Tottenham’s Title Will Come, Just Maybe Not This Year
By Ryan Wrenn
The math is decidedly against Tottenham in these last five matches of the Premier League season, but that shouldn’t be discouraging to the club or its fans.
Even as Talksport whimsically maps out the route to the first Tottenham top flight title in over fifty years, it’s hard to ignore the cold hard truths of the matter. Leicester City – however improbably – are almost certain locks for the title. They have lost a mere three matches all season and beat all of Manchester City, Chelsea and Tottenham along the way. Showing the full range of their talents, they’ve recently shifted into a more conservative – but also much more safe – version of their game, one that has resulted in a string of narrow but absolutely vital wins. And it doesn’t seem likely that they would trip up now.
For Tottenham to have any realistic hope of catching the Foxes, Claudio Ranieri would have to preside over one of the most epic and unlikely collapses in the history of football. You could cite such recent examples as Manchester United in 2012, or Liverpool in 2014 – neither would be as profound as Leicester conceding the league’s top spot by May.
Leicester’s success and seemingly indomitable position in the table should not be seen as a failure by Tottenham. Even if Tottenham are forced to “settle” for the Champions League, this can still be considered an unexpected and pleasant shock of a season.
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As of matchday 33, Tottenham’s attack has scored the most goals in the league while it’s defense has conceded the least. Should those numbers hold and Tottenham still not win the league, it will be the first time that the team that held either – or both – of the best offense and best defense failed to win the league since Manchester United finished second in the 1997/98 season.
What’s that tell us? That tells us that Tottenham are less a victim of poor form and more a victim of bad luck. Mauricio Pochettino and company did everything in their power to craft this team, to keep them on message, and in the end it took a seemingly impossible run of form from the most unlikely of candidates to out do them. None of the normal league heavyweights – Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, Manchester City – could make a claim for being better than this Tottenham team. By all rights the 2015/16 season should have been theirs for the taking.
How could Pochettino – or anyone else – have accounted for Leicester’s rise though? Even as we head toward the end of the season, it seems hard to fathom how the Foxes pulled it all off. Sure, they have some immensely talented players and an undervalued, pedigreed coach, but this?
There’s reason to hope, though. At the risk of underestimate Leicester City again, is this kind of season actually repeatable? Could Leicester really sustain this outstanding run of form into a second season and beyond?
If the answer is ‘no’ (as many suspect), then Tottenham become a clear favorite next season. This is a team that, like Leicester, has admittedly benefited from some surprising slumps from the league’s perennial contenders, but there’s no denying that Tottenham have an upward slopping trajectory. They are earning results now with the youngest team in the Premier League – imagine what these players will do with another season or two behind them.
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If Pochettino and Daniel Levy can survive coming up short this season, then there’s no reason not to think that they can ascend even higher next season. Yes, Leicester will probably remain competitive, and City and Chelsea will be anxious to return to winning ways, but this is a Tottenham project seems at the least sustainable, at most truly great.