The Hampshire Gooner
What a depressing couple of weeks it has been in the world of all things Gooner. The dire showing in Milan was followed by a timid performance at Sunderland in the FA Cup and bang goes the chance of silverware for yet another year. More and more people seem to be calling for some kind of change in direction at the club, and you do get the feeling that, if things do not go well in Sunday’s North London derby, more fans will turn their anger against either the board or the manager or both.
The facts are that, as a club, we are set up every season to try and maintain our Champions League spot for the following campaign and currently, as things stand, we are achieving this ‘aim’. We are fourth in the league with 13 games remaining. We have taken a total of 43 points from our 25 games at an average of 1.72 points a game. This points-to-games ratio would see us finish with around 65 points come May. Did anyone really expect a higher points tally than that when Cesc and Samir left last summer?
I wrote a November article that said that expecting Spurs to fall away this season was foolhardy, and the team we had to focus on getting above was Chelsea. This has certainly proved to be the case. I personally can’t see Liverpool or Newcastle finishing the season in the top four, even though these teams, especially Newcastle, have done very well to keep up with the pace. I was concerned back then at how much Chelsea would be able to spend in the January sales, as I saw with some ease that we wouldn’t be buying anyone of any note in that transfer window. Given that the only major signing that Chelsea made was Gary Cahill, I don’t really see a lot to fear from them in the closing months of the season. I can easily see the scenario developing that I predicted back in November where we do in fact finish below our North London rivals for the first time in what feels like centuries, but still finish the season back in the ‘holy grail’ of next season’s Champions League.
Many of us Gooners seem to view this as a failure, but, in reality, we only feel that way because Spurs are the team most likely to finish above us in third, and not Chelsea. It is almost as though we as fans can accept finishing fourth but not if it means that Spurs end up above us in the pecking order. Why is this the case, as surely Chelsea have been a far bigger threat to us as a club over the past 15 years or so?
In reality, this season has seen Spurs loan in a striker they probably couldn’t afford to buy, not play in the Champions League at all, and put out reserve team sides in all other competitions. They have also been lucky with minimal injuries to key players, in my opinion. Next season, they will have to contend with combining Champions League football with the league campaign, and might well lose their current number-one striker and their manager. If they are still sitting ten points clear of us this time next season, then hats off to them.
Most Gooners seem to feel very negative about the game on Sunday, but, in reality, we will be favourites to win the game. We are at home, where we have managed to win eight times out of a possible 12. That is a win ratio of 67%, compared to Spurs away-win ratio of just 50%. Our home goal-difference is plus 15 whereas their away goal difference is plus five. The highest team that Spurs have beaten away from home this season is Norwich, who currently sit in eighth position in the league table, and the last time Spurs played away from home they failed to beat Stevenage.
I am not for one second trying to say that Spurs are a poor side; they quite clearly are not. They deserve to be well ahead of us in the table as things stand, and will almost certainly stay there no matter what happens on Sunday afternoon. We are at home, though, and all the stats point to the fact that they will do well to leave our place with all three points. If we could manage to turn them over and narrow the deficit to seven points, then who knows what the future may hold, as they have Man Utd next up in the league and three points there is no certainty either.
The main subject of importance though has to be our ability to qualify for next season’s Champions League, and fourth will do as far as that is concerned. Chelsea have three very winnable games coming up next in the league, so we need to make sure we take a minimum of five points from our next three tricky-looking league encounters. If we can get the next three games out the way, and not be more than two points behind Chelsea, then we have to have every chance of getting fourth by the end of the season. We simply can’t afford to lose any more ground on them than that, so a minimum of a point on Sunday, the same at Anfield and a home win against Newcastle should suffice for us to stay well in touch.
If we do manage to finish fourth, then, as annoying as it sounds, we would have to see it as something of a successful season, even though the trophy-hunt goes on for yet another year. With the way last summer was handled in the transfer market, and combining this with the early-season results, Champions League qualification looked a long way off at that time. We should remember that some people on this very website back in September were seriously suggesting the real possibility of our facing some kind of relegation battle. This was embarrassing stuff for me to read at the time, but each person has their own opinion to air, I guess.
The recent defeats and poor performances have rather luckily come mainly in cup competitions, so the ‘trophy’ of fourth is still very much up for grabs for us this season. Let us therefore not get too hot under the collar too soon. I feel if we can grab this spot and learn from the glaring mistakes in the transfer market that have been made over the past 12 months or so, we can possibly come out of this season in a stronger position than we started it. Get Jack back to full fitness, sign some much-needed quality in the summer, and move on with our stature of being an elite club still intact. Failure to finish fourth could see the few remaining quality players we have at our disposal looking to leave, and this would certainly impact our ability to bring in the much-needed quality in the summer; this scenario does not bear thinking about for me.
We need therefore to stay together and get behind the team as much as possible in games like Sunday. We, as fans, do sometimes play a part in making the games at home tenser than they need to be, as the negativity from the stands seems to transmit itself too easily onto the field of play and the team becomes more stifled as a result. Surely this is the last thing that we should want to see happening, especially when it hinders our own team’s chances of beating a Spurs side including none other than Emmanuel Adebayor.
