I had a dream
I'll make a confession. A couple of weeks ago, when we faced Chelsea, I had a dream. I didn't share it at the time, and it proved a wise move, as my dream relied upon us beating Mourinho's misfits. Had we managed to win that game, I would have harboured genuine thoughts about a Spurs challenge for the Premier League title.
Needless to say, that dream has turned into a relative nightmare with a third successive home league defeat to Newcastle. This is a team which has lost six, yes six, successive games to their local rivals, Sunderland, and whilst we have had good results against "The Toon" in recent years, Sunday's defeat still hurts so much.
Leicester City are living the dream at the moment. They did beat Chelsea last night and continue their astounding run at the top of the table, with very good goals from Jamie Vardy (now on 15 for the season), and Ryad Mahrez (on 11 goals this season). These two players sandwich Romelu Lukaku in the top three Premier League scorers after 16 games.
Leicester's success is so, so refreshing for a Premier League which in most years has an element of staleness because the same old teams tend to dominate. So, I say good luck to "The Foxes" and their very likeable manager Claudio Ranieri. I just hope that their good form comes to a halt soon, especially when they play us twice in January.
I recorded our game, but didn't have the heart to watch it again, although I did have a peep at Sky's post-match punditry. David Moyes made the comment that Spurs looked as if they were suffering because of their Europa League game on Thursday. Yet five of our players on Sunday did not play one minute on Thursday. Dele Alli only had 10 minutes against Monaco, and Eric Dier played 40.
My main criticism of head coach Mauricio Pochettino relates to his selection of Tom Carroll, who did play 90 minutes on Thursday (and played well), but failed to impress on Sunday. Apparently, Carroll's passing stats were good, but not his tackling figures.
Obviously, we are still well placed for a challenge upon the top four, despite our failure to take advantage of Man United's poor result at Bournemouth.
Some people hate that adjective "Spursy" applied to our regular let-downs, but it is apt, and this week-end's events were all so "Spursy".
That much-heralded undefeated run of 14 games has come to an end, but as we know, that run included too many draws. Spurs need to bounce back and win a lot more. (Some of you may see what I did there!)
For the record, your Spurs man of the match (this week, it's the least worse player) was Toby Alderweireld. I can also tell you that Toby has slipped very marginally ahead of Hugo Lloris in the cumulative grades for the season.
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Results 12-14.12.15
Norwich 1-1 Everton
C. Palace 1-0 S'hampton
Man City 2-1 Swansea
S'derland 0-1 Watford
West Ham 0-0 Stoke
B'mouth 2-1 Man Utd
A. Villa 0-2 Arsenal
Liverpool 2-2 West Brom
Spurs 1-2 Newcastle
Leicester 2-1 Chelsea
Barclays Premier League Table
P W D L F-A GD Pts
1. Leicester 16 10 5 1 34-22 12 35
2. Arsenal 16 10 3 3 29-13 16 33
3. Man City 16 10 2 4 32-17 15 32
4. Man Utd 16 8 5 3 21-12 9 29
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5. Spurs 16 6 8 2 26-14 12 26
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6. C. Palace 16 8 2 6 21-15 6 26
7. Watford 16 7 4 5 18-16 2 25
8. West Ham 16 6 6 4 25-21 4 24
9. Liverpool 16 6 6 4 20-19 1 24
10. Everton 16 5 8 3 29-21 8 23
11. Stoke 16 6 5 5 13-14 -1 23
12. S'hampton 16 5 6 5 21-19 2 21
13. West Brom 16 5 5 6 16-21 -5 20
14. B'mouth 16 4 4 8 20-31 -11 16
15. Newcastle 16 4 4 8 18-31 -13 16
16. Chelsea 16 4 3 9 18-26 -8 15
17. Swansea 16 3 5 8 15-24 -9 14
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18. Norwich 16 3 5 7 18-28 -10 14
19. S'derland 16 3 3 10 17-30 -13 12
20. A. Villa 16 1 3 12 13-30 -17 6
· All the Spurs Stats you could hope for here!
· This week last year
