Friday 2 December 2011

The Season So Far: Are We Ahead Of The Game?

Win tomorrow, go 2nd for at least a few hours. Win tomorrow, move to 31 points from 13 games. 10 wins from last 11. I feel like I'm playing Football Manager.

December is the busiest month of the season, with 6 games, 3 at home, 3 away. Trips to the Britannia, Carrow Road and the Liberty Stadium interspersed with the visits of Bolton, Sunderland and Chelsea to the Lane. Especially considering Chelsea's form and performances under Veesh-Boash, these are all very winnable games. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The point of this post is to examine our progress. Yes we're doing well, but how well?

Let's think of it in terms of the 40 point barrier that everyone loves to mention. It's pretty bloody pointless as teams have survived with fewer than 40 points and a West Ham team laden with talent like Kanoute, Defoe, Carrick and Cole contrived to go down with 42. But nevertheless it's still used as a meter of progress and probable survival of relegation. Relegation is not a relevant topic for us obviously, but I still consider the point in the season at which we hit the 40 point mark as in indicator of how the season is going. Teams that finish in the Top 3 tend to hit 40 points in late December/early January. If we win our next 4, we will reach 40 points before Santa comes down the chimney. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm not sure this has happened in the Premier League era.

In the 09/10 season, in which we finished 4th, we hit 40 points on the 26th January with a 2-0 home win over Fulham. Last season, when of course we missed out on the Top 4, we hit 40 points on the 2nd February with a 1-0 win at Blackburn. In comparison, in the 08/09 season, with the infamous '2 points 8 games' start under Ramos, we didn't reached 40 points until 21st March. I know we haven't done it yet, but the fact that we could reach 40 points before the year is out represents fantastic progress.

In addition to our overall point tally improvement on past years, we are also improving on last season when individual games are compared. If we replace QPR with say, West Ham (one lower half London rival for another), we have collected 9 points more this season than from the corresponding games last season, with our early season stuffing at the hands of City representing the only worse result than last season.

I've probably been prompted to write this by the feel-good factor surrounding the club at the moment. Failure tomorrow would be a crushing disappointment. But being as good as we are these days brings with it greater pressure. Winning games consistently against teams in the lower half of the table has long been an achilles heel for Spurs. Wins at Wigan, Wolves, Blackburn and West Brom so far this season suggests we may be beyond that. Blow them away at home, grind them down away. Works for me. Seems to be working for Tottenham. Come New Years Eve, people might have to start taking us very seriously.

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