St Totteringham's Day

The latest ever St Totteringham's

I've been updating the analysis page and I've spotted a few random facts.

This year, due to the late end to the season, is a new record for the latest in the year St Totteringham's has fallen. May 13th, beats the previous record of May 12th from 1983/4.
It is the tenth May St Totteringham's.
It is the ninth final match St Totteringham's.
Our run of finishing above Spurs is now 17 years, during which time we have had four last day St Ts. Mind you, two of those have been in the last 3 years.

Have a good summer, and when the season fires up again I'll be back.

Happy St Totteringham's Day

Well it was a topsy-turvy game, and we again blew a lead, and again had to come from behind, but our 3-2 victory over West Bromwich Albion means that for the SEVENTEENTH season in a row we have finished above Spurs.

Arsenal need to do something about the team in the Summer, but for now we can celebrate being the best team in London over the season.

	Games	Points	GD	Points behind	(games left)	(max points)
Arsenal	38	70	+25
Spurs	38	69	+25	1	0	69

They can't catch us. Best Spurs team in years, and our worst season, and we still finish above them: Mind The Gap.

So, going into the final weekend...

The "after you, I insist" nature of the hunt for CL places continues. Arsenal give a woeful performances against Norwich and only manage a draw, then Spurs slip up at Villa and Newcastle lose to City. So despite our dreadful performance, one that definitely fell into the "already on holiday" camp I mentioned in an earlier post, we are still in the driving seat. Indeed despite picking up only 3 points from our last five games we, somehow, still have St Totteringham's in our hands. The final day games Arsenal at WBA, and Spurs at home to Fulham, are huge.

It will be St Totteringham's day next Sunday if...

Arsenal win, no matter what happens at WHL
Spurs lose, no matter what happens at the Hawthorns
Arsenal and Spurs draw
Arsenal lose by only one goal and Spurs draw, provided Spurs don't score 8 goals more than Arsenal. (So if we lose 3-4, Spurs would beat us with a 12-12 draw.)

St Totteringham's won't happen if Spurs do better than Arsenal, with the bottom exception. That simple.

Clear?

Anyway here is the table, complete with added Geordies

	Games	Points	GD	Points behind	(games left)	(max points)
Arsenal	37	67	+24
Spurs	37	66	+23	1	(1)	(69)
Newcastle Utd	37	65	+7	2	(1)	(68)

To beat Newcastle we just need to draw or better. If we draw I can't see Newcastle overturning a 17 goal deficit!

So fingers crossed, and let us hope Spurs have Lasagne again.

Not good enough

So we are at the mercy of Villa today... Not a good place to be. St Totteringham's will either be next Sunday or postponed.

Not a shock

I write this with a couple of minutes left, so the goal difference may be wrong, but I doubt the result will be.

	Games	Points	GD	Points behind	(games left)	(max points)
Arsenal	36	66	+24
Spurs	35	62	+20	4	(3)	(71)

So bad news, St Totteringham's can't be on the 2nd May. Earliest is May 5th (Bolton win, we beat Norwich). Arsenal need 6 points out of 6. That would give us a last day St Ts. If Spurs lose a game, one win will do for us. Looking at the remaining games...

Date	Arsenal	Spurs
2 May		Bolton Wanderers (a)
5 May	Norwich City (h)
6 May		Aston Villa (a)
13 May	WBA (a)	Fulham (h)

Bolton on Wednesday night might be a tough game, but I'd expect Spurs to win. So we need to beat Norwich in our last home game and the Baggies in our last road trip. My worry is that, like last season, some of our players seem already mentally on the beach. We need two huge performances from our lads. Even if Spurs drop points one of the chasing pack isn't going to, and we need to hang onto third.

The Spurs game has just ended, so the table ought to be correct. Next update after Bolton's match against Spurs.

Another comeback, another point

	Games	Points	GD	Points behind	(games left)	(max points)
Arsenal	36	66	+24
Spurs	34	59	+18	7	(4)	(71)

We need Spurs to drop points or to win our final two games. The latter will also guarantee third place, which would be very useful. St T's can still be on May 2nd (if Spurs lose today and at Bolton) in theory.

I do wish Arsenal would start to play before the opponents take the lead. Next update will be later today after Spurs play Blackburn.

Update: Fixed errors in table. Sorry.

What might happen...

These are always dodgy posts, because as soon as you say what might happen something will, of course, go wrong. But I think I should cover the possibilities this weekend.

The quick version is it can't be St Totteringham's on Sunday.

The best result would be that we get a win at Stoke (not certain) and Blackburn manage to get their second win on the bounce at WHL. That would leave Spurs 9 points behind with three games left.

At that point if we lost and Spurs won their remaining games we would finish level on points. It wouldn't be guaranteed that we'd finish above Spurs, and so it wouldn't be St Ts.

The earliest St Totteringham's is now May 2nd, and that relies on a win for Arsenal at Stoke, and Spurs not getting a win in either of the games against Blackburn or Bolton: two draws would do us. Or Arsenal getting a point at Stoke and Spurs losing them both.

That seems unlikely. I should add that it isn't guaranteed we'll have a St Ts in 2012, but I am starting to think it more likely than not.

Thank-you QPR!

The weekend redeemed by QPR beating Spurs meaning we've widened the gap despite dropping points at home.

The Premier League needs to sort out the low standard of refereeing we are seeing this year. Clattenburg's inability to notice that he's written the same number twice is pathetic. Utterly contemptible. Remember how much referees are paid. Unfortunately Taraabt's second booking was as deserved as it was idiotic. I didn't see the first booking though. Very odd to be cheering on a team with Joey Barton: it doesn't half make you feel dirty.

Anyway the key facts are the table and the points:

	Games	Points	GD	Points behind	(games left)	(max points)
Arsenal	35	65	+24
Spurs	34	59	+19	6	(4)	(71)

What this means is that the draw this morning is very useful in terms of St Totteringham's day: it stretches our lead to six points with four games left for Spurs. We need just 7 points from the last three games. Two wins and a draw would do it. However third is better than fourth and Newcastle's push means we need three wins out of three. That however is a luxury beyond the minimum acceptable of finishing above Spurs!

The run in...

Date	Arsenal	Spurs
28 April	Stoke City (a)
29 April		Blackburn Rovers (h)
2 May		Bolton Wanderers (a)
5 May	Norwich City (h)
6 May		Aston Villa (a)
13 May	WBA (a)	Fulham (h)

I think Villa have to admit they've been dragged into the fracas: although they may be safe my May. Spurs face tricky opponents fighting for Premier League survival. We have three mid table opponents.

We drew with Chelsea so...

Spurs can really narrow the gap. This is a stub which I'll replace with a more detailed article later.

	Games	Points	Points behind	(games left)	(max points)
Arsenal	35	65
Spurs	33	59	6	(5)	(74)

Although we need ten points to be sure, three wins means Spurs can only match us, and it would come to goal difference. Likely to be tight if Spurs win all five of their games too. Basically we need Spurs to start dropping points.

Twitter button

OK I admit I was bored, but I've added a "tweet this" button to each story. It ought to be straightforward as it uses the method provided by Twitter themselves, but do email me if you have any problems. Address in side bar on left hand side!