Congratulations, Spurs, on finishing in a possible CL place for next season. I say "possible" because, as I'm sure you're aware, your participation is dependent on Bayern Munich beating Chelsea next week. If you get there next season, I'm sure you'll do well. Finishing 4th and getting through the qualifier and into the group phase should be familiar territory now..!! To the neutral fan like me, who wants to see English teams do well in Europe, I'm glad Spurs got this place and not Newcastle. The Mags are a good side and may have their day in the future, but they're not ready for the CL yet and would only be whipping boys if they got there now. At the end of the day, I think the right teams are going forward. Enjoy your summer, and good luck for next season. Regards.
Newcastle would have been fine in the CL. People always massively overestimate the old SKY4 and underrate the others. Refs in Europe tend to be fairer than the utterly bias scum in the Premiership, which is why the likes of ManYoo struggle to punch their weight.
. Hmmmm, interesting comment, but I might disagree just a tad... As a former referee myself, I wouldn't say that any of the Premiership referees are biased, however....... Familiarity can breed a certain ability of some teams to figure out how to "work" one particular official. I used to referee in Hampshire League and I'd go back to the same places fairly often. There came a time when I realised that some teams thought I was favouring one particular club and it perturbed me because I knew I wasn't. As far as I truly believed, every call was "on it's merits". Why should I be biased..? I had nothing to gain from it, and my assessor's reports were always good. Where did this perception come from..? What had happened was, that this particular team had worked out my little personal traits. They knew what I wouldn't stand for, and what I was more easy going on. They knew how I would respond in certain situations. They knew how far they could push. They played to these things and somehow (don't ask me how) it just seemed to work in their favour. I wasn't giving them any preference, but little things would go their way and this transmitted itself to the opposition as bias. I put this to that team's manager in the bar after one game (I was a sociable ref) and he smiled and said that, yeah, he tried to work out all the refs and he'd tell his players what they should NOT do before any game because the official was hot on that particular thing, but also what he was generally tolerant of, and so they could push the envelope on that a bit. We do all play to the same rules, 'tis true, but referees are human beings and little vagaries are there, it's only human nature. The trick is to spot them.... and exploit them. It wouldn't surprise me if some EPL managers did that..... and it's possible to do in the Premiership where the same refs come back all season, but not so in the Champions League where the referee is a much less known quantity.
Cheers mate. I actually miss Charlton. You always gave us a good derby, and produced some good footy for not having much in terms of resources, challenging for the Champions League spot yourselves if I remember correctly.
Yes, we finished 7th in the Premiership in 2003/04 and that was with losing several matches late in the season.... We'd been in with a very realistic chance of a CL place up to early April. Oh well....such is our lot. I always enjoy visiting Spurs. There is always a feisty atmosphere and we've even been known to nick the odd result from time to time, too. You never know.... with Chris Powell in charge, we may be back in a couple of seasons. Watch this space, and again.... Good luck.