Out-played by Stoke twice in a season
"To be outplayed by Stoke once was bad enough. Twice in a season is not acceptable"
This was just one of the comments I received following Saturday's shambolic Spurs performance, and it is very pertinent. According to the statistics I keep of all the votes made in our post-match surveys, our two games against Stoke were indeed two of the worse performances of the season for both team and head coach.
There were several scathing remarks made about Mauricio Pochettino, who scored only just above three out of ten for his team selection, tactics and use of substitutes at The Britannia Stadium. (Maybe that should be non-use of substitutes, as he only used two). Pochettino has scored less than four out of ten in three of our last six games, and less than five out of ten in 11 of our 55 games played this season. That's 20% and surely unacceptable for any Spurs coach.
Incredibly, we could still qualify for The Europa League, although perhaps Spurs really are making a deliberate effort not to qualify. Compare our attitude to end of season games with that of Swansea, who took three points off Arsenal for the second time this season. We can't even dream about that! Swansea could yet take sixth place, and on form, they'd deserve it with five wins in their last seven games.
Once again, we Spurs fans are enduring a spell when it takes true grit to be a supporter of a club whose players lack such quality on the whole. The phrase "man of the match" is a mis-nomer for this game in the case of Spurs players, and not even Harry Kane could get five out of ten.
The lion-hearted Michael Dawson and his desperate Hull team will make it hard for us on Saturday.
· The full spursometer is here.
Results 09-11.05.15
Everton 0-2 S'derland
A. Villa 1-0 West Ham
Hull 0-1 Burnley
Leicester 2-0 S'hampton
Newcastle 1-1 West Brom
Stoke 3-0 Spurs
C. Palace 1-2 Man Utd
Man City 6-0 QPR
Chelsea 1-1 Liverpool
Arsenal 0-1 Swansea
Barclays Premier League
P W D L F-A GD Pts
1. Chelsea 36 25 9 2 70-28 42 84C
2. Man City 36 22 7 7 77-36 41 73
3. Arsenal 35 21 7 7 66-34 32 70
4. Man Utd 36 20 8 8 61-36 25 68
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5. Liverpool 36 18 8 10 50-39 11 62
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6. Spurs 36 17 7 12 55-53 2 58
7. S'hampton 36 17 6 13 48-30 18 57
8. Swansea 36 16 8 12 44-44 0 56
9. Stoke 36 14 8 13 42-44 -2 50
10. West Ham 36 12 11 13 43-43 0 47
11. Everton 36 11 11 14 46-48 -2 44
12. C. Palace 36 11 9 16 43-50 -7 42
13. West Brom 36 10 11 15 34-47 -13 41
14. A. Villa 36 10 8 18 30-50 -20 38
15. Leicester 36 10 7 19 41-54 -13 37
16. S'derland 35 7 15 13 30-50 -20 36
17. Newcastle 36 9 9 18 37-61 -24 36
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18. Hull 36 8 10 18 33-49 -16 34
19. Burnley 36 6 11 19 27-53 -26 29R
20. QPR 36 7 6 23 39-67 -28 27R
