Of course the main story from this weekend's Premier League action was the trophy presentation for Leicester at the King Power. The overture, a 3-1 victory over Everton, was their victory lap, and the fans sang and celebrated the whole game. Yea, there was much rejoicing. Congrats to Leicester for their amazing accomplishment.
In the meantime, other teams still had stuff to play for. The most important matches featured the teams still battling for Champions League spots. In terms of both a club's finances and prestige, the difference between a 4th-place finish and the spot in the Champions League playoffs that go with it, and 5th place and having to settle for the Europa League, is huge. To a lesser extent, the difference between 3rd and 4th, and direct entry into the Champions League rather than needing to play a playoff, matters too. While I can't think of a season in which the British 4th-place team failed to qualify for the group stages--the 2nd place team from Armenia, or whatever, rarely poses too stern of a challenge--there's still the not-insignificant energy expended on the home-and-away tie.
Thus ManU's 0-1 win at Norwich, coupled with Man City's 2-2 draw at home to Arsenal, could add up to major repercussions for next season. Man City remain in 4th place, two points ahead of ManU, but because ManU have a game in hand, Man City have lost control of their own destiny. If ManU wins out against West Ham and Bournemouth, and Arsenal beat dreadful Aston Villa--a near surety--then Man City would find themselves in 5th place and playing in the Europa League next season. Not exactly where City were supposed to be in advance of Pep Guardiola's arrival. Oops.
My beloved Tottenham Hotspur went into the weekend with a vastly superior goal differential over both Arsenal and Man City, meaning that there was no realistic scenario in which Spurs could fail to finish at least third. From a certain perspective, the difference between second and third is negligible--2nd earns the team a bit more money, but both positions earn direct entry to the Champions League and the riches that go with it.
But I don't share that perspective. I'm a die-hard fan. To me, the most important thing, now that Champions League play is assured, is that Spurs finish ahead of Arsenal. We need to finish 2nd. We need to finish 2nd.
Unfortunately, for the third week running, Spurs dropped points from a winning position, this time holding a 1-0 lead at White Hart Lane over Southampton before giving up two goals to lose 1-2.
So it comes down to this: unless Arsenal beat Aston Villa by 14 goals, a Spurs draw against at Newcastle earns them second place. The mid-season Spurs side would be a shoo-in for at least a point against Newcastle, but the team we see now is a lot different.
Mauricio Pochettino continues to say that the problem is that Spurs are young, that they haven't fully developed the mental/emotional toughness that will give them the tenacity to close out matches. And while some results from earlier in the season support this hypothesis--their 2-2 draw against Stoke at White Hart Lane back in August, in which Spurs held a 2-0 lead, and their 1-1 draw against Leicester at the King Power a week later, in which Dele Alli's 81st minute goal was negated by a Leicester equalizer only a minute later, both come to mind--that's not what we're seeing now. In each of the last three matches, the same thing happened when Spurs took the lead: their intensity fell through the floor.
The main players for Spurs are clearly exhausted. They literally cannot maintain full competitive intensity for 90 minutes. To say that they're showing cracks under the strain downplays what's actually happening--consider that both Dele Alli and Mousa Dembélé have been suspended for the rest of the season because of violent conduct charges, in both cases the incident in question being far more petulant than actually dangerous, a loss of discipline and control.
I was hoping that I could get to the final weekend or two of the season with only a relaxed interest in the results--"Oh, look, ManU lost"--but it hasn't turned out that way. Now, I go into the final week worried that Spurs are going to fail to get that final point against Newcastle, and that Arsenal will finish ahead of them in the league for the 21st straight year.
Which fuck that. COME ON YOU SPURS.