This weekend we’ve got to think of Tottenham, as well as Arsenal

By Bulldog Drummond

• To cover up its acceptance of Russia, Fifa expands its powerbase even further
• Why does English football refuse to act on match-fixing, when the rest of Europe takes it seriously?

Of course, if we win all five of our remaining games we will finish fourth and thus be back in the Champions League, but the likelihood is that we will drop some points somewhere in the games against West Ham, Leeds, Tottenham, Newcastle and Everton.  This means a certain amount of looking over the shoulder… 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Manchester City	33	25	5	3	80	21	59	80
2	Liverpool	33	24	7	2	85	22	63	79
3	Chelsea	33	19	9	5	68	28	40	66
4	Arsenal	33	19	3	11	52	40	12	60
5	Tottenham Hotspur	33	18	4	11	56	38	18	58
6	Manchester United	35	15	10	10	54	52	2	55

… and it would seem that for the rest of the season the one team whose results we have to watch is Tottenham.  I did have great hopes that we might catch Chelsea and confound the doubters by taking third, but the recent run of three defeats seems to have put paid to that.

Meanwhile while Manchester United could catch us, it would mean a sudden revival for them and a sudden collapse for us, and given that they only have three games left, to our five, and a ten goal worse goal difference, that would seem unlikely.   So Tottenham or Arsenal for fourth it is.  We’ve got two more points, they’ve got the better goal difference.

This weekend the games come one after the other…

• Tottenham v Leicester, Sunday, 2pm
• West Ham United v Arsenal, Sunday, 4.30pm

So I thought it might be interesting this weekend to consider both games in one or two ways that the media, in general, tends to ignore, rather than just the Arsenal game as we normally do.

Here’s the home and away comparison for this weekend’s Tottenham game…

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
5	Tottenham Hotspur home	16	10	1	5	31	18	13	31
17	Leicester City away	16	3	5	8	21	31	-10	14

That makes it look like a dead cert Tottenham home win.   

Now if we just look at the last ten games played showing home and away

				H	O	M	E			A	W	A	Y
Pos	Team	P		W	D	L	F	A		W	D	L	F	A		GD	Pts
1	Liverpool	10		6	0	0	18	1		3	1	0	7	2		22	28
2	Manchester City	10		4	1	1	18	7		3	1	0	7	0		18	23
3	Chelsea	10		3	0	2	7	8		4	1	0	15	2		12	22
4	Newcastle United	10		4	0	0	6	2		3	0	3	8	8		4	21
5	Tottenham Hotspur	10		3	0	1	13	3		3	1	2	12	4		18	19
6	Arsenal	10		3	0	2	8	6		3	0	2	8	8		2	18
7	Brentford	10		2	2	1	4	2		3	0	2	11	7		6	17
8	Leicester City	10		3	1	0	5	2		1	2	3	6	8		1	15

Tottenham’s gap over Leicester is reduced, although their goal difference is still way above that of Leicester.   If we compare just the last six Tottenham home games with the last six Leicester away games Tottenham have three wins and three defeats.  Leicester have one win, two draws and three defeats.

So I would imagine Leicester will come and play for a draw.  And the one bit of hope they will have for Tottenham’s demise is that these tiny totts can be erratic…

Date	Game	Res	Score	Competition
1 Mar 2022	Middlesbrough v Tottenham Hotspur	L	1-0	FA Cup
7 Mar 2022	Tottenham Hotspur v Everton	W	5-0	Premier League
12 Mar 2022	Manchester United v Tottenham Ho	L	3-2	Premier League
16 Mar 2022	Brighton and Hove  v Tottenham Ho	W	0-2	Premier League
20 Mar 2022	Tottenham Hotspur v West Ham United	W	3-1	Premier League
3 Apr 2022	Tottenham Hotspur v Newcastle United	W	5-1	Premier League
9 Apr 2022	Aston Villa v Tottenham Hotspur	W	0-4	Premier League
16 Apr 2022	Tottenham Ho v Brighton and Hove	L	0-1	Premier League
23 Apr 2022	Brentford v Tottenham Hotspur	D	0-0	Premier League

… losing to Middlesbrough in the FA Cup, knocking in five past Everton, losing to Manchester United, then going on a four-match winning run in the league in which they scored 14 only to lose at home to Brighton and play out a goalless draw with Brentford in their last two games.

And it is those last two matches that give those of us who look at the form of other teams a bit of hope.  No goals, and one point in two matches against the teams which are 11th and 12th in the league.

Leicester’s recent form however shows the best we can hope for is a draw.

Date	Game	Res	Score	Competition
17 Apr 2022	Newcastle Un v Leicester City	L	2-1	Premier League
20 Apr 2022	Everton v Leicester City	D	1-1	Premier League
23 Apr 2022	Leicester City v Aston Villa	D	0-0	Premier League
28 Apr 2022	Leicester City v AS Roma	D	1-1	Conference League

Having squeezed past PSV Eindhoven in the last round of the Conference League and only got a home draw in the current round I suspect that is where all their thoughts are, and I doubt that they will put on a fulsome show against Tottenham just to hold on to 10th position in the league.   In my view, they would probably be quite happy sinking down to 12th while getting into the Conference League Final.   It looks to me like an easy ride for Tottenham, which means Arsenal really do have to beat West Ham.

And on that basis, we might note with some pleasure that West Ham are also trying to get into the Conference final so they will also be distracted.  But we’ll come to that later.