QuoteAnother trivia question - when was the last time a team won the English league for the first time?
Was it Forest?
That's what really annoyed me. It was frustrated aggression. Not proper old school aggression. There was a tackle that Costa made at the end when he ran after a lost cause and "won" a corner (not given) making a remarkable tackle. Chelsea looked like they were trying to win the lague at the end. It was bizarre. Spurs have had so many opportunities to win this league the last month and bottled it each time.Originally Posted by DeLorean
Uh huh. Yup. And even Mason at the end.
I love aggression in a game but it got a bit comical toward the end. 9 players getting a yellow on one team is a record in a game in the EPL.
I'm raging Chelsea didn't try to score the last free though just to rub it in. Spurs lost me tonight.
DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN OUTSIDE MY HOUSE...?
Another trivia question - when was the last time a team won the English league for the first time?
Was it Forest?
It was indeed.
Only team to have more European Cups (2) than League titles (1). That's my favourite piece of Forest trivia.
DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN OUTSIDE MY HOUSE...?
There is no doubt that Leicester utterly deserved it, they've been top virtually from the start. Spurs completely collapsed in their last 2 games going in front in both but could not show the courage needed to hold on to their leads.
Speaking for Forest Trivia, now that Aston Villa are relegated, it will the first time that former European Club Champions will play each in the 2nd tier of a league.
I'm trying to do an assignment and I keep getting distracted by reading stuff about Leicester. I still can't get it into my head.
Man City had a similar path to winning that first Premier League title coming from Division 2 in 1999 to eventually be champions. Nah, I'm kidding, this is just remarkable. I've watched a heap of Leicester matches this year (cos they're always on it seems) and they were like watching football that I grew up loving; soaking up pressure and counter attacking. Couple that with the Dortmund and Atletico sides now I'm being spoiled with my favourite types of soccer.
Even when the players are interviewed they just seem so grounded. Tonight, they just won the league and anything that's been released from a player has been one of complimenting team-mates above the self. It's wonderful.
DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN OUTSIDE MY HOUSE...?
I think this talk about Spurs 'bottling' it is nonsense. They've been brilliant and were the only team that made it any bit of a race in the end. They had a number of very tough fixtures in the run-in, coming from behind to draw at Anfield, blowing Man Utd away and winning 4-0 at the dreaded Britannia. They hit the post two or three times against West Brom before conceding fairly late. Even last night in a high pressure game they went and did their stuff until it unravelled. Okay they probably lacked a bit of experience as they haven't been in this situation before, they could definitely have controlled the last ten minutes of the game last night, and of the West Brom game, a lot better. They are the youngest squad in the league after all.
I just hate this default notion that if a team falls short then they've bottled it. They dug pretty deep to stay in it at all, they were never favourites and they never led, so in a sense they had nothing to bottle. The television generated schedule was ridiculous too I thought, having Leicester play first every single time in the run-in.
Great result for football though, insane really. It would be fantastic if it was the start of something, but surely normal service will resume next season? I suppose the likes of Wigan, Swansea and Birmingham have all won big cups in recent seasons too, so a few teams are having a day in the sun, but obviously this is an achievement from another universe compared to those.
I think they did bottle it against West Brom - they were cruising, and then maybe for the first time realised where they were. West Brom came more and more back into the game and Spurs couldn't do anything about it.
But that shouldn't take away from their season overall - or even from their title chase, where they put in some bloody good performances, as you say. And if course, they were the only challengers in the end.
Worth noting Leicester's Mark Selby won the World Snooker Championship last night as well. He won the 2014 world title on the same day Leicester got promoted, and won last night 11 minutes after the final whistle. So he essentially missed both occasions.
Stu thanked because of the Selby comment, not the bottling comment. I'm not sure Spurs bottled it either. In fact they played some great stuff against WBA and hit the inside of the post twice. They came up short and the most notable thing is how well LCFC played out their last 10 games.
I read a couple of weeks ago that since Arsenal beat LCFC in February, LCFC scored 13 goals and got 21 points. In the same period Arsenal scored 21 goals and got 13 points (or fewer - I can't remember the exact numbers)!
If anyone bottled it this season it was Arsenal. No ability to rise to the occasion. Top of league, lose 4-0 at Southampton. Lost at home to Swansea after being 1-0 up. Drew 0-0 at home to Southampton despite battering them. Last minute equaliser conceded at Anfield. Didn't even turn up for an hour at Old Trafford, and so on. All in a critical spell of the season.
Worth noting that Spurs' points haul is unremarkable by previous seasons' standards.
This is true - but then the game started to fade away from them, and they lost confidence.
You certainly can't label them bottlers overall because (a) they were the only team challenging in the first place, (b) they never led the table I think (or if they did, it was for one day or something) and (c) Leicester were so consistent anyway.
But I think at some stage in the West Brom game, they became aware of what they were doing and forgot how to do it.
I wouldn't be too critical of Spurs in general as their form has been good.
But after WBA equalised, that was one moment when the chips were really down They had about 15-20 minutes to save their hopes of winning the league, and produced next to nothing.
That's not necessarily bottle though, if it is there are countless other examples where they showed remarkable bottle. Sometimes teams just run out of ideas, it's difficult to dominate for ninety minutes anyway. I remember Man Utd blew a two goal lead at Anfield late in the season that they won the treble. It could have destroyed their whole season. There were never any questions of bottle though the way it's being thrown at Tottenham for a very similar collapse last night.
I don't believe in 'points tally' comparisons either. Some seasons are just different to others, whether it's down to a more competitive league or whatever. This was a crazy season so maybe 80 points this season is a bigger achievement than 90 points another year. I'd prefer to just trust my eyes, and Spurs had clearly a lot more substance about them than in previous seasons.
Last edited by DeLorean; 03/05/2016 at 11:16 AM.
Yep, who knows, maybe lower points per game is the "new normal"? It'd make sense given that all teams now have big money due to the latest TV rights sales. And yes, Spurs were a far more substantive outfit than in previous seasons. They were hugely impressive for a long period last night and at several times over the season. One thing I noticed is how regularly they had games won long before the end. They'd regularly score in first 20 mins and then at least a second by 60 minutes.
Worth noting that even Spurs, for all that their points tally isn't huge by recent standards, have only lost four times all season. Leicester have only lost three times. Just lots of draws is all - maybe the TV money is levelling things a bit, ironically?
Also interesting that, for all that Leicester eked out a lot of 1-0s and Spurs, as you say, had a tendency to hammer some teams, Leicester have only scored three fewer than Spurs, and have conceded six more.
Also, I like this edit on the "Sport in Leicester" wikipedia page -
Notable former managers include Jimmy Bloomfield, David Pleat, Brian Little, and Martin O'Neill. Notable former players include Gordon Banks (England's World Cup winning goalkeeper in 1966), Peter Shilton, Frank Worthington, Gary Lineker (the third highest goalscorer of all time for the England team with 48 goals between 1984 and 1992), Alan Smith, Emile Heskey, Neil Lennon, and Simon Grayson.
Notable current players include Kasper Schmeichel, Danny Drinkwater, Wes Morgan, Robert Huth, Matty James, Jamie Vardy, Andy King, Marc Albrighton, Ben Hamer, Daniel Amartey, N'Golo Kante, Jeff Schlupp, Danny Simpson, Liam Moore, Shinji Okazaki, Demarai Gray, Leonardo Ulloa, Nathan Dyer, Riyad Mahrez, Marcin Wasilewski, Christian Fuchs, Ben Chilwell, Mark Schwarzer and Gokhan Inler.
Yeah the 'eking out 1-0's Leicester' only applied to the second half of the season really though, they were scoring goals for fun in the first half, while conceding plenty as well. I suppose what they were doing in the first half of the season probably wasn't sustainable, but it was incredible the way they tightened things up with what seemed like a click of a finger, without their attacking play suffering too much, in terms of results anyway.
Another snippet I hadn't realised - Claudio Ranieri has never previously won a top-flight league title, either as a player or a manager.
The 1 nils to the Leicester were mainly a feature in the last third of the season and 3 or 4 of them were against lowly teams who were set up to hold onto a draw, games where Leicester had to break them down.
I think in general Spurs have provided much of the best football played every week.
Their very slim title challenge hopes were dealt a fatal blow against West Brom and what we saw last night was the death rattle. In both games, Spurs looks utterly supreme for 40 or 50 minutes. Ponchartrain has done very well, they are in a very good position to consolidate their London supremacy.
Eriksen is my very best free kick specialist, playing football today.
No, and he will take his Leicester side to Stamford Bridge on the last day, which I am sure he will savour after the manner of his exit there.
Yep, he's lethal. Despite Spurs having had a great season and Arsenal by common consensus a pretty poor one, there's only 3 points between them. Between Spurs and Leicester they both avoided injuries pretty well. Arsenal, as usual, had their treatment room full of serial hamstring strainers. Bizarre how Arsenal have so many injured every season. Nearly always the same players too: Walcott, Oxlade, Ramsey, Rosicky (all season this year) & Arteta. Cazorla was a big loss. One source suggested it's because they play a precision passing game with short-ar$es who stretch for the ball a lot.
Man City were a huge disappointment this year.
Stefan Szymanski's take on the EPL (written 5 weeks ago):
http://www.soccernomics-agency.com/?p=890
I was a bit worried until I read this postscript
"To be clear, I see no other link between Donald Trump, who is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist and misogynist and Leicester City, which is a fine, upstanding football club."
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