Spurs vs Middlesbrough: Match Thread

[Shanks]

Suppose I don;t have enough trust in us to gain points on the road, so its why I see it as a must win tonight.

 

[Hoowl]

For me, I stand by a must win game for us to put an incy bit fo daylight between us and the possibility of relegation. If we lose, its not to say we will get relegated, but it will be a damn site more difficult. We have the chance to get to 31 points, leap frong a couple of positions and put some good old fashioned light between us and the relegation zone, for the first time in a long time, we are at home against a team (okay possibly on form) not as good as us (famous last words). So for me, expecially to consider that we have 3 tough away games, that daylight is very important because realistically, we could struggle to pick up any points bar maybe one draw over the next 3 games.

Hope that answered my take on it dude.

I guess whether it's a 'must-win' or not is down to semantics. In my earlier post I used it in exactly the way you have done here.

 

[DC_Boy]

Hi Howl - I think it's more than semantics - I think it's very easy to say games are 'must win', though people are entitled to do so of course -

I sometimes think the phrase is used too readily - but if people like yourself and Shanks think it's a must win, I respect that naturally

 

[Shanks]

Of course DC, personally, I think this is one of our most important games, over the last year or two.

I am looking at the following four games

Sunderland away
Villa Away
Chelse at Home
Blackburn away

Come around to that Blackburn game and Middlesborough could easily have over taken us, with Blackburn also behind us, could see us right back in the zone again.

Midd's games..

Pompey at home
Stoke away
Bolton away
Hull at home

I know which run I'd rather have, because I can realistically see us getting 2 points from our games, and Midds getting 6, so if they get a win tonight or a draw, come the end of that small run, they will be ahead of us (and so would blackburn).

I hope I'm wrong, and I'm sure it won't matter much after we win 3-0 tonight with a Robbie Keane hattrick ;-) (yt I post in the other thread that we could actually get 7th, if we win tonight we go 5 points behind the Hammers in 7th).

Shows how bloody tight the league is this year!

 

[milkman]

10% discount today for all Spurs Members at the Spurs Shop!

 

[DC_Boy]

Shanks

for sure boro's look better - but then again they can damage others

already pompey and WBA have lost at home this week - Toon may well do too

Hull lost at home on the weekend and I expect them to lose tonight too

so yes we all want a win - but as long as we keep getting points we'll edge towards safety

I see 38 points as the safety mark for us (with our GD)

of course I want 42+ to be sure - but the way many relegation candidates are going I can't see it's needed

I can easily see us getting 6 points from the 6 games after this

we can give anyone a game these days

tho I admit I'll be much more confident with Gomes in goal

but 7 points from the next 7 (including tonight) and we're nearly there

 

[Hoowl]

Hi Howl - I think it's more than semantics - I think it's very easy to say games are 'must win', though people are entitled to do so of course -

I sometimes think the phrase is used too readily - but if people like yourself and Shanks think it's a must win, I respect that naturally

I think everyone has their own version of what the term 'must-win' actually means. That's part of the difficulty . My current definition of 'must win' is as Shanks wrote in his post and is based on predictions of both how we will do in future games and how the other teams in the league will do. However, mathematically, we could definately lose against Boro and still stay up. My use of the word 'must' is wrong if the aim is simply to stay in the premiership.

At this point in time, the strictest definition, of a 'must-win' games probably means we must win the game to stay in the premiership. If we knew for sure that the threshold was 40 pts then we could lose our next eight games and just win our last four truely 'must-win' games and then we'd be safe. However, as all the team in the league generally all play one game at a time, we have no idea how many points the other teams in the league will acrue and therefore no idea how many points we actually need for survival so this is a rather contrived situation.

What we can definately work out is the number of points we need to guarentee survival and update this depending on our results and the results of ther teams. At the moment, one of Boro or Stoke could potentially end up on 59pts (they play each other so the can't both do it) so in theory we need 60pts to guarentee survival. Hopefully our points total will converge with the pts needed for survival sooner rather than later.

 

[DC_Boy]

Howl

well we'll see what happens tonight and then whether saturday's game will be a 'must win' or not

 

[ginol@14]

we need 3 points tonight - end of subject
our points talley this season is nothing short of embaressing

time for spurs to prove there class ,win as many games and push us up the table away from the drop zone.

 

[mil1lion]

Every match is a must win for us right now. It doesn't matter if its home to Boro or away to Man Utd. We need to win every game until we're safe. Theres no point looking at the weaker teams as if those games will get us more points. We must win the next game, and that needs to be our attitude now. No Cup games, so no excuses. Only when we're safe from the drop can we go into certain games thinking a draw is ok.

 

[idlepete]

Jesus Christ. You people. Let's just win.

 

[ealingspur]

a draw will be much better than a loss - lose and boro are above us- draw and we stay above boro and probably overtake hull-

a draw will probably take us up the table - defeat and we'll deffo slip one place - maybe more

:stupid: the thing is, i can honestly picture him sitting down, writing this comment, while stroking the hairs on his chin, sipping his tea and genuinely believing himself to be making a lucid thought-provoking point.

A DRAW IS BETTER THAN A LOSS - NO SH*T SHERLOCK

 

[Tickers]

I can see why 'must-win' is getting thrown around tonight, even though it's a stupidly overused phrase.

As I see it, win tonight and the threat of relegation becomes a very, very slim one. Draw or lose and we'll still probably stay up, but we'll spend the next two months shitting ourselves.

So, for the sake of our sanity and nerves, if not our actual season, tonight is must-win.

 

[alfiespurs]

This is a MUST MUST win game. We have to beat Boro at home, come on Keano show us some grit ! Please lets go out and beat these lot and puts us in the right frame of mond against the Sunderland on Saturday ...

 

[DC_Boy]

fair points Tickers

 

[Evolution]

I reckon Tottenham 2-0 Middlesbrough

COYS!!!!

 

[chkthfc82]

tough game tonight.i think we should go for the throat from the off like v stoke cos the longer it stays 0-0 the more boro will fancy it.

 

[degoose]

so any ideas of the team. im figuring

defence
chimbonda dawson corluka Ekotto

Mid

Lennon Palacios Jenas Modric

Strikers

Bent/Pav Keane

thats judging by injury news, not sure about in goal as gomes played well against man utd

 

[haxman]

Tottenham vs Middlesbrough

Tottenham: Gomes, Zokora, Dawson, Woodgate, Assou-Ekotto, Lennon, Palacios, Jenas, Modric, Pavlyuchenko, Keane

Subs: Cudicini, Bentley, Huddlestone, Bent, Chimbonda, Corluka, O'Hara

Middlesbrough: Jones, Hoyte, Wheater, Huth, Pogatetz, O'Neil, Bates, Arca, Downing, Aliadiere, Sanli

Subs: Turnbull, Taylor, Emnes, Alves, King, Adam Johnson, Walker

 

[Wellspurs]

Zoko in at right back Pav up front.