We were fifth after 13 games last year too!
There is no doubting it has been a miserable Spurs weekend. The home draw against West Brom feels like a loss and it certainly did lead to a loss of ground on our rivals, not least Arsenal (or perhaps they are the least of our rivals), who sadly leapt into our fourth place with their added time penalty at Turf Moor. The likely looking 0-0 scoreline there would have preserved fourth place for Spurs.
Perhaps the situation is not quite as bad as it looks. Over the weekend I was alerted to the fact that after 13 games last year (and on the same weekend) we were also in fifth place with the same number of points and a marginally worse goal difference than the current +11. Second, third and fourth placed teams above us had a bigger gap than the three immediately above us this year. We never caught leaders Chelsea last year, and Mauricio Pochettino has admitted that it is extremely unlikely that we will catch racing leaders Man City this season. That goes for the other teams chasing them too.
To add to the angst of being a Spurs fan this weekend, our U-18s lost 6-0 at Arsenal's training ground, and the U-23s lost 4-2 at Man City's Academy Stadium, despite going 2-0 up early on. The Arsenal fan in my pub grinned at me for the first time this season last Thursday, as that was the first time we met after the North London Derby. He'll be grinning again today, but no doubt will have forgotten our Champions League win in Germany and his team's Europa League loss. It also irks me that whenever we play an Arsenal team at any level, I get more Arsenal fans visiting this website than Spurs. Come on you Spurs fans!
Anyway, onwards and upwards is the saying, and we always go into the next game in a state of optimism. Let's hope we can bounce back at Leicester and Watford this week.
In what was without doubt a poor team performance, Son Heung-min won your Spurs man of the match vote for his industry and at least one telling shot on goal, which time-waster Foster did well to save.
· See the spursometer for this game in full.
Did you know? - Eric Dier is the only player remaining who has had a playing role in every Spurs game so far this season. Moussa Sissoko did have the same record, but was a non-playing substitute on Saturday.
Results 24-26.11.17
West Ham 1-1 Leicester
C. Palace 2-1 Stoke
Man Utd 1-0 Brighton
Newcastle 0-3 Watford
Swansea 0-0 B'mouth
Spurs 1-1 West Brom
Liverpool 1-1 Chelsea
S'hampton 4-1 Everton
Burnley 0-1 Arsenal
Hds'field 1-2 Man City
Premier League Table - 2017-18
P W D L F-A GD Pts
1. Man City 13 12 1 0 42-8 34 37
2. Man Utd 13 9 2 2 28-6 22 29
3. Chelsea 13 8 2 3 24-11 13 26
4. Arsenal 13 8 1 4 23-16 7 25
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5. Spurs 13 7 3 3 21-10 11 24
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6. Liverpool 13 6 5 2 25-18 7 23
7. Burnley 13 6 4 3 12-10 2 22
8. Watford 13 6 3 4 22-21 1 21
9. Brighton 13 4 4 5 13-14 -1 16
10. S'hampton 13 4 4 5 13-15 -2 16
11. H'dsfield 13 4 3 6 9-19 -10 15
12. Leicester 13 3 5 5 17-19 -2 14
13. B'mouth 13 4 2 7 11-14 -3 14
14. Newcastle 13 4 2 7 11-17 -6 14
15. Stoke 13 3 4 6 16-26 -10 13
16. Everton 13 3 3 7 13-28 -15 12
17. West Brom 13 2 5 6 10-19 -9 11
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18. West Ham 13 2 4 7 12-26 -14 10
19. Swansea 13 2 3 8 7-15 -8 9
20. C. Palace 13 2 2 9 8-25 -17 8
