May - The Force was not with us

It's a variation on an old gag, I know, and you won't thank me for reminding you of Spurs' pathetic and embarrassing end to what has been a very good season. Perhaps I should describe it as an excellent season, but I cannot bring myself to write that after a final month which brought the very worst of Pochettino's Tottenham Hotspur.

Pochettino got himself a shiny new contract to keep him at Spurs (in theory) until 2021. That news came out a day or so after he had been spotted leaving a lunch meeting with none other than Sir Alex Ferguson, but that turned out to be a social meeting only. Fifth placed Man Utd are in the process of appointing "The Special One" having sacked Louis van Gaal after winning the FA Cup.

Most of our players have International football to look forward to this summer. For many (including perhaps five of the England squad) that means the Euro 2016 tournament, but we fans had to endure the despondency of a 5-1 defeat at relegated Newcastle, and a lot of gags - old and new - at our expense. One most popular one is the fact that Spurs are the only team to have finished third in a two-horse race.

That is because we went into May as the very last team to have any chance of stopping Leicester's fairy-tale season. Our hopes were always very, very slim, but disappeared in a flash which lasted the 45 minutes of the second half against Chelsea, who probably produced their best half of football all season thus appeasing their fans, and keeping the likes of Eden Hazard happy. Why - Hazard even scored a "wonder" goal.

We had gone into that Chelsea game without Dele Alli, who suffered an enforced retrospective three-match ban, and we would suffer more after the disgraceful lack of discipline in that second half at Stamford Bridge, with Mousa Dembele landed with a six-match ban for an alleged "eye-gouging" incident with Diego Costa. Yes, Spurs even managed to make the villainous Diego Costa a victim in this case!

It was frustrating for a team that had not seen a red card all season to suffer the late bans of two most influential players. Their absence, and the lack of such effective replacements illustrated more than a little weakness in our squad outside the first eleven. Decent full-back cover and the excellent Kevin Wimmer are probably the sum of our genuine squad depth.

We can't say that Spurs surrendered the league title, because they were never quite close enough to win it in the end. However, the fact that Leicester were presented with the title before our penultimate game at home to Southampton (lost), and our last game at St. James' Park (thrashed) had knocked the heart out of the Spurs players who already had their eyes on their summer football and the beach.

Only the fans had to endure the annual mockery by Arsenal fans, and I for one have had to endure knowing grins, winks and nudges by non-football fans who regarded Spurs as failures in the final reckoning.

If you wonder why I even had to write this review, then you need to have respect and an eye to the past. We've had worse ends to a season, such as May 2003 when a Glenn Hoddle team lost their last three games, and the last two in May were four-goal defeats. I nearly packed up Spurs, and that was with a legend in charge.

Now, we are Champions League. We are genuinely rated as good prospects for next season, and as a club and a team we have a bright future to anticipate. I am not over the disgrace of May 2016, but I remain optimistic about next season!

Still to come on Spurs Odyssey this season is my season review, Norman Giller's weekly blog, and I have an interesting article up my sleeve by my good friend Declan Mulcahy, who makes an interesting comparison between this season and our promotion season of 1977-78.

P.S. - Mousa Dembele was the player of the month for May, but that is by default, because of his enforced absence from the last two games.

· Review the 2015-16 Premier League season here

Don't forget to check out the players' current figures re. appearances, cards, goals scored and accumulated ratings to date at the bottom of this page.

...if you want to read reports of the matches played during this season, then links are on the Spurs Odyssey Fixtures/Reports page here. By working your way back through the previous month's figures, you can review the performances over the last 16 years!