VillaChris

Disagree, Liverpool would be fcuked for years if they missed out on 4th this season and would start to have to sell some of their big hitting first 11 players like Mascherano and Torres and the likes of Gerrard and Carragher are getting old now. And their youth system is total rubbish. I couldn't see them challenging top 4 for a couple of seasons so that would be one contender knocked out for next season.

Very, very true. At best we are currently very marginal favourites, but that position can (and probably will) change almost game by game. Personally I think the next match for Spurs (Sunderland away) is the most key game out of all Spurs' remaining fixtures. Win that, and the psychological pressure on the other 3 contenders will become massive: they will all then be thinking that all of their remaining games become absolute "must wins" ... and playing under that sort of pressure tends not to produce good performances. Not only this, but a win against Sunderland will considerably ease the pressure on Spurs going into our "3 tough fixtures" against Arsenal, Chelsea and Man. Utd. It won't be easy to beat Sunderland, and we could lose. But Huddlestone is now back, Defoe will also be back for that game and Palacios will also be available (tho' 1 more yellow card in the next 2 games and he'll be banned for 2 games). Agree on the Sunderland game. You've won your last five league games so the law of averages suggests to me you obviously won't keep on winning sooner or later as very few teams who aren't champions standard win 6 or 7 prem games in a row.

Well we need them to do us a favour and get at least a draw against Liverpool on sunday, they haven't lost at home since September.....so no doubt will roll over and die and Liverpool will win.

I would've liked to have faced that in the carling cup final tbh.

Aye, could also leave you more open for the middle two whoever that will be out of Krankjaer, Modric, Palacios and Huddlestone. Jenas has dropped right off the radar (maybe not a co-incidence to Spur's excellent form), I can see us signing him!

Not really sure what this is meant to mean to be honest. I think what he means is in our FA cup run last year, we had a very hard run to the final playing Liverpool, yourselves, United, etc. Whereas your run to the semi this year you have played all lower league teams and for the CC run you played "lesser" teams like Portsmouth and Blackburn. I think that's what he meant by "proper" teams. Anyway, if either Heitinga or Pienaar is out, they will be huge losses for us, huge... EDIT: BTW, not saying I agree with what he said, just explaining it...just to clarify :winkold: Pienaar I really like and he scored a very nicely goal at VP last season. Hettinga missing would also be a plus as it would mean Hibbert at RB again! It's only West Ham you've got so wouldn't surprise me if you rested them. BTW pretty sure you played Man. United's youth team in the cup semi, I remember Wellback hopelessly missing a few so you certainly played a weaker Manure team than we played in the carling cup final or what we'll face with Chelsea in a few weeks.

Liverpool will be proper fcuked if they don't make top 4. Imagine Torres has a brilliant world cup, do you think he'll happily come back and play europa cup football. Mascherano will be off also. And you also have the likes of Gerrard and Carragher getting to 30 + now and they're both knackered really, Gerrard has been awful so I think it's the high energy performances he's been putting in for years finally catching up with him. So a big rebuilding job on a limited budget, I can't see Liverpool being a major force for the next few years.

Agreed Everton have been playing some excellent stuff against the top teams this year, they played Man. City off the pitch at Goodison aswell.

Gabby should make the bench surely?! Great option to bring on if we're still level with twenty minutes left to run at Terry and Alex.

Moult's already played in the prem for Stoke.

Hopefully Everton will run out of games but then I thought that last season and they didn't. I still think they'll have to win the majority of their games to finish above us. That said, most of their injuries have gone away so they've got a pretty good starting 11 again. Jagielka and Distin is also become a good defensive combination as I suspected it would be.

True but I was just making the point how you can lose rather than draw and still get more points over a 5 game period. We're back to the JG days of drawing half our games during the season and not getting anywhere in the end. **** the unbeaten run, we need wins.

Ahhh... but he was moving at least! Thats an improvement on Heskey already! The Fonz played his part in the goal if you watch it back, nice direct run forward and then pass to Young and I thought he was bright for the rest of the first half. Second half yeah he faded. Sunderland's CBs got tighter to him and he hasn't got the strength just yet or the intelligence that he'll get from playing more games of when to hold up and release the ball.

Spot on. West Ham- DRAW Arsenal- DRAW Manure- DRAW Wolves- DRAW Sunderland- DRAW West Ham- WIN Arsenal- LOSE Manure- LOSE Wolves- WIN Sunderland- WIN The bottom sequence gains you four more points over a season. We're back to what we were under Gregory, content to draw half our games during a season as it looks good to see we have a ten or so game unbeaten run, it ultimately gets you nowhere if you don't win enough games. One home win since December. Not good enough, the same thing happened in the second half of last season if you check back. We're a very good away team but at home we produce too many mediocre results over a season.

Fed up of another draw, fed up of no Clinical finishing, Collins free header at 0-0, somehow puts it wide and two minutes later we're 1-0 down. Carew in the second half, free header from a corner he has to score that. How many chances have we wasted over the last two home games? The opposition have had between them probably 4 chances and scored 3 goals and left with a draw each. Not good enough. General play was o.k, Young was excellent and we showed good spirit to get it back to 1-1 quickly. But it was a game we had to win and we failed. We just lack the ruthlessness to get the win to me when it matters, until we gain that mentality we won't finish top 4 or win a trophy I fear. Yet again the thousands leaving VP from 80 + minutes didn't miss a crucial goal, they're right more times than the team are.

By that same logic Spurs haven't won a trophy since 1991!

Absolutely!!! I think we can lose at Chelsea and still get 4th. If we lose tonight, we will be struggling. Correct, we have to win tonight really so Milner has to be risked.

Looking more and more like a draw really. Sunderland will come and play 4-5-1 I think.

Bent will play. Ken Jones probably won't. So I assume from that Sunderland will play 4-5-1 and outnumber us in the middle just like Wolves did. Great.

I would've passed on Bellamy when he was at West Ham as he wasn't doing much there and was frequently injured. However he's been brilliant at City and has slotted in well on the left of their 4-3-3 aswell as upfront. I'd be happy with him and Ireland but can see both sticking around at City if they get top 4.

Is Arsenal still being played on easter Monday? Will pop down to that one.

No.

Spurs sold Keane and Berbatov to teams above them.

Carew will probably leave so we'd go into next season with three strikers. :shock:

Yes granted, we should still beat them though. Yeah we should. I never feel nervous we're going to lose when we play black country teams tbh.