Tim Sherwood’s Spurs suffered their third successive defeat in the space of 7 days, which effectively pulled the curtain on a season which had earlier promised to deliver so much for Spurs fans. When speaking after their third loss to their arch rivals Arsenal in the space of a season, Sherwood summed up perfectly the conundrum facing Daniel Levy’s team. “Liverpool took a step backwards to move forwards. Whether Spurs want to do that I do not know.”
Fans patience with Levy will now be wearing thin as after letting Gareth Bale, albeit for ‘top dollar’, he has replaced a world class player with a number of players, spending a record £109M on transfer fees, none of whom has made a single mark on the Premiership this year. Paulinho and Eriksen showed a few promising signs but this has petered out into nothing. The other signings have been unmitigated disasters – just ask Spurs fans.
Despite going a goal down to a wonder strike from Rosicky after only 72 seconds Spurs to be fair responded well and Arsenal were under huge pressure for large spells of the game. However, this said, that possession and pressure did not produce the quality that Spurs and Sherwood desperately required and the closest they came to a Spurs goal was through an error from the Arsenal goalkeeper.
The chances of a top 4 finish are not impossible, but realistically, even getting into the Europa League will now be a tough call, as Spurs are a team low on confidence and with a tendency to gift gilt-edged chances to the opposition.
For Sherwood I expect his foray into Premiership management will be a short one. For Arsene and his Arsenal, there has never been a more important match in the 9 years since Arsenal last won a trophy. The two tantalising statistics that set Arsenal’s match up with Chelsea this weekend perfectly are the facts that for Arsene he will take charge of his 1000th Premiership game as Arsenal manager, a phenomenal achievement and also, that Mourinho has the most impressive home record in Premiership management history. The script is there to be written and if Arsenal can come away with a famous victory you may even find a MOTD pundit somewhat belatedly tipping the Gunners for the Premiership title.
Source: DSG
