The race for the title

[stevenurse]

Another opportunity missed. Becoming a pattern with this current side, however much they've improved, we are still struggling in the games that really matter.

 

[mightyspur]

Only 10 pts in it with 13 games to go. Race is back on...

 

[WiganSpur]

We won't win the league but in the battle with everyone else what is in our favour is that all of our remaining games are now winnable. That includes Arsenal and United at home. I don't fancy us at Burnley but on our day we can still go there and win comfortably.

 

[Colonel_Klinck]

Bloody typical! We could have dropped it to 7 points or at least kept it at 9 if we'd bothered to turn up yesterday. That was probably the most frustrated I've been this season. Please learn from this Poch and the players need to have a hard look in the mirror for that display.

 

[TheChosenOne]

Only 10 pts in it with 13 games to go. Race is back on...

The "treble" is still on.

 

[Lighty64]

Dier is a fine DM but every time I see him in defence I worry. Wycombe's third was a giveaway by him and then left for dead by a league 2 attacker. Lost possession for one of Pool's yesterday. And we seriously need an upgrade on Davis. Not his fault but not suited for how we play. I would rather have played Walker left to match Mane for pace and put Trippier right.

i definitely don't like Dier in a 4 at the back, but the bolded leaves me annoyed, just because he is a league 2 player it doesn't mean they aren't allowed to have some skill set or speed. if the ball falls in the right area and a player has more pace than a PL player, then there is a good chance they will leave them for dead. the only reason they are a league 2 player is most probably due to consistency and end product, and not being in the shop window

 

[mightyspur]

i definitely don't like Dier in a 4 at the back, but the bolded leaves me annoyed, just because he is a league 2 player it doesn't mean they aren't allowed to have some skill set or speed. if the ball falls in the right area and a player has more pace than a PL player, then there is a good chance they will leave them for dead. the only reason they are a league 2 player is most probably due to consistency and end product, and not being in the shop window

People also seem to conveniently forget our actual RB was off the pitch and we were playing with 10 men

 

[nedley]

How about we win the Europa league yeah?

 

[glacierSpurs]

Bloody typical! We could have dropped it to 7 points or at least kept it at 9 if we'd bothered to turn up yesterday. That was probably the most frustrated I've been this season. Please learn from this Poch and the players need to have a hard look in the mirror for that display.

and this just continues to make the Sunderland draw more frustrating!

 

[Legacy]

We are unbeaten at home this year with 10 wins and 2 draws from 12 games, conceding only 5 goals in the process and 2 of them were penalties.

Of our 6 remaining away games, 4 of them are against teams in the bottom 5, 2 of which have the worst home records in the league.

We more than likely won't catch Chelsea. But there's no reason to not be confident of finishing the season in a strong position.

 

[shelfboy68]

Bloody typical! We could have dropped it to 7 points or at least kept it at 9 if we'd bothered to turn up yesterday. That was probably the most frustrated I've been this season. Please learn from this Poch and the players need to have a hard look in the mirror for that display.

That's spurs for you and that is what's so annoying about yesterday yes we were never going to win the league but it would have given Chelsea something to think about and put just a little bit of pressure on.
Instead the charitable side of our make up reared it's ugly head again on an all to familiar basis.

 

[stevenurse]

We are unbeaten at home this year with 10 wins and 2 draws from 12 games, conceding only 5 goals in the process and 2 of them were penalties.

Of our 6 remaining away games, 4 of them are against teams in the bottom 5, 2 of which have the worst home records in the league.

We more than likely won't catch Chelsea. But there's no reason to not be confident of finishing the season in a strong position.

And Sunderland are bottom of the league, losing 4-0 at home to Southampton yesterday, yet we didn't trouble their keeper once. Leicester hadn't got a point away from home until their dose of Dr Spurs. Liverpool had won 1 in 10, which was against a league 2 side but made us look like a pub team.

Until we learn to stop spurning the opportunity to make life easy for ourselves, there's no point looking at the fixtures.

We almost do better if the rest of our rivals win. Don't know if it's a pressure thing, mentality or whatever.

As that stat shows about our record against the rest of the top 6. Unless we rectify that, we will always be the bridesmaids and never the bride

 

[rocklink]

We are unbeaten at home this year with 10 wins and 2 draws from 12 games, conceding only 5 goals in the process and 2 of them were penalties.

Of our 6 remaining away games, 4 of them are against teams in the bottom 5, 2 of which have the worst home records in the league.

We more than likely won't catch Chelsea. But there's no reason to not be confident of finishing the season in a strong position.

We won't win against everton , leicester and burnley !!

 

[1882andallthat]

I'm not entirely sure as you've phrased that quote awkwardly, but I think you're suggesting if Spurs or United win the EL and finish outside the top 4 then 4th wouldn't qualify for CL? That's not the case - there would simply be 5 English sides in next season's CL.

Having looked into it again I accept that your assertion is correct, I guess I was too caught up in with the Chelsea scenario when we finished 4th but the rules have changed since then, however most of the force of what I'm saying though still stands because we could just as as easily finish 5th or 6th because the points differential between 2nd and 6th is so slight. Given that is the case we need to be giving ourselves as much of a route in by another means because these finishing positions will be like a lottery the way things are going.

 

[am_yisrael_chai]

We are now starting to pay the price for awful recruitment last summer. Sissoko just never made any sense and still doesn't. Janssen doesn't have the pace or touch to succeed in the league despite trying very hard. GKN has looked good in flashes but it would seem Poch's view of him is pretty similar to that of Njie. So the bottom line is we spent £60m on players who aren't good enough to even be used from the bench let alone fill in when first teamers are unfit or off form.

Unfortunately I'm not that optimistic we will do any better this summer.

 

[1882andallthat]

We have a sightly greater chance by virtue of the fact that we are currently above all of the other challengers. Add this to the fact that our hardest games are now behind us and, while I'm not "supremely" confident, I think we'll be ok. There is no way we're going to lose to Arsenal in the last NLD at the old Lane, nor United in the last game there full stop, so maintaining the form we've shown over the season so far should see us in the top 3 again, let alone top 4.

I think the margins are so slight that it's far too close to call. As much as I would like to agree with you when you assert that "there is no way we are going to lose at home to Utd or Arsenal in our last games at the Lane in its current form" I'm afraid I cannot share this confidence, yes we should be going all out to make sure that this doesn't happen, but taking my Spurs tinted glasses off, all logic and current form tells us that this season of all seasons suggests otherwise.

Games against these two could literally go either way, win, draw or a loss, if I'm being honest we are just as capable of beating them on our day as losing or drawing with them because in one off games we are pretty evenly matched with them both, if either of those including Spurs has a slight off day or picks up one or two injuries to real key players it tips the scales and the other sides win, yes we as fans should be doing our duty of making the atmosphere an absolute cauldron and as intimidating for them as we can, but it's really not as simple as assuming that we won't or couldn't lose those games I'm afraid.

 

[Wheeler Dealer]

We won't win the league but in the battle with everyone else what is in our favour is that all of our remaining games are now winnable. That includes Arsenal and United at home. I don't fancy us at Burnley but on our day we can still go there and win comfortably.

Burnley will press us like everyone else will do now, seeing how we cant cope with it based on the recent City and Liverpool games. West Ham did last year and beat us. I'll expect them to do the same this year.

 

[The Apprentice]

I've just looked at our next 8 games before the NLD and have regained confidence.

Lots of winnable games.

I'll put the Stanley knife down.

 

[ralvy]

Dier needs to come out of the defence for good now. He either plays in midfield or sits on the bench. Kevin Wimmer is a natural LCB and is a much better defender than Dier.

Either Wimmer is showing absolutely nothing at trainings or Poch is just being pretty stubborn there IMO. I'm gonna give Poch the benefit of the doubt (for now at least).

 

[Lighty64]

We won't win against everton , leicester and burnley !!

well at least your not as pessimistic as usual, so 10 more wins and we will just fuck up those 3 games, that should see us finish top 4