Tottenham rocketed into the Champions League spot on Sunday after beating Newcastle 5 - 1. The game felt comfortable right from the start even though they did go 1 - 0 down in the first half. Spurs then went up a gear and all the pieces of the Conte jigsaw started falling into place with both full backs scoring and Ben ( 6 out of 10) Davies scoring the equaliser. From there it was a rout really and we tore Newcastle to pieces with goals from Son, Doherty, Romero, Bergwijn.
Conte would have been rubbing his hands with both wing backs getting on the scoresheet. Doherty played out of his skin and has been transformed under Conte. He mentioned in an interview last week that his lowest point in a Spurs shirt was not being allowed off the bus against Villa last year. He was not in the squad so he had to sit on the bus after Mourinho selected the kids after a bad display in Europe. But what a turnaround it has been. Rumour has it him and Kane are best mates and they enjoy playing golf together and you can see on the pitch they have a partnership. Doherty scored on and assisted one at the weekend even though he was playing on the left as Reggy and Sessegnon are injured. I did not think Doherty was going to make it at Spurs but after the last run of games I do think we will keep him. Reinforcements are needed in this area but the boy has done good. I think Conte likes his work ethic and has stuck by the Irish full back and it is finally reaping the benefits. Another player who stood out last weekend was Cuti Romero. This guy is a Rolls Royce but we still haven't bought him yet and have to pay 50 million for him at the end of the season which is a problem considering Conte wants money to spend. Will this 50 million be included? The player is worth twice that but I hope it's not a deal breaker. He was outstanding yet again and this time he didn't even get a yellow. One more and he is suspended and we can't afford to lose him. I think he has 3 games to go before the slate is wiped clean. He buried Saint Maxime at the start of the game and the Newcastle winger was trying to avoid him all game out wide so he never really got into the game. Kane was excellent as always. He got man of the match and did not even score. His assists were just excellent. Did you ever see a number nine coming deep like this to assist. Maybe Benzema during the Ronaldo days but Kane is out on his own here. You can't compare him to the great number nines like Lewandonski as Kane has a massive assist stat.
Meanwhile over at Woolwich @arsenal4life and @ablaze are licking their wounds after being hammered by the their hero Viera who probably wants the top job at Arsenal and it was a great audition for him with a 3 nil hammering at Arsenal. This leaves Arsenal languishing in 5th place but with one game in hand over Spurs. But guess who the game in hand is!! Spurs.
The game is set to take place on a Thursday 12th May and I am gonna try and get over to it.
So in theory if Spurs win all their games we qualify for the Champions League. Now that is very unlikely to happen but we have won 5 games from our last 6 premiership games. We also have Liverpool away coming up so i am praying Liverpool breeze through to the next round of the Champions League and City run away with the league so the Premiership isn't their priority.
I have one eye on Chelsea as well as they were hammered against Brentford last week and with all that is going on in the background I would expect all is not well in Kensington.
Everton fun fact. Since Everton last scored at Stamford Bridge, Christian Eriksen has scored there, moved to Italy, scored a hat trick, won Serie A, died, come back to life, returned to the premiership and scored.
Remaining Fixtures
So it is all to play for in the premiership at the moment. It must be said that Arsenal have the harder run in. Should I still count in United. I don't think so. There is too much shit going on in that club. It's a mess. Now the players are underwhelmed by Den Haag apparently. So we will go with Arsenal first.
Source
So as @arsenal4life pointed out in my last post, Arsenal normally beat the teams they are expected to beat and lose against the teams that they are expected to lose against. I am not sure Crystal Palace got the memo here but anyway. No excuses against Brighton on Saturday as they are on an awful run. They need to get a result here because they have Chelsea, United and West Ham in their way before they face ourselves. They also have Everton the last day of the season which could be a relegation dogfight.
Meanwhile Spurs have only 8 games remaining and come up against a weak Villa side next Saturday. The only real worries are Liverpool away and Arsenal at home. We always do well against Leicester even if we are losing 2-1 in the 92nd minute!!
So it is all to play for really and I cannot wait for the run in.