Kaboul and Modric were your joint men of the match!
There were great individual performances throughout the team in Monday night's televised win over Aston Villa. Over 300 voters accepted the usual Spurs Odyssey invitation to asses the efforts of the team, individual players, management and referee.
Throughout most of the time the survey was open, three players were sharing the man of the match "award", but in the end Scott Parker finished the merest difference below the actual joint winners, Younes Kaboul and Luka Modric. Kaboul was certainly a tower of strength, and quick enough to make a vital recovery tackle or two when needed - that was not often then! Younes has played more minutes of football in our season to date, ahead of Ekotto, Walker, Bale and Friedel, in that order. If Ledley can keep his fitness going, Michael Dawson is surely going to have a battle on his hands to get back into the team when he eventually regains his fitness. After all, Gallas is being shut out, and he is fit now.
After writing and submitting my match report of the game, I took the opportunity to watch all 90 minutes of the game, which I enjoyed immensely. I realised that I seriously under-rated Luka Modric's masterful performance. It's just that I was more attracted to the eye-catching moments provided by Scott Parker, Kaboul and of course Adebayor.
· See the final Spursometer for the Villa game here
Before Monday night's game I posed the question When were Spurs last third in the Premier League?. Actually, to be specific, I was looking for the answer regarding the 11 game stage, and I still think that was as stated, in October 2005. However, we also spent a week in third place last October (2010), after a home draw against Everton played on Saturday lunch-time October 23rd. That was our ninth league game last season.
So, here we are, in third place, three points ahead of Chelsea, with a game in hand (at home). We are also the top team in London. We finished the 94-95 season as top team in London, when we finished in 7th place. Let's hope we can keep that status, and stay in the top three for the rest of the season! I also look forward to the day when being in the top three is commonplace, and not a notable record for our beloved team.
I understand the odds on us finishing this season as top team in London with Boyle Sports are 2/1, with Chelsea still 5/6 favourites. Arsenal are marginally longer odds than us at 11/5. That home game against Chelsea on 22nd December will be a humdinger!
I hate to raise the subject, but the shortest odds for our next league defeat in the next 7 games are in fact for our next game at The Hawthorns on Saturday (11/4). Chelsea (5 games away) is 7/2.
Results 19-21.11.11
Norwich 1-2 Arsenal
Everton 2-1 Wolves
Man City 3-1 Newcastle
Stoke 2-3 QPR
S'derland 0-0 Fulham
West Brom 2-1 Bolton
Wigan 3-3 Blackburn
Swansea 0-1 Man Utd
Chelsea 1-2 Liverpool
Spurs 2-0 Aston Villa
Barclays Premier League
Pos Team P W D L F A GD Pts
1 Man City 12 11 1 0 42 11 31 34
2 Man Utd 12 9 2 1 29 12 17 29
3 Spurs 11 8 1 2 23 15 8 25
4 Newcastle 12 7 4 1 18 11 7 25
5 Chelsea 12 7 1 4 25 17 8 22
6 Liverpool 12 6 4 2 16 11 5 22
7 Arsenal 12 7 1 4 25 22 3 22
8 A. Villa 12 3 6 3 16 17 -1 15
9 QPR 12 4 3 5 13 22 -9 15
10 West Brom 12 4 2 6 11 17 -6 14
11 Norwich 12 3 4 5 17 20 -3 13
12 Everton 11 4 1 6 13 16 -3 13
13 Swansea 12 3 4 5 12 16 -4 13
14 Stoke 12 3 3 6 10 22 -12 12
15 S'derland 12 2 5 5 14 13 1 11
16 Fulham 12 2 5 5 14 15 -1 11
17 Wolves 12 3 2 7 13 20 -7 11
18 Bolton 12 3 0 9 19 29 -10 9
19 Blackburn 12 1 4 7 16 27 -11 7
20 Wigan 12 1 3 8 10 23 -13 6
