His strengths lend themselves to a team playing a lot of long balls and threatening from set pieces. He's not going to thrive for a top 4 side, just as Kevin Davies wouldn't.
It's all about points on the table - I would much rather be in our position rather than playing catch up. City beat us to 4th last year - they had more points but a tougher run towards the end and failed to catch them. Similarly the season before we beat City to 4th - we had the points and the tougher run in. We went on a great run beating Arsenal, Chelsea and City.
I honestly find it shocking how a bright guy like you is predicting in certainties and looking back at history from over 3 years ago to justify it. Our games against you 17 years ago are irrelevant, unless you're planning on resigning Bould and Hartson too...
Of course it's biased. If Arsenal were the form team in the Premier League and were coming up against City who are on the back of some mixed form and without some of their key players, you'd fancy your chances. If Arsenal were 3 points of the league leaders, you'd be in the title race. We play many of the same games in our next 10 fixtures, yet we're the ones that are going to struggle. As I said earlier, you're looking up at us in the trees when their are eels swimming around your ankles
See: District Line's posts. How many points do I expect to get from those games? 10-12 points would be a good achievement and realistic. It could all go wrong for us but I don't think it's likely. Everton away and Newcastle at home, we have to expect to win these games, not because they're rubbish but at our best, they cannot compete with us. Liverpool are coming together but I still see that as the most winnable, they need a Lucas to break up our attacks. Derbies are very unpredictable, which hasn't always been reflected in the NLD but I expect form and injuries to count little in this match, it could go eitherway. City are missing a few players and the ones they are missing, they miss badly, no Adebayor is a huge blow for us and if they get Balotelli and Silva back this will be our toughest game. United's defence are creaking and their midfield is poor, if you compare our midfield against them in the first game of the season Kranjcar with a debuting Livermore, the probable partnership of Parker and Modric look hugely stronger and would probably represent the best midfield pairing in the league. If we're ever going to beat United, it will be this season. Chelsea have AVB who is struggling, Cole and Terry are struggling this season and they will need them to have huge games like they did against us earlier in the season, if they're going to win this.
What do you expect to get from: Man Utd (h) Tottenham (h) Liverpool (a) Newcastle (h) Everton (a) Man City (h) Chelsea (h) Some very tough home games - I don't think you realise how tough your remaining fixture list is. Our home games in comparison are more favourable. You could easily drop points at home here, as you have done against weaker opposition.
I'd rather have more home games going into the end of season run-in. Home are supposed to be easier to win. We'll see what happens. Only time will tell.
The reason Spurs have not delivered over the last 17 years is that we've had worse players than Arsenal and also a worse manager. All the outcomes flow from this. I am completely convinced we have better players now, although I still rate Wenger higher than Redknapp. Bsically since Harry took over we have done about 10% worse than Arsenal of which I attribute 5% to player quality and 5% to Wenger being a better coach. I think our team is 10% better than last year's and that Arsenal's is 10% worse. Wenger probably still adds his 5%. If I am right we should end up about 7 or eight points clear of you. This means that over the first half of the season we have over-achieved so we could now end up 12 points ahead. But I take the point about difficult away games so it is probably more realistic for the gap to remain about constant. Plenty of games left for this to be proved bollocks though!
