Ange Postecolgou has laughed it off when told a supercomputer has given Tottenham only a minuscule chance of winning the Premier League title, with the Australian insisting that his side are going to continue to give it a good go.
It was deduced by data analysis platform Opta (as relayed by Sky Sports) earlier this week that Spurs have just a 0.1 per cent chance of lifting the Premier League trophy this season.
Opta installed Manchester City as the overwhelming favourites to finish at the top of the tree, giving them a 66.2 per cent chance of lifting their fourth consecutive league title.
When it was put to Postecoglou that his side had only been handed a 0.1 per cent chance, he joked (via Football.London): “A supercomputer! Does it go to a phone booth and change into something else from just a normal computer? What did it say, 0.1%? So we’ve got a chance then! Let’s go for it. No problems, no issues with that, we’ve got a chance.”
Tottenham sit seven points behind league leaders Liverpool with 15 games left to go in the season.
While some of the Spurs’ recent displays might raise serious doubts about their ability to keep pace with the best sides in the division, the Lilywhites have been boosted by the return of several key players over the last few weeks.
Postecoglou pointed out that he has a nearly fully fit squad available for the first time since the start of the season and admitted that there is a lot of excitement at Hotspur Way about what they can now achieve.
Postecoglou is excited to have options on the bench
When asked about now having a plethora of options to choose from, the 58-year-old responded: “I’m definitely excited, it gives us a chance to put some things into place with our training, with the way we want to play our football to see if we can go up another level or two or three between now and the end of the year.
“We got 15 games to go and we’ve got probably the healthiest list since the start of the season and that gives us that platform but you’ve still got to go out and perform. It doesn’t make it any easier. It doesn’t give us any impetus unless we take advantage of that.
“The evidence I have so far is from the start of the year when apart from Rodrigo [Bentancur] everyone was fit, our training levels were great and that was reflected in our football. We’ve got to try and replicate that.
“Hopefully, raise it a notch because at the tail end of the season, every team has got a fair bit to play for. I don’t think there will be easy fixtures. Everyone has a hell of a lot of motivation so we’ve got to match that. We can’t just say ‘well we’ve got all our good players out there we’ve just got to play our football’.
“At the start of the season, we were doing that because our training was really good. The guys were focused and we needed to do that. Having the extra bodies means competition for places is also at a higher level which is always good. I like it, not because people get complacent, it’s just that everyone tries to raise their level which is only a good thing whether you’re in or out of the team. All those factors give us a platform to finish the season strong.”
Finally, when asked if the top-four remains the target for his side this season, Postecoglou joked: “According to the supercomputer we have a 000000.1% chance of winning it, mate, so until the supercomputer rules us out, we’re going to just stay in there and see how it goes.”
Spurs Web Opinion
From the sounds of it, whether Spurs fans believe it or not, the players and the coaching staff at Tottenham certainly think that they have a realistic chance of chasing down the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool.
However, realistically, we have to be near perfect from now until the end of the season to have a chance of winning the ultimate prize and our away performances suggest that we are not quite capable of going on a run like that.
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