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
comments only please.
I'm also @sttottsday on twitter.
Original material © Mike Pitt 2004, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2023
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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".
See the links on the left for more information.
Sun, 15 May 2016
It is St Totteringham's Day 2016
Twenty one years: forever in our shadow
Arsenal 4 Aston Villa 0 Newcastle United 5 Tottenham Hotspur 1
The final table has Arenal a point ahead of Spurs.
2 Arsenal 38 +29 71 3 Spurs 38 +34 70
Happy St Totteringham's Day 2016. It was a slog, and I think we all had our doubts, but how could we underestimate Spurs ability to self destruct?
Off to have a quiet sit down now: Come back tomorrow for more details!
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With 2 minutes to go: The Saint is not only back he's dancing!
Arsenal 3 Aston Villa 0
Newcastle United 5 (FIVE) Tottenham Hotspur 1
Laughing and dancing now. Possibly eating lasagne too!
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With 12 minutes to go: THE SAINT IS BACK FROM THE DEAD.
Arsenal 3 Aston Villa 0
Newcastle United 3 Tottenham Hotspur 1
IF IT STAYS LIKE THIS IT WILL BE ST TOTTERINGHAMS DAY.
Bit stressed!
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Half time: so far, so unbelievable
Half time scores:
Arsenal 1 Aston Villa 0
Newcastle United 2 Tottenham Hotspur 0
I wrote this season off months ago. To the extent that on twitter I happily took the good natured mild abuse of some Spurs fans. It was their turn, they deserved a bit of revenge...
But at half time the mindless optimism I suggested a few weeks ago is still on track. We could still have St Totteringhams 2016 despite... well everything.
Blimey.
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Mon, 09 May 2016
Will St Totteringham come back from the dead?
So we go into the final weekend with the fate of St Totteringham undecided for the year.
The draw at City means we are almost assured of a top four finish, but was short of what
we really wanted for a strong chance of catching Spurs.
Using the odds available at Betfair as a source to calculate probabilities I thought I'd see what the chance of St Totteringham's happening was reckoned to be.
So a reminder as we are two points behind with an inferior goal difference we need to Win at home, whilst Newcastle United beat Spurs.
My calculation using the odds at about 7pm today was that we have an 83% chance of doing our bit, and Necastle have a 31% chance of doing their job. That gives an overall chance of just over 25%. That is equivalent to flipping two coins and both coming down heads.
Problem is those odds might change if Sunderland win against Everton. This is currently rated at 56%, and such a win would relegate both Newcastle and Norwich. I would have thought that would make Newcastle winning less likely! I'll check the odds after the midweek games.
The worst outcome is Arsenal win and Spurs draw, or Arsenal lose and Spurs draw. In those cases we will finish behind Spurs on goal difference. At the moment that is rated at about a 27% probability: more likely than St Totteringham's day.
Given the huge lead Spurs had a few weeks ago the fact we are rated at over 50% to have as many points as them shows that they have (as usual) collapsed at the end of the season. The problem is we collapsed earlier!
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Sun, 08 May 2016
Mindless optimism seems to be working ok so far...
Well I never. Southampton come from 1-0 down to beat Spurs at WHL. Thanks lads!
So what does that mean. We are three points behind Spurs and have the game against City today. The options are:
- We win today: We go level on points but way behind on goal difference. Barring a ridiculous result (13 or 14 nil) for a last day St Totteringham we will just need to do better than Spurs. So Spurs win at Newcastle it's over. They draw, we need to win. They lose, a draw will suffice.
- We draw today: We will be 2 points behind. So we will need to win on the final day and Spurs to lose. A draw for Spurs would require a record Arsenal win.
- We lose today: Forget it. A record win required and a Spurs loss.
If things go well I'll post an update at about 6pm... Come on you Gunners!
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Tue, 03 May 2016
Almost...
So Chelsea managed a draw. Congratulations to Leicester City on winning the
most unexpected title since Cloughy won it.
Anyway this means with both Arsenal and Spurs having two games left we can still have a St T's.
Spurs are three points ahead. If they win either of the remaining games then (barring Arsenal winning two matches 15-0 odd) we can't catch them. We need draws or defeats against Southampton and Newcastle, and Arsenal wins against City and Villa.
Not impossible but still a long shot.
Of course if the FA take Spurs behaviour last night seriously (like they took the United v Arsenal brawl back in 1991 seriously) then it might help...
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Sun, 01 May 2016
What we need now is some blind optimism.
So we are in May and Spurs are still ahead. This is a testing time for those who look
forward to St Totteringham's day each year, but we aren't quite dead yet.
I've decided to be mindlessly optimistic and look at how we might still do it. I'll leave as an exercise to the reader how likely this is!
Spurs hangover
First match up is Chelsea v Spurs. Following a Leicester win at Old Trafford today the team is delfated and doesn't compete as well as it can. Chelsea are well up for a morale boosting win and the Chelsea fans will be able to spend the Summer claiming it was just the first half of the season and they'll be back. Spurs two points ahead with two to go each.
Southampton bore fest
The Saints have a tight defence and manage to hold Spurs in a dull 0-0 draw. Spurs move three points clear and have one to go.
Third place decider goes to Arsenal
Oddy the Manchester City game is the one I think might show Arsenal playing well. The lethargy we've seen in recent matches is brushed aside in an attempt to secure Champions League football by finishing above City. It's tight but late goals give us a win that appears more comfortable than it really was. We move level on points, but behind on goal difference.
Final day Lasagne
Whether Spurs make the mistake of eating Lasagne before the final day or not they are surprised by a strong Newcastle performance. The Geordies manage to scrape a point and stay up. Meanwhile Arsenal play out a dull 2-0 win at the Emirates against a poor Villa team. The result is we finish second and the media praise Wenger beyond all reason and criticise the fans who have paid for the drivel we've seen this season.
So we could have St Totteringham's on May 15th!
But... while each bit is possible, perhaps even plausible, I'm not putting any money on it!
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Sun, 17 Apr 2016
Well that was awful
We drew with a team who have only managed seven points since 2nd January. Bottom of the 2016 table.
What a load...
Anyway we are now five behind Spurs with both teams having five games left. Seriously I can't see any way back from this.
| Spurs | Arsenal |
|---|---|
| Stoke City (A) | West Bromwich Albion (H) |
| West Bromwich Albion (H) | Sunderland (A) |
| Chelsea (A) | Norwich City (H) |
| Southampton (H) | Manchester City (A) |
| Newcastle Utd (A) | Aston Villa (H) |
Spurs need 11 points to be sure of finishing above us. Four wins will get them there. I'm looking at WBA, Southampton and Newcastle as three of them. Can both Stoke and Chelsea do us a favour?
The option is us dropping points. I suspect we will beat Manchester City, but I can't see us not helping Spurs further by dropping something against Sunderland or Norwich: both scrapping for their life.
Like Palace.
I might feel more optimistic if Stoke beat Spurs...
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Sat, 02 Apr 2016
Big game this evening...
Much as it may pain me to admit it, we could do with Liverpool doing us a huge favour tonight. Come on Liverpool...
Normally at the start of April I'd be making an estimate of when St Totteringham's will fall, but this year it is firmly in the if category not the when. The top of the table is not at all pretty:
| Games left | Points | GD | Maximum points available | |
| Leicester City | 7 | 66 | 23 | 87 |
| Spurs | 7 | 61 | 32 | 82 |
| Arsenal | 7 | 58 | 22 | 79 |
| Manchester City | 7 | 54 | 24 | 75 |
Having said that, and while I stress that I don't think Arsenal can win the title, and that we aren't secure from being overtaken by City (or West Ham or Manchester United come to that), the run-in below shows why I think (i) Leicester are going to do it and (ii) why Spurs fans can't be sure of breaking the 21 year streak.
| Leicester | Spurs | Arsenal |
|---|---|---|
| Southampton (H) | Liverpool (A) | |
| Sunderland (A) | Manchester Utd (H) | West Ham Utd (A) |
| West Ham Utd (H) | Stoke City (A) | Crystal Palace (H) |
| West Bromwich Albion (H) | ||
| Swansea City (H) | West Bromwich Albion (H) | Sunderland (A) |
| Manchester Utd (A) | Chelsea (A) | Norwich City (H) |
| Everton (H) | Southampton (H) | Manchester City (A) |
| Chelsea (A) | Newcastle Utd (A) | Aston Villa (H) |
| Key: points at 5pm on 2nd April: | Less than 20 | 20 to 29 | 30 to 39 | 40 to 49 | 50 to 59 | over 60 |
|---|
The rest of this weekend could be good for Arsenal, but if Spurs don't slip up in one of the next three then it looks like St Totteringham will be having a rest this year. Also nice to see a solid professional drubbing of Watford today, almost makes up for the Cup result...
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