Spurs will finish fourth

If you feel like a shot of optimisim, or if you're a statistics freak, check out this article from Push and Run:

Spurs will finish fourth - by midnightjester

I just wrote a piece for Topspurs where I decided to look at the stats to see just how bad a position Spurs are in compared with last year. The much touted "table doesn't lie" comment is, of course, rubbish unless you complete the statement with "after 38 games." Nonetheless, we are in the relegation zone after 10 games. Surely our season has all fallen apart? Surely this is a total disaster compared to our last two seasons? It certainly feels like it. Out come the results over the last two seasons...

The comparison, then, is quite a shock. A team-by-team comparison of results with last season and the "almost heroes" season before that is interesting. Tottenham Hotspur are only 1 point short of last year's haul from the same games and 2 points short of the year before. Not only that but Spurs are even performing BETTER away from home (2 points better) against the same teams than they did in the 2006/7 and 2005/6.

If Tottenham had played these 10 games in the beginning of either of the last two "top 5" seasons they would still be near the bottom of the league, if not in the bottom 3, since 1 point will get you a 5 place jump right now.

Stranger still is that if Tottenham win their next match at home to Blackburn BMJ will be a point ahead of his position in regard to last year's matches. Yes, that's right: ahead of last year after just one win! An away win at Middlesbrough to follow would put the bald man on a par with the season before- the season Spurs almost dumped Arsenal out of the Champions League.

This is not a whitewash job or playing with statistics, just the very real position of the team versus its Premier League opponents and its best two Premiership finishes in history. Contrary to my last piece on PushandRun about the season being over after Newcastle it appears to still be very much alive. The sharpening of knives for BMJ could still, it seems, be premature.

Here follows all the boring stuff so you know I'm not pulling this out of my bum: within the interchangeable yoyo clubs I placed Charlton in for Derby and a Sheffield Utd /WBA combination for Sunderland. The Derby win matches with the previous two seasons wins over Charlton and the Sunderland loss with Sheffield Utd and WBA.

season 2006/2007 2005/2006 h a h a Arsenal -1 -1 Aston Villa -2 0 Bolton 1 1 Everton 0 -3 Fulham 0 1 Liverpool 1 1 Manchester United 0 -1 Newcastle 0 0 Sunderland/ Sheff/ WBA 0 0 Derby/ Charlton 0 0 TOTAL DIFF -3 +2 -4 +2

Zokora has called on the Lilywhites to win their next three: Blackburn (H), Middlesbrough (A) and Wigan (H). If they do it Tottenham would find themselves 2 points ahead of their par performances for both of the last 2 years.

If they do it 4^th is back on. We need to be 3 points ahead of our 2005/6 haul to, with 68 points, practically guarantee Champions League football (68 has been enough for 4^th since 2003).

Surprising? You bet.