better Spurs final day result.
So in summary, after cheering on Chelsea we now have to cheer on Stoke. If that doesn't make you feel dirty.