That Ledley King record
The latest figures on Ledley King's magnificent winning run in Premier League games in which he has finished the game are as follows:-
Ledley has played 13 full Premier League games since 18th September, 2010, and Spurs have won every one of those. At Newcastle in october this year, Ledley started, but had to be replaced after only half an hour. The game was drawn. So that's 14 consecutive league games in which Ledley has played, and Spurs have not lost. The last defeat he played in was the freakish 1-0 home defeat against Wigan in August 2010.
Ledley hasn't been booked in the last two seasons (16 league games), and in 257 league appearances, has been booked only 10 times. That's a phenomenal record for any player at the heart of defence, and supports the argument that Ledley is one of the most cultured and clean of central defenders. Compare that discipline record against that of John Terry, who has 59 yellow cards and 4 red cards to his name in 358 Premier League games. Born is the King, better than John Terry indeed. Let's hope our man is fit on Thursday night!
We had over 170 responses in the post match survey for this game, and Sandro and Van der Vaart tied in the vote for man of the match, both scoring 7.6. Clearly Sandro's tenacious ball-winning and retention skills, and Van der Vaart's classic passing abilities (including the marvellous reverse pass for the assist on Pavlyuchenko's goal) caught the eye.
Since Spurs Odyssey has been closely monitoring the performance of referees in January 2010, Mike Dean has been in charge of us more than any other referee. Dean has officiated in 10 of our games, and our record in those is Won 5, Drawn 3, and Lost 2, one of which was the meaningless end of season defeat in May 2010 at Turf Moor, when we had qualified for the Champions League and Burnley were already relegated. We didn't like Mr. Dean when we drew at home to Chelsea last December (4.7 out of 10), but his average of 6.3 compares favourably with most officials we see. After Sunday's game 70% of voters gave him a 6 or a 7 grade. His only other game in charge of us this season was in the 2-1 win over Arsenal.
I hope for some positive referee comments after Thursday night's Chelsea game! The trouble is we'll have Howard Webb in charge and Chris Foy as fourth official!
Results 17-18.12.11
Blackburn 1-2 West Brom
Everton 1-1 Norwich
Fulham 2-0 Bolton
Newcastle 0-0 Swansea
Wigan 1-1 Chelsea
Wolves 1-2 Stoke
QPR 0-2 Man Utd
A. Villa 0-2 Liverpool
Spurs 1-0 S'derland
Man City 1-0 Arsenal
Barclays Premier League
Pos Team P W D L F A GD Pts
1 Man City 16 13 2 1 50 15 35 41
2 Man Utd 16 12 3 1 37 14 23 39
3 Spurs 15 11 1 3 31 18 13 34
4 Chelsea 16 10 2 4 34 19 15 32
5 Arsenal 16 9 2 5 31 24 7 29
6 Liverpool 16 8 5 3 20 13 7 29
7 Newcastle 16 7 6 3 21 19 2 27
8 Stoke 16 7 3 6 18 25 -7 24
9 Norwich 16 5 5 6 25 29 -4 20
10 A. Villa 16 4 7 5 18 21 -3 19
11 Fulham 16 4 6 6 18 18 0 18
12 Swansea 16 4 6 6 16 20 -4 18
13 West Brom 16 5 3 8 16 24 -8 18
14 Everton 15 5 2 8 16 19 -3 17
15 QPR 16 4 4 8 15 28 -13 16
16 S'derland 16 3 5 8 18 19 -1 14
17 Wolves 16 4 2 10 17 30 -13 14
18 Wigan 16 3 4 9 15 30 -15 13
19 Blackburn 16 2 4 10 23 36 -13 10
20 Bolton 16 3 0 13 20 38 -18 9
This week's fixtures:-
Tue 20.12.11
Wolves v Norwich
Blackburn v Bolton
Wed 21.12.11
A. Villa v Arsenal
Man City v Stoke
Newcastle v West Brom
Everton v Swansea
Fulham v Man Utd
QPR v S'derland
Wigan v Liverpool
Thur 22.12.11
Spurs v Chelsea
