It is worrying to see Spurs 7 points ahead of us after an equal number of games but not unexpected. I had been hoping they would drop points away at Stoke but I fully expected them to beat Portsmouth at home. They now face a potentially tricky away trip to Sunderland before those back-to-back games against Arsenal, Chelsea and Man Ure. If they don’t drop at least 8 points from those three games, there may be nothing we can do to overtake them. However, I remain confident. The other game I can see Spurs dropping points in is Man City away. Bolton should be safe from relegation by the time they visit White Hart Lane and Burnley will be down on the last day of the season so neither should have much of a fight in them. I said last week I could see Spurs dropping 13/27 points and finishing on 66. Now I’m predicting they’ll drop 10/21 finishing on 69.
Our task remains the same: get 70 points. After our defeat at OT last week, we now need 6 wins and a draw. The toughest games on paper are Chelsea (h) and Birmingham (a). We now need 4 points from those two games and maximum points from our home games against Fulham, West Ham and Hull and from our away game at Burnley.
Sunderland at home is a potential banana-skin. Between 1996 and 2003, we drew 4 out of the five home games against the Black Cats and managed only a solitary 1-0 win. We’ve won the last three home games against them so hopefully we will see that form continue today. There is of course, the Steve Bruce factor to take into consideration.
Rafa’s record versus Bruce in the Premiership reads: Pld 9, W 1, D 5, L 3. It’s mystifyingly shocking. The jinx was finally broken last season when we came from behind to beat Bruce’s Wigan side at Anfield but since then a late penalty conceded by Lucas resulted in a 1-1 draw at the JJB while Bruce’s Sunderland side beat an injury-decimated Liverpool side earlier this season courtesy of THAT goal by the beach ball.
Bruce has done a fantastic job at the Stadium of Light spending £34.5 million in the summer (about £18m net) to transform Sunderland from Premiership strugglers to Premiership strugglers though curiously you never hear figures on his spending bandied about in the media.
I hope we stuff the bastards today but as always I’ll take any Liverpool win. It would be nice to see Aquilani pulling the strings in midfield again as he did against Portsmouth and some more goals for Torres (who has a decent record of scoring against Sunderland).
Come on Reds!
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