Another round of seeing where the nastiness will be for the coming season, and how Spurs do like for like aganst 2016-17. To match or better the PL performance stats of 2016-17 will be a big ask, especially with the Wembley factor. But then again, how many of us a year ago thought Spurs would improve upon 2015-16 as they did. PL / CL / League Cup fixtures provisionally in : 13/09: CL - Dortmund (H) 16/09 : Swansea (H) 19-20/09 : League Cup - Barnsley/Derby (H) 23/09 : Spanners (A) 26/09 : CL - Apoel (A) 30/09 : Huddersfield (A) 17/10: CL - Madrid (A) 22/10 : Liverpool (H) 01/11: CL - Madrid (H) 05/11 : Palace (H) 21/11 : CL - Dortmund (A) 25/11 : WBA (H) 06/12 : CL - Apoel (H) 09/12 : Stoke (H) CL opponents and home/away legs TBD, but no real complaints about the PL fixtures following each CL group game.
And here we go again ... With incomings and outgoings to be decided, and two opportunities for international football to eff up the squad this summer, assuming there are no outgoings, then what needs to happen. The start of the pre-season tour in the USA is obviously the key marker. We want all the squad up to the same level of fitness at that moment to allow the final fine-tuning. This means Dembele/Lamela/Rose fully recovered from surgery, and Janssen/Sissoko to have a proper pre-season at the minimum.
Having a proper pre-season full stop would help. Case in point, Janssen had a full pre-season with us...because we only had three pre-season games, with Janssen starting against Juve and Atletico while being a half time sub against Inter. This is something that seriously needs to be addressed, especially when in comparison the Ar5thnal and the Europa League Champions OF THE WORLD had five, the Chavs had seven, and Liverpool nine - yet we've currently only got three confirmed games this year, and we just played one of them.
I am more concerned at the moment about the fact that for whatever reasons, not enough of the squad enter the final part of the pre-season with similar levels of fitness, or previous season recovery.
We'll be in the Community Shield if (when) Chelsea win the FA Cup. Just what we need really, another ****ing game at Wembley!
I hope that next season we fail to qualify for the Champions League, finish below our "local" rivals, see a widespread campaign from our fans to have our manager sacked not just in the stadium but all over social media, have the club reduced to a laughing stock by a Youtube channel...but we win the FA Cup at the end of it so our fans act as if it was a "successful" season. You see, Goons, this is why Spurs fans say they they wouldn't trade our season for yours. It's because we have some self-respect.
It's like the school teacher in 'Peanuts'. Your audience just heard....... "Mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah, mwah mwah mwah mwah. Mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah. Mwah mwah mwah..........."
He's more like Charlie Brown lining up to kick the football labelled 'WUM wannabee' , held in position by Lucy.
Updated for fixture rescheduling (two PL games that were after a CL round are now on sunday rather than saturday) .
The most compelling evidence yet that we seriously need to improve taking corners. please log in to view this image Six points off the Mousers last season would've put us in a much more dangerous position!
Derby and Barnsley are playing each other on the 19th, as a tie was abandoned due to weather in the 1st round. No idea when we're going to play them.