3. The League Table Doesn't Lie
Tottenham lie in fourth place as of the time this article is being written, only behind the ever-present Manchester United, the insanely rich Manchester City and the almost-as-insanely rich Chelsea. Currently above North London rivals Arsenal, who finished above them last season, this leap forward could be argued to be cancelled out by the fact that Chelsea, whom Spurs finished higher than last season, are above Spurs. However, Chelsea no longer have Champions League commitments, having become the first defending champions to be knocked out of the Champions League at the group stage towards the end of last year, giving them the opportunity to focus almost solely on their Premier League campaign. This, on top of the fact that they spent an absolute fortune improving their ranks in the summer (on the likes of Eden Hazard, Oscar, Marko Marin and Victor Moses), means that Tottenham can be excused for lagging slightly behind and should indeed be praised for being only a single point behind their cash-rich London rivals. Tottenham and indeed AVB deserve a huge amount of credit for being where they are in the league at this stage of the season, given that they lost both Luka ModriĀ and Rafael van der Vaart at the start of the season and simply don't have the money to compete in the transfer market with the likes of Chelsea and Manchester City. If Tottenham were on an economic par with the sugar daddy-owned teams of this world, and had the kind of disposable cash available to them that those teams can flaunt so freely, who knows where AVB could take them.