Far from having nothing to play for, Juande Ramos insists that he will be closely monitoring the application of his Tottenham charges until the end of the season, starting with the Chelsea game…
A comfortable mid-table position. No Europe, no relegation battle. Such a Premiership purgatory rarely gets the adrenaline flowing amongst a club’s fanbase or playing staff.
At Tottenham, though, boss Juande Ramos has indicated that he won’t accept his side going through the motions. He wants his Carling Cup winning side to maintain their recent high standards whilst he assesses his squad with a view to further summer rebuilding.
“We have got nine games left until the end of the season so it is a case of looking at those nine games and assessing the players in that period and starting to make decisions about squad changes or reinforcements in the summer,” said Ramos, whose Spurs sit in 11th place.
“We definitely want to keep trying our best until the end of the season.
“We are in a comfortable position - we are in no danger of going down, that has gone now, but we certainly want to get as high as we can in the league table.
“In spite of the fact that maybe points don’t have the same meaning as they did earlier in the season, we are all professionals and we will be looking for any signs of people not trying.
“We want to do our best all the way through - both the management and the players.”
Gross Misconduct
The White Hart Lane outfit has accumulated 35 points from 29 games in a season that started with Martin Jol at the helm. However, Spurs fans will be hoping to finish strongly and surpass Christian Gross’ poor 44 point season of 1998.
To add spice to proceedings, Spurs will take on London rivals Chelsea for the first time since their League Cup victory over the Blues at Wembley.
“There is no target, we just want to get biggest possible number by winning all our games,” Ramos added.
“We are at home and we want to be trying our best to get a victory. But there is much more at stake for Chelsea than there is for us in terms of league position.
“They will be trying to get the points because they want to become league champions but we are at home and we want all the points in front of our fans.”
Duncan Robertson, Goal.com
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