The College Dropout

Nah. The 72 will do it, most likely. But that included 6 points directly from Spurs. Reverse those results, and Spurs finish above us, and Liverpool qualify for the CL. We'll definitely need 16-18 wins against the bottom half. So, a lot will depend on our H2H against top-half teams.

Big difference mind. That's how I see teams in terms of possible points totals.

That's the stat I was looking for—the middest of mid. The thing with Spurs is - it wasn't for a lack of trying. They had some great players during that spell but many of them passed their peaks. At least we had the decency to get relegated a couple of times to keep things spicy.

Did they? I remember they had Stephen Kelly - maybe they rotated At that time Spurs were building a young team, looking forward. The revolving door moment was us finishing 5th and not backing SBR or at least keeping the core of his approach. The summer we finished 5th, I think we signed Nicky Butt + Kluivert and they signed Michael Carrick + Mido. We would continue to sign players over the hill in the next 2-3 years until relegation. Kluivert, Carr, Geremi, Alan Smith, Babayaro etc. They would keep going the younger route landing the likes of Aaron Lennon, Berbatov and Modric. Edit: I'm wrong here about SPurs finishing positions.

That's the spirit. Those lots are 90 minutes away from another crisis. My thing is... I need them to be in Europe as long as possible for the co-efficient and to impact their league form. So I want them to finish 3rd in the group ideally. 1-0 win here. Heavy loss on the weekend in the derby me thinks.

Man United with a comfortable victory?

Tonali deserves harsher punishment if he's gambled on games involving his club and the others haven't. From that link, Zaniolo hasn't even gambled on football.

CL was a long time ago tbf but Spurs are way ahead of us as a club, which is why they could finish outside of European places and still sign the likes of James Maddison. Agree with @Lush Vlad - Villa having more FFP wriggle room is massive and they've invested for a lot more time. It's not long ago they sold us their backup LB and he helped us stay in the division. Our big advantage is that our potential money pit is endless. And we can get slightly inflated sponsors and invest crazily at youth level. But again, we suffer from being way behind Spurs on both atm and way behind Villa on youth development.

You're lightyears ahead of us regarding club setup, reputation and FFP bandwidth, which is huge.

That's 3 points up on what we managed this season on Liverpool and equalling what we did Away at Arsenal.

How can clubs take responsibility for people gambling? Toney had a £50,000 fine. He'll likely earn millions for sitting on his arse with his ban. Make that a £1.25m fine.

The banning thing doesn't make much sense when you think about it. They should be able to play. But get hefty fines. Like 80% of their salaries for a couple of years. And banned from getting contract extensions or pay increases for those periods.

They had a manager who made it his mission to ruin the club's atmosphere. And he succeeded. Ange is the opposite. And as bad as they were. They still finished on 60 points. If they can improve their tally by 15% they'll be close to CL football. 20% would guarantee it. Aye. I think Spurs could get 80ish points at their ceiling. Keep JM & Son fit. No Europe. Out the league cup. Could exit FA Cup early. They are laughing. The atmosphere is great at that club rn.

The GK flaps a lot but seems a decent shot stopped and distributor. Better than Lloris has been for the last 2 years.

I like the back 4 a lot too. The big lad looks a player. Van Den or whatever.

I’m a broken record. But they have a great team spirit now. Keep Maddison and Son fit. No European football. They stand a great chance of maintaining their form. The bottom 10 are bad. The top 6-7 will look to get 50 points from them. Spurs have enough quality to do that.

We’ll do well to finish above Spurs this season.

Excellent post - thank you. ……..do we have to give Ashley some credit for forcing the sale through? I assume it was him that financed the case and made sure it was air tight?

I wasn't paying attention to the takeover prior to it happening. What's worth reading on the points you've described?

Why did I think he was on the bench?

Last season they kept the most clean sheets. They got battered a few times, which hurt the GD. They don't score loads but win 1-0 2-1 enough times. They've got quality in depth too. Not being in the CL helped them last season. They are a funny team. I think we would do great to finish up above them this season.

Aye. Even starting him against Palace with Sven fit enough for the bench sent a message.

If we get 4 points against Dortmund - we finish above them and confirm European football. We would be on 8 points. The max they could get is 8 points. CL group stage is decided by H2H if teams end up level on points. 4 points means we win (assuming another team doesn't finish on the same points). The good thing is. If we beat them at Home, the away game is a must-win for them pretty much. If they have to score in the last 20 minutes, we can get them on the break.

Teams pressing us less I would assume.