Sunday 7 April 2013

How the Table Could Look at the End of the Season: 3, 4 and 5


After a nail-biting last 20 minutes during the Arsenal game and an enjoyable 35 minutes when Spurs were trailing against Everton, it turned out to be a good weekend! We didn’t play as well as we did last week but we showed our toughness and ground out the 3 points. Spurs were not the same team without Bale and were fortunate to get a point against Everton.
 
But now we look to the future. Currently the race for the Champions League spots look like this:



Position
Team
Played
Points
3
Chelsea
31
58
4
Spurs
32
58
5
Arsenal
31
56


The fixtures for Arsenal:

Norwich (H)
Everton (H)
Fulham (A)
Man United (H)
QPR (A)
Wigan (H)
Newcastle (A)


The fixtures for Spurs:

Chelsea (A) (postponed)
Manchester City (H)
Wigan (A)
Southampton (H)
Stoke (A)
Sunderland (H)
 

The fixtures for Chelsea: 

Tottenham (H) (postponed)
Fulham (A)
Liverpool (A)
Swansea (H)
Man United (A)
Aston Villa (A)
Everton (H)

 
Points to think about:

·         Chelsea and Spurs are still both involved in the Europa League.

·         Chelsea is still in the FA Cup.

·         Bale is injured, even if only temporarily.

·         Rafael Benitez sucks.

·         Spurs choked last year.

·         Chelsea has the most difficult last few games, Spurs remaining fixtures are pretty tough and Arsenal has a relatively easy run-in.

 

I am an extreme optimist and always expect Arsenal to win but after trying to take an objective view I have made the following (reasonable) predictions:

 

Results for Arsenal:

Norwich (W)
Everton (D)
Fulham (W)
Man United (L)
QPR (W)
Wigan (W)
Newcastle (W)
 

Results for Spurs:

Chelsea (D)
Manchester City (L)
Wigan (W)
Southampton (W)
Stoke (W)
Sunderland (W)
 

Results for Chelsea:

Tottenham (D)
Fulham (W)
Liverpool (W)
Swansea (W)
Man United (L)
Aston Villa (W)
Everton (D)
 

Final table:
 
Position
Team
Played
Points
3
Chelsea
38
72
4
Arsenal
38
72
5
Spurs
38
71




Goal difference could definitely be important and both Chelsea (28) and Arsenal (27) have a far superior goal difference to Spurs (15).

After this weekend’s results Chelsea (1/4) are favourites to finish inside the top 4, Arsenal (3/10) is the next favourite and Spurs are 11/8 outsiders according to bet365.

Hopefully Arsenal can continue their great run of form which started after the 2-0 win over Bayern Munich and grab that immensely important Champions League spot. Walcott and Wilshere, but especially the latter, returning soon will be a good boost for the team.

Regards

3 comments:

  1. Pretty sure Arsenal will score enough goals to trounce Chelsea in terms of GD.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree. We've been scoring quite easily recently.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You've been wrong about two of the Spurs results so far

    ReplyDelete