The big match, today, is, of course, the Toffees v the Gunners. The winner of which could well decide who finishes 4th and who finishes 5th. I fancy the Toffees to nick all three points, and for Whinger's Arsenal to finish outside the "Top 4" for the first time during his reign, effectively handing him his P45. Now, we all know how lame we have been this season, and that our chances of finishing in the top 4 are about as solid as 'Pool managing to hold on to Goofy next season, but I still think we have a crack at 5th. So, my question is a simple one: which of the two do you think we'd find it easiest to reel-in? Of course, it's going to come down to which of the two collapses. Again, I'm thinking that Arsenal is the most likely of the two to bottle it, and I think it's going to be a dog-fight to the end of the season between us and the Gunners for that 5th spot. What do you guys think?
I like Martinez. One of the managers we should have hired, instead of that Portugese numpty. Plus, of course, the other choice is The Goons. So, no contest for me. Let The Goons experience freezing cold winter nights in Moldova, for a change....
It's a win/win in the most minor way possible for us today. I don't think we'll catch either and finishing above United is really our priority at this stage, especially since the Europa League will go to 5th and 6th only this season.
There's a CL spot at the end if you win it next season. I'd always rather be in Europe than not. 5/6th and an European trophy represents a better season than 4th and no trophies to me. Arsenal have been terrible so far.
Yes but it is normally won by a CL side anyway. This week all 4 winners in the EL quarter finals were teams that finished third in CL tables. What we will see next year when Arsenal and United are in EL is that theiy will play their league games on Mondays (just like we are this week and other leagues in Europe do to help their EL teams.
Everton. 3 of their last 4 PL games are against the Mancs and Soton. The Goons have a similar fixture list to Spurs, so assuming we win on monday, the gap is 5 pts and would require them to collapse akin to 2010 to be caught.
Everton to finish top four and end Wengers record of never finishing outside the top four? This could finally be the end of Wenger.
Another target for Spurs would be to finish above the Goons and Man Utd. That could make us the first club to finish above all of the Sky 4 in the PL era.
Fair point about the winners. I still believe we have a good chance of winning it so long as we're in it. Under AVB, who apparently wasn't good enough to manage us, we made it to the quarters and only lost on penalties. In fact we've only lost 3 EL games in the last 2 seasons. Once away to Inter and the other 2 with Sherwood who has a played 6, won 1 in record with us in the cups. Give us a good manager and we should be up there.
The key to the Europa is how the manager and squad deal with the KO stages, which comes in the final third of the PL season. The last 3 seasons have shown the group stage has not really affected the Spurs PL campaign, whether you take it serious or not. Squad fatigue/injuries at that stage is near fatal to the PL campaign.
So, who thinks Wenger can pick the Goons off the floor to get a CL slot ?? Or is spring 2010 repeating itself ??
I think we'll be 4th if we win all our remaining matches. Arsenal look completely out of sorts and Everton have a hard run in. Not sure it is very likely though.