Home
Spurs fixtures

Spurs are 1st Man U 2nd Man City 3rd

5 min read
Spurs are 1st Man U 2nd Man City 3rd


There is always one of the lower classes who lacks a sense of humour!

Everyone is getting stuck into the new season and the masses are as blind as ever. They are fortunate that I am here to illuminate them.

In yesterdays Tottenham Hotspur Blog News (THBN) piece, I talked about how we play and why people might be misinterpreting the quality of our play.

If you missed it then catch up with it here: 
COYS

FURTHER READING

There is always something different from this blog rather than the mundane regurgitation of other, let's face it, clickbait websites.

Love or hate the content, it isn't the same.

Style of play yesterday, adjusted Premier League table for strength of teams played, Pochettino, Mitchell, Conte, Paratici, Levy today.

Read on.

Exclusive Spurs Chat

Who Has Had The Hardest Opening Fixtures

To look at this we'll use last season's Premier League placing to determine the strength of the opposition played.

Tottenham have 11 points from 5 games, one away against a Top 4 rival, one an away London derby in their Cup Final.

Only Manchester United have had a harder start.

Spurs have played teams who finished the 2021/22 season 3rd, 7th, 10th, 15th and a promotion side.

Arsenal have played teams who finished the 2021/22 season 8th, 12th, 17th and two promoted teams.

Fair play to them, they have made hay against the cannon fodder they have played thus far.

Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United, who played each other, have played a Top 6 rival.

Manchester City and Arsenal have not yet played a Top 6 rival, have both played two newly promoted sides and they both sit at the top of the early table.

Manchester City have played tw0 promoted teams.
West Ham United away 7th
Bournemouth at home - 
Newcastle United away 11th
Crystal Palace at home 12th
Nottingham Forest at home - 
72
13 points

Liverpool have played two promoted teams.
Fulham away - 
Crystal Palace at home 12th
Manchester United away 6th
Bournemouth at home - 
Newcastle United at home 11th
71
8 points

Tottenham Hotspur have played one promoted team.
Southampton at home 15th
Chelsea away 3rd
Wolves at home 10th
Notts Forest away - 
West Ham away 7th
56
11 points

Chelsea have played no promoted teams.
Everton away 16th
Spurs at home 4th
Leeds United away 17th
Leicester City at home 8th
Southampton away 15th
60
7 points

Manchester United have played no promoted teams.
Brighton at home 9th
Brentford away 13th
Liverpool at home 2nd
Southampton away 15th
Leicester City away 8th
47
9 points

Arsenal have played two promoted teams.
Crystal Palace away 12th
Leicester City at home 8th
Bournemouth away
Fulham at home
Aston Villa at home 17th
79
15 points

By assigning 21st place to any promoted team, that allows us to calculate an approximate strength of the opposition played so far, based on last seasons form.

Hardest to Easiest Fixtures
Manchester United 47 places (9 pts) 0.1915 per place
Tottenham Hotspur 56 places (11 pts) 0.1964 per place
Chelsea 60 places (7 pts) 0.1167 per place
Liverpool 71 places (8 pts) 0.1127 per place
Manchester City 72 places (13 pts) 0.1806 per place
Arsenal 79 places (15 pts) 0.1898 per place

Points Per Place Played Table
1. Tottenham Hotspur
2. Manchester United
3. Manchester City
4. Arsenal
5. Chelsea
6. Liverpool

Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur have had the hardest start to the season, while Arsenal have had the easiest start to the new Premier League season.

Transfer Talk


Fans and journalists (who are only fans writing about their hobby afterall) live in a different world to players, coaches, technical directors, board members and chairmen, to name but a few and see things in a totally different way than these people do.

For instance, just because Levy is a tough negotiator, does not mean other chairmen would not deal with Spurs.

All chairmen are tough negotiators, they wouldn't get where they are without being so.

In big business you expect it, but it doesn't put you off dealing with them again if they have got something you want or you have something they want.

At the end of the day, the balance sheet talks.

A clubs profit and loss is more important than cutting your nose to spite your face.

We still bought Pierre-Emile Højbjerg from Southampton for instance, even though they weren't happy with us over Victor Wanyama and particularly Toby Alderweireld.

At Tottenham now, Daniel Levy is not doing the negotiating generally, something some have still not grasped. His 'new' role is payment structure, after paratici has agreed a fee.

That's the domain of Fabio Paratici now and any intermediaries, but Paratici being a workaholic, like Conte will be taking much on his shoulders.

His role reminds us of Paul Mitchell.

He resigned from Spurs and journalists blamed Daniel Levy, when in fact it was more down to Mauricio Pochettino.

We now know that Paul Mitchell advised the club NOT to buy Giovanni Lo Celso and Tanguy Ndombele because of their characters.

However, Pochettino, having the last say on transfers, overruled him and insisted the club buy them, which Daniel Levy, backing his manager, did.

Mitchell had to protect his growing reputation.

He couldn't be tarnished with the brush of building a side he didn't want, although he did sign Dele Alli, Son Heung-min, Kieran Trippier and Toby Alderweireld, it would harm his future, thus he took the decision to quit.

Much like Steve Hitchen, it is a question of how much responsibility you are given and whether someone else has the power.

In 2018, from Spurs, Mitchell went to RB Leipzig to be Head of Recruitment and Development and in June 2020 joined AC Monaco as Sporting Director.

Those two emphasise that mentality/character, call it what you will, is vitally important, as Fabio Paratici confirmed in a January interview on the transfer market.

Just the sort of interview that I have been banging on about being needed on Spurs TV.

It was a start, obviously could have been more expansive, talk about the players who got away perhaps.

It'll upset some but will be good news for the better Spurs fans, that the longest serving chairman in the Premier League will be extending that sequence further yet.

1,017 words

Post a Comment