A very odd season for Tottenham!

Even for the most long-standing and “seen it all” Spurs supporter this has been, to put it mildly, an odd season! Statistics don't tell the whole story of course but there are some odd stats which tell a lot. Spurs should finish sixth providing they avoid defeat in the final match versus Aston Villa on Sunday. This means that five teams – Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Everton will finish above Tottenham. Spurs results against these five tell a story:

Played: 10

Won: 1

Drawn: 2

Lost: 7

Goals For: 2

Goals Against: 27

Points gained: 5

Points conceded: 28

So of Spurs 67 or 69 points only 5 will have been gained against the top teams. But it is when you look at the other 28 matches that another reason for Spurs underperformance in 2013/2014 becomes clear. A top team should generally beat those teams below them at Home and avoid defeat Away. In the main this was achieved with some notable exceptions:

Home losses to Newcastle and West Ham. Away losses to Norwich and West Ham again. And draws with WBA (at home) and Hull and West Brom away. These were mostly careless results caused by defensive frailties or poor finishing. Of the 20 teams in the league Spurs scored fewer goals than seven of them and let in more than ten. This suggests a failure to score and a tendency to concede that was inconsistent with a top club.

It wasn't a disastrous seaosn – there were ten or eleven home wins to celebrate and ten away – no other team won more away games in the entire league! But what all of the above points to is still pretty depressing:

• An almost complete failure against rival top clubs (One point against Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool combined and one goal scored to 25 conceded!). 
• Some sloppy results against teams we should have beaten comfortably.

Despite this gloom I think that there is a basis of a very good team trying hard to get out! But then I always think that!