2016-17 season compass

Why would you assume this when the PL is so liable to fluctuate (as pointed out in my first post). Maybe I'm missing something.

 

Chelsea (h)
2015-16: 0-0
2016-17: 2-0

West Brom (h)
2015-16: 1-1
2016-17: 4-0

Leicester City (h)
2015-16: 0-1
2016-17: 1-1

That's five accounted for.

 

Draws at Bournemouth / Citeh / Sunderland etc. That's 6 lost.

 

The result against the Poool has effectively killed the PL challenge.
One season on, and the maturity/focus for the key games is still not there.

So, the Europa/FA cup games.
12 months ago, Pochettino already had FBs in rotation and
Wimmer had played a lot more competitive games. Not so this time.

On paper these are the only three games left to give squad players
competitive game time before the business end of the PL and Europa/FA cups.

However the Wycombe game showed that the 2nd XI probably cannot be
trusted to do a job comfortably while sparing the 1st XI for a few PL games.

How does Pochettino approach these 3 games regarding starting line-ups ??

 

Rest a few I guess. Winks can certainly come in. GKN as well. Vertonghen and Lamela hopefully coming back soon. But keep 7/8 and rotate 3/4. None of this 10 changes malarkey.

 

With injuries + risk trusting Academy players to front up, I doubt there
are 10 changes that can be made.

 

The Palace game will be postponed due to the FA Cup draw.
The Poool will be the big PL beneficiary of the QF draw (if they beat Burnley) .

 

Out of the Europa.
But the real money has come from the CL group stages, so no harm done
other than to Spurs UEFA ranking.

So, on paper we have the PL and the FA Cup remaining.
I assume the Palace game will be quickly rescheduled now there is no Europa.
If Spurs reach the FA Cup SFs, there is only going to be a backlog of one PL game
max between then and season end.

So no real excuses now possible for manager and squad about squad rotation, fatigue
etc unless there is a collossal injury plague. Heads down and get on with it.

 

PL (like for like with 2015-16 after 26 games) : Pts = +2 , GF = -1, GA = -6.

Continuing in a similar vein would see a finish on 72 pts.
GF thereabouts, but the defence has been very good even with all
of Toby / Jan / Danny having significant injury outages this season.

 

PL (like for like with 2015-16 after 27 games) : Pts = +4 , GF = +2, GA = -4.

Continuing in a similar vein would see a finish on 74 pts.

 

Anyone else keep logging on to news sites nervously waiting for news on Harry? I know the ankle was too swollen yesterday to do a scan (not good news I would imagine) but I believe it is/was going ahead today. Might affect our season's compass (he adds to justify posting on this thread).

 

The club's normally quite slow and quiet on this sort of thing.
I expect some sort of vague comments closer to the Southampton game.

 

The important news is that somebody at the club is capable of whipping a corner to the far post

 

The Leicester game on Apr 23 is postponed due to the FA Cup SFs.
That is two away PL games (Palace, Leicester) that will have to be scheduled
for a midweek slot sometime between Apr 1 and season end.

 

Hopefully Leicester will be resting their first team in preparation for the Champions League Final.

 

How about commenting on things that will happen in this universe?

 

Hopefully Leicester's players will be too distracted trying to engineer a move away to guarantee they'll be playing in the Premier League next season?

 

It has to happen, the Hollywood Producers will demand it..... Leicester from relgation candidates to Premier League Champions in 18 months, back to relegation candidates in 6 months, sack Claudio, then win the CL 6 months later. Somehow they will find a way to script Claudio's return just in time for the final. He'll probably enter the stadium riding a white horse...........

..........Vardy will win a Oscar for his acting

 

They'd also demand that Algerian international Riyad Mahrez be changed to Robby Marley, as audiences would understand a Jamaican comedy sidekick far better than the idea that somebody who is Arab-Berber is an actual human being who we could actually rally behind

...although not too closely, as he'd fling himself to the pitch.