Looks likely to be a 3 horse race for the 4th place with Man United looking upwards and not down at the chasing pack who are at least 7 points adrift (Spurs 7, NUFC 8, LFC 14).
Going into this stretch of the season its quite tight at the top. I think most do not expect Fulham & BHA to realistically challenge for the top 4. Liverpool are some way off but have 2 GIH over Spurs and 1 over NUFC.
NUFCs form has dipped, picking up just 6 points in the last 5 games, compared to Spurs 9 and Liverpool 7. NUFC have a GIH over Spurs so could surplant them in 4th if they were to win that.
Looking ahead to the last 14 - 16 games of the season, the respective run-ins are as follows:
Spurs (42).......LFC(35).......NUFC(41)
Chelsea (h).....Palace (a).....- Cup Final
- FA Cup..........Wolves (h)....-
Wolves (a).......Man Utd (h)....Man City (a)
Forest (h)........B'mouth(a).....Wolves (h)
Saints (a) .......Fulham (h)......Forest (a)
Everton (a).....Man City (a)....Man Utd (h)
BHA (h)..........Arsenal (h)......Brentford (a)
B'mouth (h)....Leeds (a)........Villa (a)
NUFC (a).......Forest (h)......Tottenham (h)
Man Utd (h)....West Ham(a)..Everton (a)
Liverpool (a)..Tottenham (h)..Saints (h)
Palace (h)......Brentford (h)....Arsenal (h)
Villa (a)..........Leicester (a).....Leeds (a)
Brentford (h)...Villa (h)..........Leicester (h)
Leeds (a).......Saints (a)........Chelsea (a)
...................Chelsea (a)TBC.....BHA (h) TBC
.........................................WHU (a) TBC
Looking at this, i think Spurs have the more favourable run-in. Of the big teams left to play, its Chelsea (h) United (h) and Liverpool (a) plus a crunch game at NUFC, where as Liverpool have Man Utd (h) Man City (a) Arsenal (h) Spurs (h) and Chelsea (a) still to come and NUFC have Spurs Arsenal Man Utd at home and Chelsea & City away.
Listening to talkshiiiite on the way to work this morning they had some guy from Coral giving the latest odds and they had Liverpool as 6/5 for Top 4, Spurs at 11/8 and Newcastle basically at 2s. Thought that was very generous towards LFC who have GIH but have a lot of catching up to do and their form has not been great and even vs 10 men at the weekend looked defensively shaky. They are capable of getting on a roll for sure but they aint the Liverpool of recent seasons. NUFC certainly not out of it but they have just 1 win in 7 and seem to love a draw (11 of 23 games).
Looks to be an exciting run-in in store with all 3 teams also with some Cup interest which may have an impact one way of the other.
Race for Top 4
posted on 21/2/23
comment by Devonshirespur (U6316)
posted 1 hour, 36 minutes ago
comment by Chris[topher] (U20930)
posted 1 minute ago
- make an article about predicting who will make top 4
- someone makes a prediction
- "oh wow so you can predict the future huh, well check you out Nostradamus"
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Its not an article that makes predictions. Read it again!
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right so you didn't want anyone to share who they thought would make top 4, just wanted people to nod and say "yes you're right it will be competitive?"
what a fun and lively discussion that would have been.
posted on 21/2/23
comment by Brother (U20548)
posted 4 hours, 5 minutes ago
comment by JustCallMeTed (U21528)
posted 9 minutes ago
All of this "what if's" will come down to one match..
Newcastle V Tottenham.
And we had better win it!
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Unless it's a draw, and unless one of us loses that game but still finishes the season strongly.
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I'm assuming the two clubs will achieve the same number of points up to that match, neck & Neck!
And then....the show down!
Meanwhile we're still in the CL......and I think that is going to go quite well for us.
posted on 21/2/23
comment by Chris[topher] (U20930)
posted 5 hours, 35 minutes ago
comment by Devonshirespur (U6316)
posted 1 hour, 36 minutes ago
comment by Chris[topher] (U20930)
posted 1 minute ago
- make an article about predicting who will make top 4
- someone makes a prediction
- "oh wow so you can predict the future huh, well check you out Nostradamus"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Its not an article that makes predictions. Read it again!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
right so you didn't want anyone to share who they thought would make top 4, just wanted people to nod and say "yes you're right it will be competitive?"
what a fun and lively discussion that would have been.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Again, why don't you try reading. Lots of people have made predictions.
What I have pushed back on is this comment ""Liverpool won’t need to be anything special to finish above Spurs"
I have challenged one persons opinion because I find it unreasoned.
How boring it would be if people.just stated their opinions without any debate .
posted on 21/2/23
comment by Kobbie The King Mainoo (U10026)
posted 7 hours, 54 minutes ago
comment by Chris[topher] (U20930)
posted 1 minute ago
- make an article about predicting who will make top 4
- someone makes a prediction
- "oh wow so you can predict the future huh, well check you out Nostradamus"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
posted on 21/2/23
Injuries or the lack of them will play a huge part in this with so many games still left to play.
Only a couple of weeks ago we were rejoicing in the fact that for once we had a fully fit squad and a few days later we had 3 players out for 6 weeks minimum.
posted on 21/2/23
I think the main difference for Spurs this time around is the foem and fitness Bentacur, Kulu and Son.
But form can change pretty quickly and they have Kane.
posted on 21/2/23
comment by Robbing Hoody - At the end of a storm (U6374)
posted 6 minutes ago
I think the main difference for Spurs this time around is the foem and fitness Bentacur, Kulu and Son.
But form can change pretty quickly and they have Kane.
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I agree with that. Our form has been up and down but we have rarely hit last seasons top form largely because Son has nit been atvthe same level and Kulu has been injured and not atvpeak form either.
So there is certainly room to improve in these areas, and the defence needs to perform much better.
I think Liverpools issues are slightly different as it's a case of integrating Nunez and Gakpo effectively and also finding balance in the CM. You had a very settled and established way of playing and that seems to have been slightly disrupted.
posted on 21/2/23
comment by Spurtle (U1608)
posted 11 hours, 12 minutes ago
comment by sandy, golden boot winner fa cup 1901 (U20567)
posted 19 minutes ago
comment by Spurtle (U1608)
posted 1 hour, 27 minutes ago
Everyone thought it was too early for Newcastle to get top 4 as it is, so maybe this is just them naturally coming back down to where people would have expected them to finish. I would go as far as ruling them out of the top 4 If I'm being honest. There have been only a handful of times since the PL where an unexpected team finished top 4, so it is unlikely.
Spurs have never shown enough consistency this season so far in their performances and it's reflected in their inconsistent results (apart from a decentish start where we were often outplayed but mainly got away with it). Missing a key midfielder, and a couple of usually important attacking players underperforming at the moment.
Liverpool have been inconsistent themselves but have a couple of wins on the bounce and good performances. They have the experience of finishing high up the table and they have the squad to do it also. They have finished the last 2 seasons strongly.
It's fair to say on that basis that Liverpool should be the favourites to get top 4 and I believe they will.
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Spurs also recently had a couple of wins on the bounce. Spurs also have experience of finishing high up the table. Spurs also finished last season strongly.
So basically all the reasons you have given for Liverpool finishing top four, also applies to Spurs.
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Where is Tottenham's recent experience of finishing high up the table? Liverpool got over 90 points last season to finish one behind the leaders...when have we done that? We got 86 points during the Poch but that era is long gone.
Where are the 2 Spurs wins on the bounce? We got hammered by Leicester, then lost to Milan, then beat West Ham.
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Most normal supporters would say that recent form means like a months form. On that basis Spurs won two on the bounce against Fulham and City, two top six teams, which is a lot better than Liverpool winning against a bottom three team, and a 10 man team. But if you really want to be pedantic and just say recent form, then Spurs are the most recent winners, so I guess they have the better form. Throw in Liverpool were dumped out of the FA Cup recent, and Spurs progressed, and Spurs have won three of their last four Prem games, then they are the form team of the two.
Also last seasons points tally are completely irrelevant to this season, when Liverpool even if they were to win every game, will fall 20 points short of their last seasons tally.
As for consistency, Spurs sit 4th, Liverpool sit 8th, that alone should tell you that Spurs have been more consistent than Liverpool.
I get you don`t like Conte, and would like him to fail, but come on Spurs have just as much chance as Liverpool of taking a top four place.
posted on 21/2/23
I find myself in the position of agreeing with you Sandy, which is an odd feeling.
What strikes me about our form is that post the 4-2 loss at City there was that team meeting, and in 5 out of the 4 following games Spurs have looked much more like the good version of themselves. Very solid win at an inform Fulham followed by an excellent win vs City. A totally professional job in the FA Cup, no goals let in in these 3 games. The aberration at Leicester just goes to show that we still have some issues particularly when we lost key players like Romero & Lloris (and then made the strange decision to add debutant Porro alongside the very poor Tanganga to disrupted defensive lineup in an away game), but then we returned to the classic solid Conte Spurs in beating WHU and barely giving them a sniff.
So for me our form since that loss at City is an appropriate period to measure over as there has been a slight shift and in league terms, against form teams & a local derby which has often caused us issues in the past. 3 wins in 4. If we go 3 wins in 4 for the rest of the season I could happily live with that and we'd hit 73 points at least.
Where we are vulnerable IMO is with injuries. Bentancur out leaves us with few options in CM and we have seen what missing Romero did for us vs Leicester. A couple more key injuries and we may struggle to maintain decent form.
posted on 21/2/23
comment by Devonshirespur (U6316)
posted 3 hours, 29 minutes ago
I find myself in the position of agreeing with you Sandy, which is an odd feeling.
What strikes me about our form is that post the 4-2 loss at City there was that team meeting, and in 5 out of the 4 following games Spurs have looked much more like the good version of themselves. Very solid win at an inform Fulham followed by an excellent win vs City. A totally professional job in the FA Cup, no goals let in in these 3 games. The aberration at Leicester just goes to show that we still have some issues particularly when we lost key players like Romero & Lloris (and then made the strange decision to add debutant Porro alongside the very poor Tanganga to disrupted defensive lineup in an away game), but then we returned to the classic solid Conte Spurs in beating WHU and barely giving them a sniff.
So for me our form since that loss at City is an appropriate period to measure over as there has been a slight shift and in league terms, against form teams & a local derby which has often caused us issues in the past. 3 wins in 4. If we go 3 wins in 4 for the rest of the season I could happily live with that and we'd hit 73 points at least.
Where we are vulnerable IMO is with injuries. Bentancur out leaves us with few options in CM and we have seen what missing Romero did for us vs Leicester. A couple more key injuries and we may struggle to maintain decent form.
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Devonshire we agree on quite a bit. You are one of the few that do not do kneejerk stuff like a lot on the board. Some want Conte gone after every game. Some said Porro would walk into the side without any real clue of how good he would be. Lots want Poch back even though he still hasn't proved himself elsewhere, save for picking up a trophy at PSG, which a pub manager could do. Lots support Liverpool over Spurs. You don't do any of those things, and you have my respect for that.