Last Season vs This Season (So Far)
After failing to take their title challenge all the way last season, Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham Hotspur, made a decent start to the current campaign to only lose their way in the last few weeks. They have lost two of the last 4 games in the league this season and are fresh from a victory over Burnley at the weekend, moving into the Boxing Day fixture. At a similar time last season, the Spurs were busy in keeping up their title challenge and had completely different goals in the league. With the Boxing Day fixture of the current year not so far away, let’s take a look at how the Spurs were doing at the similar time last campaign.
With 7 wins and just 2 losses in the first 17 league games, the Spurs were standing at the 4th place in the points table with 29 points on board. They scored 28 goals in this time but took just 5 points from the last 4 games leading into the Boxing Day fixture last year. But this year, the Spurs are stuck at the 5th place in the points table, 10 points off the top of the table. At a similar time, the Spurs were just 9 points off the top and finished in the 3rd place come off the end of the season. They have scored more goals and have conceded fewer goals than they did in the previous season at this time, showing a slight improvement in their quality.
They were active in the Europa League last season and managed to move into the knock phase, to set up a crunch tie against Italian side Fiorentina in the round of 32. However, Pochettino’s side were embarrassingly dumped out of the Champions League this season and were relegated in the Europa League and will face Gent in the round of 32.
Pochettino also spent a few bucks on potential stars in the summer transfer window before the current season but that will not stop the side from moving into the transfer market to add a few players to the squad in January. At this time last season, the Spurs were monitoring the likes of Saido Berahino and Laurent Depoitre as Pochettino wanted to add some firepower to the attack of his side. Andros Townsend was one of the few players linked with a move away from the club while Pochettino managed to keep the likes of Harry Kane, Danny Rose and Dele Alli in the middle of interests from Manchester United in January.
In complete contrast, Pochettino is hardly worried about the players in his squads and their contract extension and will look to add a couple of potential stars to the squad in January. Kevin Wimmer is one of the few players linked with an exit on loan in January while Wilfried Zaha, Morgan Schneiderlin, Max Meyer, and Marc Cucurella have all been linked with a move to the club as Pochettino looks to improve the quality of the squad.
At this time last season, the Spurs were one of the in-form sides in the competitions and were a side that were hard to beat. Though they started the current season in a similar fashion, they have failed to find consistency in their results and will hope that they can stitch consecutive victories to burst into the top-4 unlike last season, where they were genuinely challenging for the title against Leicester City and Arsenal.