A St Totteringham's Day Diary.

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Sun, 30 Apr 2017

Well...

I knew it would happen eventually. Fair play to Spurs, but the lack of passion and organisation from Arsenal was predictaly bad.

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Sat, 29 Apr 2017

Tomorrow evening...

Well I think we all know the situation but just to get it down here before the game...

Before the match Arsenal have six games left and we are 14 points behind. There are three results

• If Arsenal win then we reduce the gap to 11 points with 15 points left to play for. Also I will laugh. Spurs will still finish above us, but it will reduce the pain a little.
• If we draw then the gap stays at 14 with 15 to go. Not the best result for either team but at least we avoid the anti-St-Totteringham happening at WHL. Right now I'd take this if offered.
• Finally the third option. If that happens we will be unable to catch Spurs.

Some straws to clutch at for Arsenal fans: Spurs will be celebrating finishing second, like we did last season. 21 years. We have an FA Cup final. Next year Spurs will be at Wembley.

And finally remember: Arsenal have finished above Spurs 66 times since Spurs joined the league wheras Spurs have finished above us only 30. Mind the gap!

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Mon, 10 Apr 2017

What was that...

Writing at half time we are deservedly 1-0 down. It is so bad I am trying to distract myself. My attempt to find a picture to tweet for the Arsenal watching face didn't go well, so I'm doing arithmetic.

If I'm posting this it didn't get any better. (In fact it got a whole lot worse.)

Taking the relevant info from the PL table...

          P     Pts   Games left    Max points
Spurs    31      68
Arsenal  30      54            8         78

I am wondering if us losing our next two games might be less painful.

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Sat, 08 Apr 2017

Well Watford did what I expected them to do at the end of January... Watford capitulated to Spurs. Not a surprise.

Anyway ahead of our game on Monday I thought I'd update how bad things are looking for the Saint.

I think he's not very well.

The raw facts are this: Arsenal can still (in theory) max out on 81 points. This means Spurs need 82 to be mathematically certain. They now have 68 so need just 14 more. That would be five wins out of seven, or four wins and two draws.

This doesn't give them much room to slip up, but don't forget that assumes we don't slip up either. Worse still the head to head game between at the Lane. If Spurs win that it would leave them needing 8 more points, a draw would require 11 more points.

It gets worse... the nightmare scenario exists:

• Assuming Tottenham beat Bournemouth and Palace (which seems likely), they will have 6 points towards the total.
• They'll need 8 more if Arsenal don't drop any points.
• Arsenal have three games before the NLD: Palace and Boro away, and Leicester at home.
• If we draw just one of those games then we have dropped two points. This leads Spurs needing 6 more. One loss would be much the same.
• Spurs beating Arsenal would be worth those six (three for Spurs and three off our max score)

Let us hope we can get a mini-run going to avoid this being even theoretically possible. (That Leicester game looks worrying.)

Of course given Spurs ability to make a mess of anything it is entirely possible that they win the next two, then lose to us and fall apart failing to get 8 points from the last four. We'll call that the comedy gold option!

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Tue, 28 Mar 2017

Can the international break continue for a bit longer...?

Only it was nice not losing last weekend!

Anyway: this weekend could be massive for the fate of St Totteringham in 2017. A reminder that Spurs are currently nine ahead having played one more game. That looks like a massive lead but...

Mindless optimism: A Spurs loss at Burnley is not impossible. Burnley are good at home (29 points from 14 games), and Spurs away record is much weaker than their home one (23 fewer points away from home than at home). Arsenal have had some time to plan out tactics against Manchester City, and we are due a performance in a big game. We could find the gap down to six. Win the game in hand and at the Lane and St Totteringham could walk again!

Mindless pessimism: Spurs away record is not that bad, and Burnley have imploded in recent weeks. On top of that Arsenal against the big clubs could well be a hiding on recent performances. We could be 12 points behind by Saturday night, and licking our wounds after another demoralising defeat on Sunday night. That defeat will aggravate the bad goal difference too.

Looking at the form of the two clubs I quite fancy Burnley for a draw against Spurs, but I have very little confidence we will get anything out of the match on Sunday. That it is at home should help, but that could turn against us if we start badly. That we have a history of starting badly in lunchtime kick offs worries me. But I shall hope, that like last year, mindless optimism prevails.

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Sun, 19 Mar 2017

Well...

I know none of us have forgotten that Saint Totteringham's day is unusual in that some years it isn't celebrated. I fear that after 21 years in a row we may need to be ready for an exception.

After the debacle today at the Hawthorns both teams have 11 games left. That means up to 33 points (which is a lot), but Spurs have a six point lead, and a considerably better goal difference (+33 v +22).

What is worse is that at the moment I can't see this team lifting themselves in the upcoming big games. Can we face losses to City, West Ham and (dare I say) Spurs? Everton winning 4-0 leaves them behind us on goal difference by 1. United have a game in hand (admittedly the Manchester derby). We might not have to put up with Europa league next season!

Still I meet feel better about the world if Southampton and Burnley do us a huge favour over the next few weeks.

Correction: I have no idea where I got the idea it was the Manchester derby from. None at all. Anyway Middlesborough aren't looking like tough opponents today...

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Fri, 10 Mar 2017

So about St Totteringham's day this year...

If we had confidence in our team right now I'd be saying that St Totteringham is still likely. The problem is that the team aren't performing anywhere near the level they can, or the level they need to, to make St T's a likelihood.

The basic situation of six points behind isn't as bad as it sounds as we have a game in hand and there is the small matter of the derby game on 30 April. That alone would be enough to overhaul Spurs, before we factor in the fact they always struggle at the end of the season.

But... at the moment I am not certain we will win at the Lane. Or a few of the other games.

No colour coding yet, but here are the final games for the two clubs. I've been lazy and used @ for away games and v for home games.

Date	Arsenal	Spurs
18 Mar	@ WBA
19 Mar		v Southampton
1 Apr		@ Burnley
2 Apr	v Man City
5 Apr	v West Ham	@ Swansea
8 Apr		v Watford
10 Apr	@ Palace
15 Apr		v Bournemouth
17 Apr	@ Middlesborough
22 Apr	v Sunderland
23 Apr		@ Leicester City
30 Apr	Spurs v Arsenal
6 May	v Man Utd	@ West Ham
13 May	@ Stoke	v Man Utd
21 May	v Everton	@ Hull City
TBD	v Leicester City	@ Palace
TBD	@ Southampton

Now there is considerable overlap: both go to Palace, host Manchester Utd, and play Leicester, West Ham and Southampton. Outside that Spurs remaining games look at first glance slightly easier. The Man City game looks especially worrying.

Then there is the confidence issue: how will a team that can't beat the big boys get wins against Utd, City and Spurs. This is aggravated by the fact that, depending on exactly when the TBD games are scheduled, we will be playing after Spurs several times. I am not sure given our frailties we will cope well with "scoreboard pressure" to use a cricket term.

If there is a St T's this year I can't see it being before May, and very unlikely to be before the final day. Right now I think 21 is going to be our lot. Not a bad run that!

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Sun, 19 Feb 2017

FA Cup breather

Just a quick update to say not a lot. Again.

With 13 games to go we are level pegging with Spurs on points, and only 2 goals behind on goal difference. At some point I'll need to check the matches left but not yet.

What provoked the update was a change in my email system: it has revealed a host of emails people sent me three or four years ago that ended up in the wrong place. Probably too long ago to reply now, but thanks for getting in touch and sorry for losing them.

More usefully both Spurs and Arsenal have 13 matches left. If my maths is right (which given one of the emails it may not be!) that means we can get a maximum of 39 more points and a total of 89. So Chelsea need 30 points to beat us both. That is ten wins so it is not certain yet. Just very, very likely. (I'll also point out that my last post has sadly proved correct in the first prediction. Hopefully the Spurs implosion will follow.)

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Sun, 05 Feb 2017

Groundhog season

Well our season is following the usual path: we appear to be in a title race but crash and burn early. Get humiliated in a big game. The final piece should be losing heavily to Bayern in the first leg, and then heroically falling just short in the second leg.

Anyway the point of being here is to discuss Arsenal finishing above Spurs. We've reach the stage where Spurs go above us and their fans start to get smug.

Then come April they will implode if they follow the usual script too.

At some point however Spurs will stop gifting us that finish. Anyway, it is February and bluntly there is nothing between the teams.

PS I said drawing with Leicester would be seen as a poor result...

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Sat, 24 Sep 2016

Well... I didn't see that one coming.

Writing at half-time we lead 3-0. I won't post this until full time mind you, but a great first half.

Now, six games is way too early to draw any conclusions, but...

The opening six games for Spurs has seen them unbeaten:

• Two draws against teams in the top six (Everton and Liverpool)
• Four wins against Sunderland (bottom), Stoke City (second bottom), Middlesborough (15th) and Palace (ok, they are doing well in 7th...)

• Lost to Liverpool.
• Drawn with Leicester. I think this will look like a bad result this season. I could be wrong.
• Four wins against Hull (12th), Watford (10th), Chelsea (8th) and Southampton (surprisingly low).

So what conclusions can we draw after six games when we are 1 point apart?

• That there are 32 games to go,
• Spurs unbeaten status faces much tougher tests,
• The only match we have in common (Liverpool at home) saw Spurs do better, and
• Clearly both teams are in the hunt for the top four again.

To be honest I don't think this post does much other than say "I'm still here!"...

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