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Sport

05th May 2017

People who are saying Spurs ‘bottled’ the league title have it all wrong

Absolute nonsense

Robert Redmond

Tottenham Hotspur’s title challenge ended on Friday night.

Spurs lost 1-0 to West Ham United at the London Stadium, leaving them four points behind Chelsea with three games to play.

Chelsea have four games left – Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Watford at home, and West Brom away.

Even if Spurs had beat West Ham 10-0, Chelsea would still have won the league.

If they avoid a complete collapse against a relegated team, a team in the relegation zone and two sides with nothing to play for they will be champions.

So how the hell did Spurs ‘bottle’ the opportunity to win a league title they were never in the position to actually win?

https://twitter.com/DanteClarke95/status/860591537385857024

https://twitter.com/philmann16/status/860596411481694208

How was Friday night an example of them being “Spursy”?

It wasn’t, and its absolute nonsense to say Mauricio Pochettino’s side ‘bottled’ something they never had a chance of winning.

Spurs are an excellent team, with players who would walk into any other side in the Premier League. If it wasn’t for injuries to Harry Kane at key points of the season they might have ran Chelsea closer.

If they could’ve turned some of their eight draws into wins maybe they would have pipped Chelsea to the title. And if they hadn’t wasted £30m on Moussa Sissoko maybe they would have won their first league title since 1961.

They didn’t bottle anything, they just fell short, and there’s a difference between the two.

If Chelsea had have failed to win the league you could say they bottled it, given their lead a few months ago. Spurs just came up short.

They were 11 points behind Chelsea in February and closed the gap to four points.

They didn’t bottle the title race, they made it, and outperformed teams with much bigger wage budgets and who have spent a lot more money in the transfer window.