Is this a good or bad stat?
With one game to go, we now know that Spurs will finish above Chelsea for the first time in 16 years since the 1995-96 season. I'm not sure whether to call that a good or bad statistic. Let's just call it remarkable, eh? The year before (94-95) was the last time we finished abover Arsenal, and the last time we were the top team in London. We will go into Sunday's game against Fulham with that result still attainable, if we win and Arsenal drop points at West Brom.
Sunday will be our most important last day fixture since the notorious "lasagne-gate" at the end of the 2005-06, when we missed out to Arsenal for the fourth Champions League place. Bearing in mind Spurs poor form this side of January, it is surprising that we do still have an automatic Champions League place within our grasp.
Chelsea's 4-1 defeat at Anfield last night really does mean they have to put all their eggs in one basket and try to beat Bayern Munich on May 19th. They won't have all their eggs available either, and I honestly think that fourth place will be good enough for Spurs. However, I also do think that Arsenal will slip up, and that we will secure third place on Sunday! (Ever the optimist!)
Sandro was your man of the match against Villa (7.7/10), and has been voted top player in two of the last three games. With Danny Rose (scoring 4.5/10) getting sent off, Harry Redknapp will have to adjust his team for the Fulham game. I wouldn't be surprised to see both Parker and Sandro play in a previously successful 4-2-3-1 formation. More of that in our Fulham preview later this week.
Whilst we can (and should) finish seven points better off than last season, we now cannot match our previous best Premier League points tally for a season (70 in 2009-10).
Results 05-08.05.12
Arsenal 3-3 Norwich
Newcastle 0-2 Man City
A. Villa 1-1 Spurs
Bolton 2-2 West Brom
Fulham 2-1 S'derland
QPR 1-0 Stoke
Wolves 0-0 Everton
Man Utd 2-0 Swansea
Blackburn 0-1 Wigan
Liverpool 4-1 Chelsea
Barclays Premier League
Pos Team P W D L F A GD Pts
1 Man City 37 27 5 5 90 27 63 86
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2 Man Utd 37 27 5 5 88 33 55 86
3 Arsenal 37 20 7 10 71 47 24 67
4 Spurs 37 19 9 9 64 41 23 66
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5 Newcastle 37 19 8 10 55 48 7 65
6 Chelsea 37 17 10 10 63 45 18 61
7 Everton 37 14 11 12 47 39 8 53
8 Liverpool 37 14 10 13 47 39 8 52
9 Fulham 37 14 10 13 48 49 -1 52
10 West Brom 37 13 8 16 43 49 -6 47
11 S'derland 37 11 12 14 45 45 0 45
12 Swansea 37 11 11 15 43 51 -8 44
13 Norwich 37 11 11 15 50 66 -16 44
14 Stoke 37 11 11 15 34 51 -17 44
15 Wigan 37 10 10 17 39 60 -21 40
16 A. Villa 37 7 17 13 37 51 -14 38
17 QPR 37 10 7 20 40 62 -22 37
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18 Bolton 37 10 5 22 44 75 -31 35
19 Blackburn 37 8 7 22 47 76 -29 31R
20 Wolves 37 5 10 22 38 79 -41 25R
