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Can Spurs 🌟 do Arsenal a favour? 🤝
Spurs play Man City tonight 🌃 and a win would do their North London rivals a massive favour. Helping Arsenal win the league 🏆 and then not actually finishing in the top 4 📉 would be a typical Spurs thing to do...
Erik Jansson
May 14, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes
Can Spurs 🌟 do Arsenal a favour? 🤝
Spurs play Man City tonight 🌃 and a win would do their North London rivals a massive favour.
Helping Arsenal win the league 🏆 and then not actually finishing in the top 4 📉 would be a typical Spurs thing to do…
Hey there MVP,
Both Manchester City and Arsenal did the business over the weekend, meaning the Premier League title race is going down to the final day of the season. But in the meantime, Man City have to play their game in hand, which they will play on Tuesday night against Spurs. There’ll definitely be some conflicted Tottenhasm fans kicking about this week: beat City and help Arsenal win the league or lose and give up the chance to qualify for the Champions League?
In other news, Al Hilal continued their recent dominance of the Saudi Pro League. They won the title with 3 games to spare on Saturday, making it the fourth time they’ve won the Saudi league in five years. In Scotland, Celtic beat Rangers 2-1 to essentially wrap up the Scottish Premier League —Celtic need just a point from their remaining two games to be crowned champions. And the old rivalry between Arsenal and Manchester United that we talked up in last week’s edition of the Goat Report is definitely in the mud. For everyone other than Arsenal fans, Sunday’s game at Old Trafford was boring.
Today's game plan…
Don’t Miss This Game 🎯
This Week’s Shocker 🤬
Around The World 🌍
Games to Keep an Eye On 👀
Goat Trivia 🐐 & Meme of the Week 😂
Tottenham vs Manchester City | Tuesday | 20:00 IST
In a strange twist of fate, it’s Arsenal’s fierce North London rivals that could help the Gunners win their first Premier League title in 21 years —but ask yourself: Can or will Spurs get a result against City on Tuesday night?
As it stands at the time of writing, Arsenal are on 86 points with a goal difference of 61, whilst City are on 85 points with a goal difference of 58. That means that if Tottenham can somehow get a win, or even a draw, against City tonight the league title will be Arsenal’s to lose. Arsenal play their final game of the season at home against Everton on Sunday.
Nervous gif by arsenal on Giphy
Form & Team News
After starting the season well playing an attacking brand of football under new manager Ange Postecoglou, it seems other teams have now figured Tottenham out. They’ve been on a disastrous run of form recently, having lost four of their last five games. This losing streak includes big losses to Newcastle and the embarrassing first half performance against Arsenal in the North London Derby where they went 3-nil down within 40 minutes. There was also the game against Liverpool where Spurs went 4-nil down within an hour. On Saturday, Spurs finally put an end to their four-game losing streak, coming back from 1-nil down to beat Burnley 2-1. Although they’ve definitely gone off the boil in the final stretch of this season, Spurs have a pretty good home record against City (at the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium). Out of the seven games Tottenham and City have played each other at the new stadium, City have picked up just one win and that was in the FA Cup. The league game at the Etihad back in December, finished in a draw with a huge header from Dejan Kulusevski making it 3-3 in the 90th minute.
Gif by spursofficial on Giphy
Tottenham will be without a number of first team players for Tuesday’s game against City. Richarlison missed the game against Burnley due to a calf injury and Postecoglou has since stated that the Brazilian attacker is unlikely to play in either of Spurs’ remaining two fixtures. Another recent injury is Yves Bissouma who picked up a knee injury in the Burnley game. The other players missing for Spurs include Timo Werner, Ben Davies, Destiny Udogie, Manor Solomon, Fraser Forster, and Ryan Sessegnon.
Pep Guardiola has a way of making his teams kick into gear in the final stretch of the season and he’s done it again this year. City have a perfect record in their last five games and they’ve been full of goals too —they’ve scored fifteen times in their last four games. Erling Haaland is looking very hungry again and the Norwegian still leads the race for the Premier League golden boot with 25 goals. As well as beating Chelsea to reach the FA Cup final, the recent wins in the league have included a 4-nil win at Brighton and a 5-1 win over Wolves — a game in which Haaland scored four goals. City’s most recent game was the 4-nil drubbing of Fulham. Postecoglou and fans of Spurs (and Arsenal) will be worried by how many goals City are scoring, especially as Tottenham haven’t kept a clean sheet since the start of March.
Gif by uefa on Giphy
Having suffered earlier in the season with a big injury to key man Kevin De Bruyne (who has only made 16 appearances in the league this season) City’s squad is currently in good shape. The only doubt for the game against Spurs is defender Nathan Ake who picked up a knock in the win over Fulham.
This Week’s Shocker…
Emi Martinez’s own goal against Liverpool on Monday night…
Let’s be real here. It was a shocker from a keeper who has been superb for Argentina and Aston Villa over the past few years. But his own goal on Monday means that Martinez has set a new record as the first goalkeeper to let in 3 own goals in Premier League history!
Around the world
Al-Hilal won the Saudi Pro League for the fourth time in five seasons on Saturday. Al-Hilal’s 4-1 victory over Al-Hazm secured the title with three games still to play. The win was Al-Hilal’s 34th consecutive win in all competitions and caps off a dominant season.
The news that Kylian Mbappe hadn’t renewed his contract with PSG was already doing the rounds and rumours of a move to Real Madrid were circulating. But now Mbappe himself has come out and confirmed he won;t be playing at PSG next season…apparently he still doesn’t know where he’ll be playing next season either.
Celtic cruised to victory in the Old Form on Saturday and all but ended Rangers' title challenge. Celtic went 2-nil up before Rangers pulled a goal back but truth be told, Celtic cruised this game and it probably should have finished much more than 2-1. Celtic need just 1 point from their remaining two games to win the Scottish Premiership for the second season in a row.
During the post-match analysis of Manchester United’s 1-nil defeat to Arsenal on Sunday, Wayne Rooney claimed some Manchester United players are hiding behind injuries. With the team under pressure and the FA Cup final and European Championships coming up, Rooney said he was certain some players can actually play but are choosing to hide behind injuries.
Bayer Leverkusen kept their unbeaten run going by beating Bochum 5-nil. Incredibly, there were five different scorers for Leverkusen (again) and the win extends Leverkusen’s unbeaten run to 50 matches. Xabi Alonso’s team are now targeting an unbeaten treble. The Europa League final is on Wednesday 22nd May and the German Cup is on Saturday 25th.
Games to keep an eye on
Manchester United vs Newcastle | Wednesday | 20:00 IST
Newcastle are trying to catch Spurs for that last Champions League place, whilst United are just trying to get to the end of the season and build some confidence before the FA Cup final on May 25th.
Celtic vs St Mirren | Saturday | 12:30 IST
Celtic only need a point against St Mirren to secure the Scottish premiership on Saturday. After a season that was far from perfect, Celtic are likely to retain the Scottish title with one game to spare.
Bayer Leverkusen vs Augsburg | Saturday | 14:30 IST
Can leverkusen keep the unbeaten run going as we get closer to the Europa League final? Last game out, they smashed Bochum 5-nil and Xabi Alonso’s side are now just 3 games away from an unbeaten treble!
Arsenal vs Everton | Sunday | 16:00 IST
Last game of the season for Mikel Arteta’s team. All Arsenal can do is win, Everton aren’t playing for anything other than the difference in prize money of finishing 15th or 16th.
Manchester City vs West Ham | Sunday | 16:00 IST
Will Manchester City make it four Premier League titles in a row? It will be another historic feat for a Pep Guardiola team.
GOAT Trivia
Say congrats to…
Yaya Toure (@realtoureyaya), the Barcelona and Man City legend turned 41 on Monday.
On this day in football…
On this day in 1995, with Kenny Dalgliesh as manager Blackburn Rovers won the Premier League title. The 1994/95 season was a title race that also went down to the final game of the season and in the end, Blackburn Rovers were crowned champions after finishing 1 point ahead of Manchester United.
Goal of the week…
Our goal of the week is this left footed free kick from Lucas Pérez.
Lucas Pérez left Cádiz where he was playing in Laliga, and made a significant move to Deportivo in the third division, personally covering the 493k euros release clause.
His decisive goal yesterday secured Deportivo's promotion to La Liga 2. 👏
— CentreGoals. (@centregoals)
8:59 AM • May 13, 2024
The free kick is nice but it’s the story behind the goal and importance of the win for Deportivo de La Coruna that makes this goal special. The 1-nil win over Barcelona Atletic secured promotion to La Liga 2 for the OG Spanish team Deportivo La Coruna.
But what makes the goal even better is that Perez left La Liga team Cádiz to join Deportivo in Spain’s third tier, personally covering his €500,000 release clause. What a legend.
Meme of the week
Fan Highlights: Your MVP Reviews!
