This season could be for me, the strangest in my living memory.
At close of play tonight (11th November) we sit just five points behind the leaders Manchester City in 4th on 27 points. We have won nine of our opening twelve games, winning seven of our eight away games and two of our four home games.
I’m not for a moment suggesting we are going to win the title, but with most of the media and football pundits barely predicting a top six finish for us this season, we’re not doing bad.
I appreciate the home and away ratio is skewed because of the problems we have been having with our new stadium (having to swap home/way ties), but we are where we are in the league after playing two-thirds of our league games away from home.
Then you look at our Champions League campaign to date this season. After taking the footballing world by complete surprise last season by finishing top of a group containing (eventual winners) Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund, we have really struggled this time around and only have a slim chance at best of qualifying for the knock-out stages.
Despite not setting the Premier League alight this season we are there or thereabouts. If we keep this league form up for the entire season we could potentially beat our record Premier League points haul from the 2016-17 season when we picked up 86 points. With a similar points haul I’m sure we would comfortably qualify for a 4th Champions League campaign next season.
Saying all that though, I guess the strangeness of it comes from the fact that we haven’t played like a team that are on the points haul we currently are on as I’m sure most Spurs fans would agree with me. Don’t get me wrong we have grinded out most of our victories but there have been so many uncharacteristic errors by players like Alderweireld, Sanchez and Lloris as well as too many below-par performances by the likes of Dier, Davies and Trippier.
Can you imagine where we would be in the Premier League and Champions League if all these mistakes and poor performances hadn’t been there this season??
I’m hoping our season settles down. I hope we start playing the kind of football we have become accustomed to under Pochettino more regularly as opposed to in small spells in games, like we are seeing at the moment. Of course I’m hoping we still carry on picking up the points we currently are, just in the manner I’m more used to since Poch has taken charge.
Maybe if the club announce we will be playing the remainder of our home games this season at Wembley, or a cast-iron date for our move home, it could go someway towards us settling down on and off the pitch, players and fans. Either way I hope that come the end of the season this doesn’t feel like the strange season it currently is.
Saying that, if it merely feels strange because we have won a trophy I’ll happily accept the strange feeling!
-Admin MC
