Mathematically the north London club, the youngest team in the Premier League who themselves have had a remarkable season under Mauricio Pochettino in their quest for a first league title since 1961, can still catch the Foxes, owned by Thai billionaire Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha.
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With Tottenham set to play Champions League football next season, a potential motivation for Lloris to leave White Hart Lane appears to have been removed.
“That worked really well second half”.
Instead of piling pressure on leaders Leicester City, who are now seven points ahead with three games remaining, Spurs have now given their rivals firm sight of a title which would be secured by victory at Manchester United on Sunday. “But we need to believe”.
“When Tottenham had the ball and were playing across us Salomon had to follow the ball so that when we won it back he was in a position we could play straight off him”. Harry Redknapp had taken the team to two fourth-placed finishes in three years but was given his marching orders, and neither Andre Villas-Boas or Tim Sherwood could prevent the team from falling from grace.
“It’s not gone, we’ve got to keep fighting, we felt like we needed to win this game, but we’re disappointed, we had enough chances in first half”, he told Sky Sports after Monday’s match.
The hosts had already struck the woodwork twice before that opener, and did so for a third time in the second period through Erik Lamela as the Spurs’ frustration gradually increased.
A headed leveller from Craig Dawson, cancelling out his first-half own goal, saw West Brom put a huge dent in Tottenham’s title chances, leaving them seven points adrift with three games to go. Leicester will be praised as the fairytale team, but Spurs’ rise from the grave has been nothing short of a miracle, too. “So far it has been fantastic”, Pochettino said.
He said on the Premier League website: “I said with my heart that we try to do our best but if the others are better than us I want to say only congratulations to the others”. I think it’s about identity and it’s my responsibility as a manager to give the players the opportunity. But in football if the manager is Argentinian, he brings a lot of Argentinian players, or Spanish people, for me it does not work.
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Reflecting on his feelings after the game, he said: “It was complicated for me because I spend some good year here”.
