Graeme Souness Believes Spurs Have Best Run-in
Both Spurs and Leicester have six games remaining in their title run-in, but Graeme Souness favors Spurs to win it all.
The final six fixtures will prove who has the better run-in to win the Premier League title, but according to Graeme Souness Spurs can get the job done when the season ends in May.
Following Leicester City’s 1-0 win over Southampton yesterday, Souness looked at three matches that the Foxes have coming up and based on his initial assessment, Leicester have a tough challenge ahead of them.
Related Story: Comparing Tottenham and Leicester's Title Run-in
Relegation-threatened Sunderland (away) and two top four chasing clubs: high-flying West Ham United (home) and steady Manchester United (away) are three fixtures that could be tricky for Leicester.
“Everything can happen in football,” Graeme Souness said (quotes via Sky Sports).
“A year ago they [Leicester] were dead and buried in terms of relegation. You can say there are easy fixtures left, but this is the Premier League – nobody rolls over for the big guys.”
“People look at a fixture and say ‘that’s an easy three points’ – no you can’t.”
This is one major reason why the Premiership is a difficult league for all 20 teams.
It’s like Graeme Souness said, no team decides to let the big clubs completely steamroll anyone. Liverpool, while they were inside the top 10, were facing a very good Tottenham team in second place, and made it difficult for Mauricio Pochettino’s squad for an hour during an eventual 1-1 draw this past Saturday.
Looking at the bottom half of the table, plus mid-table clubs, with the money that’s coming in the Premier League from a new TV deal, “easy wins” won’t happen as frequently, or won’t happen at all.
This gives the league enough parity — just enough — that teams from outside the top seven or eight spots could all flip with each other interchangeably and have a good year or a bad year.
Although winning the Premier League is a different story entirely, technically it is possible with enough breaks going your way.
As in a team has to have a lot of luck and be in form like Leicester and Spurs have been this season to get to where they’re at.
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Continuing on, if Leicester have a difficult road to end the season as Premier League champions, Spurs have an easier time because certain teams don’t have anything to fight for anymore.
As weird as that sounds, this just happens to be Graeme Souness’s opinion (which he’s entitled to) but it is interesting to say the least.
“The biggest factor is whether you are playing against teams who have something to play for. If you factor that in, Tottenham have the best run-in.”
“Tottenham will believe they can win it. They will believe that Leicester will slip up. They just have to focus on their own job now, and see what happens.”
“It is Leicester’s to lose, and that brings added pressure.”
Next: Tottenham's Season Isn't Over Despite Leicester Winning
It’s true that Leicester have pressure to finish the job now that they’re the odds-on favorite to win it all with only needing four wins out of six games, to grab a total of 12 points and push their total to 81 (69 points currently).
Again, while it doesn’t make much sense that the Foxes have pressure to win it all even though Spurs need to string six consecutive wins to just get 80 points. From one perspective, trying to get wins as soon as possible and rushing things could be unneeded pressure that Leicester don’t need.
And perhaps this is what Graeme Souness is getting at.