Fixture congestion looms
includes reference to Vertonghen v Adebayor goal-scoring ratio
Chelsea's 1-0 FA Cup quarter-final victory over Manchester United yesterday (1st April) means that our scheduled game against the West London team will have to be re-scheduled from semi-final week-end, which includes Sunday 14th April, when Sky's cameras were due to cover a game which will be highly crucial to the issue of who qualifies for the Champions League this season.
Assuming that one or both of us (Spurs and Chelsea) qualifies for the Europa League semi-final, then the Premier League match could be re-scheduled for Wednesday 8th May, just three days before the FA Cup Final. That would not please Chelsea, but of course they will have to get past Manchester City in the semi-final first. Normally, you'd expect a side to rest important players before a final, but if Chelsea do make it to the Final, they will face relatively weak opponents in either Millwall or Wigan. Therefore, it is likely Spurs will face a strong side in the re-arranaged game.
The bottom line is that both Spurs and Chelsea face fixture congestion, especially if they progress in the Europa League, so perhaps the extra game for Chelsea is not as big an advantage as we might think. Of course, the fact that Raf Benitez's charges managed to lose at Southampton helps our cause immensely, but we all know there are seven more crucial games for us to play yet.
The last of those games will be against Sunderland on May 19th, against a team now managed by Paolo Di Canio, whose appointment in place of Martin O'Neill has attracted both consternation and controversy. We'll know more about Di Canio's credentials by the time we meet the "Mackems".
Another individual attracting negative publicity this week was QPR's high profile January signing Christopher Samba. Viewed as a potential £12 million saviour when purchased from oil-rich Anzhi in Russia, Samba is also reportedly on £100,000 a week. Well, like many of you, I saw his performance last night against Fulham, and he looked nothing like a quality centre-back, and has apologised to QPR fans after his errors cost QPR dearly. Apparently he disobeyed Harry Redknapp's instructions by deciding to play up front towards the end of the game too. One of QPR's remaining games is against Arsenal on May 4th, so we should all cheer them on for that one!
Gareth Bale edged out Jan Vertonghen for man of the match in Saturday's win at Swansea. You'd have to say we were at least a "two-man team" on Saturday. Vertonghen has now scored 4 Premier League goals, which is twice as many as Emmanuel Adebayor. Okay, Jan has played in 9 more league games than Adebayor, but you'd expect the striker to have a higher score ratio. In all Spurs' games the score is 6 to Vertonghen and 4 to Adebayor. In fairness, I should point out that Adebayor has the better goals scored per minutes played ratio, due to appearances from the bench.
It is a fact though that the majority of Spurs fans (and Spurs Odyssey voters) have had enough of Adebayor, who has scored below 5 out of 10 in the last three games, and below 5 for the ninth time in 26 appearances this season. Adebayor supporters would say that we were not improved by Defoe's replacement of Adebayor, whose height was missed in defensive situations. Both strikers had shots in the game which were saved by Swansea goalkeeper Michael Vorm. Adebayor's one-on-one was a weak attempt in an excellent situation, whereas Defoe's shot did test the keeper to a greater extent.
Whatever happens to Spurs this season, I think we all hope that Mr. Levy will upgrade his strikers in the summer.
· See this week's spursometer in full
Results 30.03-01.04.13
S'derland 0-1 Man Utd
Arsenal 4-1 Reading
Man City 4-0 Newcastle
S'hampton 2-1 Chelsea
Swansea 1-2 Spurs
West Ham 3-1 West Brom
Wigan 1-0 Norwich
Everton 1-0 Stoke
A. Villa 1-2 Liverpool
Fulham 3-2 QPR
Barclays Premier League
P W D L F-A GD Pts
1. Man Utd 30 25 2 3 70-31 39 77
2. Man City 30 18 8 4 55-26 29 62
3. Spurs 31 17 6 8 53-38 15 57
4. Chelsea 30 16 7 7 59-32 27 55
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5. Arsenal 30 15 8 7 59-33 26 53
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6. Everton 30 13 12 5 47-35 12 51
7. Liverpool 31 13 9 9 59-40 19 48
8. West Brom 31 13 5 13 41-41 0 44
9. Swansea 31 10 10 11 41-40 1 40
10. Fulham 30 10 9 11 43-46 -3 39
11. West Ham 30 10 6 14 35-44 -9 36
12. S'hampton 31 8 10 13 44-53 -9 34
13. Stoke 31 7 13 11 27-36 -9 34
14. Norwich 31 7 13 11 28-47 -19 34
15. Newcastle 31 9 6 16 41-56 -15 33
16. S'derland 31 7 10 14 33-43 -10 31
17. Wigan 30 8 6 16 36-56 -20 30
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18. A. Villa 31 7 9 15 32-58 -26 30
19. QPR 31 4 11 16 28-51 -23 23
20. Reading 31 5 8 18 36-61 -25 23
