A St Totteringham's Day Diary.
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The blame
Mostly written by Mike Pitt. You can contact me by email on mike-stt@einval.com. Nice
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Original material © Mike Pitt 2004, 2011, 2012
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St Totteringham's Day is 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 is 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.
Wed, 15 May 2013
All hangs on the final day...
Going into the final day Arsenal can finish 3rd, 4th or 5th. I must confess to
feeling a little sorry for Wigan, who played well and despite the final
scoreline made most of the fans around me rather nervous about the result.
At 1-1 we could have lost it. As for Mike Dean, he should
never referee Arsenal again. Atrocious. Anyway time
for the analysis (a little later than hoped, sorry!):
Anyway the table going into the final day reads...
72 Chelsea (+35) 71 70 Arsenal (+34) 69 Spurs (+19)
And the situation with us chasing Spurs is...
| Games | Points | GD | Points behind | (games left) | (max points) | |
| Arsenal | 37 | 60 | +34 | |||
| Spurs | 37 | 59 | +19 | 1 | 1 | (62) |
So for in the St Totteringham's day battle:
- Arsenal beat Newcastle then it is St Ts. End of.
- If Arsenal draw at Newcastle then we have 71 points, so rely on Bale not beating Sunderland. A draw or loss is fine.
- Hopefully we won't see Arsenal losing, but if we do unless it is by around 15 goals we'd still finish above Spurs if they draw, and definitely if they lose.
To turn it around, if Spurs win we must win. If they lose or draw we finish above them anyway (ignoring 15-0 defeats or worse).
The race for third is balanced due to the heavy win last night. The BBC have noticed a discussion that I saw happening on twitter last night about the possibility of a dead heat between Arsenal and Chelsea. As third place would hang on it we'd face a neutral venue play off. The winner would get the third group place, while the loser would face another playoff in the form of Champions League qualifying.
The dead heat happens if Chelsea draw, and Arsenal win by a single goal and score two goals more than Chelsea. We'd then be tied on GD and Goals Scored which are the only tie breaks allowed by the rule (see Rule C14 on page 93 of the Premier league rules, thanks to @goonerfanzine and @eerlend on twitter for that link). That is...
- Chelsea draw 0-0, we win 2-1; or
- Chelsea draw 1-1, we win 3-2; or
- Chelsea draw 2-2, we win 4-3; or...
- it starts to get silly here. Mind you Arsenal v Newcastle has been high scoring in the past.
So...
- We win by 2 clear goals: we need Chelsea to lose or draw
- We win by 1 clear goal: there is a play off if one of the above scores happens, else Chelsea beat us on Goals Scored
- We draw or lose, Chelsea beat us.
I know the last bit isn't relevant to St T's, but I hope you'll indulge me.
Having gone through all that the simple message is an Arsenal win is what we need. Pretty obvious really...
Minor update: I've split the post-2000 section of the history into two parts now, basically splitting of a 2010s section. In doing that I noticed that if we do celebrate St Ts, it will be the latest ever St Totteringham's day, breaking a record that has stood since a year ago today. Happy anniversary at least!
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Sun, 12 May 2013
Results today bad for Wigan...
Wigan have to beat us on Tuesday or they are relegated. If they win
Sunderland look most likely to be caught, but the Geordies would also
not be safe.
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No shocks so far: Chelsea and Spurs both winning this weekend. We could really do with the cup winners having a hang over.
So a quick look at the relevant bit of the table now...
72 Chelsea (+35) 71 70 69 Spurs (+19) 68 67 Arsenal (+31, one extra game)
So, Spurs win at Stoke means St T's goes to the final day no matter what. We need to...
- beat Wigan and match Spurs result on the final day; or
- draw with them, and we just need to do better than Spurs on the final day: win if they draw, draw if they lose; or
- lose to Wigan means we need Spurs to lose or draw while we win on the final day.
To keep it in our hands we must win on Tuesday
Next update will probably not be until Wednesday as I won't get back from the Arsenal game on Tuesday until late.
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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.
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Sat, 04 May 2013
May the fourth...
... be with you. Well it didn't help either team: we both won 1-0: Spurs
with late goal (annoyingly) and us with Walcott's early strike.
So no change in our relative positions.
67 Arsenal (+31 with 2 to go) 66 65 Chelsea (+33 with 4 to go), Spurs (+18 with 3 to go)
Wednesday is still crucial. We'd like Chelsea to lose tomorrow and then beat Spurs.
| Arsenal | Spurs | |
| 8 May | Chelsea (a) | |
| 12 May | Stoke City (a) | |
| 14 May | Wigan Athletic(h) | |
| 19 May | Newcastle Utd (a) | Sunderland (h) |
To explain the colours...
| Key (as of 29/4/13) | already relegated | 32-38 | 39-44 | Safe from relegation | Chasing CL place |
Not much has changed at the bottom: but the reducing stock of games makes Stoke look safer by the day.
Haven't done this yet this season but here is the table that I use to show St Totteringham's develop...
| Club | Current points | Games left | (Maximum points) | Points behind | Points Left |
| Arsenal | 67 | 2 | |||
| Spurs | 65 | 3 | (74) | 2 | 9 |
... which says to me it is too tight to be anything but a last day St T's.
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Mon, 29 Apr 2013
Probably a good weekend...
On balance I think the results at the weekend were good. We got a point off
United in an excellent and enjoyable game (barring Sagna's free gift to RvP
we could have won... oh well), and Spurs dropped points against Wigan
that I didn't expect.
My prediction was that we'd be looking up at Spurs today, but instead we are still 2 points above them. A quick glance at the table...
65 Chelsea (+33 with 4 to go) 64 Arsenal (+30 with 3 to go) 63 62 Spurs (+17 with 4 to go)
Increasingly that Chelsea-Spurs match looks crucial, here is the run-in with new colours to reflect relegation status
| Arsenal | Spurs | |
| 4 May | QPR (a) | Southampton (h) |
| 8 May | Chelsea (a) | |
| 12 May | Stoke City (a) | |
| 14 May | Wigan Athletic(h) | |
| 19 May | Newcastle Utd (a) | Sunderland (h) |
To explain the colours...
| Key (as of 29/4/13) | already relegated | 32-38 | 39-44 | Safe from relegation | Chasing CL place |
A quick back of envelope calculation says Stoke and Southampton are still not safe, but I haven't checked the detailed fixtures. They may be safe.
Irrespective of that the two run-ins are interesting side by side. Spurs face two teams who are probably safe and one firmly in the scrap, whilst we face one down already and two definitely scrapping. The nearly safe ones will be stronger, but perhaps less committed to the fight. All I can safely say is things will be clearer on May 9...
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Mon, 22 Apr 2013
Good result for Spurs: does it hang on the Chelsea game?
We ground out a win at Fulham, and then Spurs made City look like mugs.
Then that bizarre match at Anfield...
Which leaves the table very tight...
63 Arsenal (+30, 4) 62 Chelsea (+31, 5) 61 Spurs (+17, 5)
And the run in looking shorter but not much changed. Most of the teams are still in the scrap to avoid being the third team to go down, although issues will be clearer for some of them very soon:
| Arsenal | Spurs | |
| 27 Apr | Wigan Athletic (a) | |
| 28 Apr | Manchester Utd (h) | |
| 4 May | QPR (a) | Southampton (h) |
| 8 May | Chelsea (a) | |
| 12 May | Stoke City (a) | |
| 14 May | Wigan Athletic(h) | |
| 19 May | Newcastle Utd (a) | Sunderland (h) |
To explain the colours...
| Key (as of 22/4/13) | below 30 points | 31-40 | 41-50 | 56-68 | Man U |
I'm still rather negative about St Ts. But if Villa lose tomorrow, making Manchester Utd champions ahead of our game next weekend we can hope for a championship hangover. Incresingly it looks like the Chelsea v Spurs match might be crucial. If Chelsea can get a point or three off Spurs we could be OK.
However it remains in Spurs hands, and a bad result next weekend could be fatal to both St Ts, and Wenger's much cherished fourth place "trophy"...
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Fri, 19 Apr 2013
Advantage Spurs continued.
A disappointing draw with Everton has, as I said earlier, given the
advantage back to Spurs. If they win all their remaining fixtures they
finish above us: nothing we can do about that.
However that seems unlikely...
Before I look at the run-in, a quick glance at the table (again in the Cann table format so gaps are easy to see). The numbers in brackets are games remaining first, and goal difference second.
61 Chelsea (6, +31) 60 Arsenal (5, +29) 59 58 Spurs (6, +15) 57 56 Everton (5, +14)
I don't include Man City or Liverpool as I think those gaps are too big to worry about at this stage. I could be wrong.
So the remaining games...
| Arsenal | Spurs | |
| 20 Apr | Fulham (a) | |
| 21 Apr | Manchester City (h) | |
| 27 Apr | Wigan Athletic (a) | |
| 28 Apr | Manchester Utd (h) | |
| 4 May | QPR (a) | Southampton (h) |
| 8 May | Chelsea (a) | |
| 12 May | Stoke City (a) | |
| 14 May | Wigan Athletic(h) | |
| 19 May | Newcastle Utd (a) | Sunderland (h) |
To explain the colours...
| Key (as of 19/4/13) | below 30 points | 31-40 | 41-50 | 56-68 | Man U |
Looking at the colour codes most of our remaining games for both clubs are in the batch of clubs who are not quite safe from relegation yet: the 31-40 points group. For consistent teams these should be bread and butter wins.
There are two exceptions for both teams.
Arsenal simply must beat QPR. No excuses.
Then there are three tricky games: Arsenal at home to United. Sorry to say at best I can see a draw. For Spurs a home game against City and a trip to Chelsea. Neither looks easy.
So this weekend if Arsenal are to celebrate St T's we must win at Fulham: a typical game of the type in our run-in. A City point or three at Spurs would combined with that would put the matter back into our hands.
Beyond that: it really is too close to call.
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Wed, 17 Apr 2013
Advantage Spurs?
Last night's draw against Everton tips the advantage back to Spurs: two
points behind with a game in hand.
The straws to clutch at are that we have the points on the board, and that it was one of what, to me, looked like the two most difficult of our remaining matches.
More to follow
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Sat, 13 Apr 2013
A quick look at the Cann table shows us ahead for the first time since (mumble) with both teams having played 32 games:
59 Arsenal 58 Chelsea (1 game in hand); Tottenham Hotspur 57 56 55 Everton
Still looks like a very late St T's, if indeed we have one. A quick look at the remaining games...
| Arsenal | Spurs | |
| was 14 Apr | Chelsea (a) PP | |
| 16 Apr | Everton (h) | |
| 20 Apr | Fulham (a) | |
| 21 Apr | Manchester City (h) | |
| 27 Apr | Wigan Athletic (a) | |
| 28 Apr | Manchester Utd (h) | |
| 4 May | QPR (a) | Southampton (h) |
| 12 May | Wigan Athletic(h) | Stoke City (a) |
| 19 May | Newcastle Utd (a) | Sunderland (h) |
If we can get something from the Everton and Fulham games the pressure will be on Sp*rs. Can they cope? My money is that this won't be decided until May, and probably not until the last game.
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