Have some more straws to clutch... if Palace's season in the league (12th) is very average, what does that make ours (17th). Newcastle have hit a ceiling with an ageing squad. Bruno 27, Tonali 25, Joelinton 28, Barnes 27, Isak 25, Gordon 24, Livramento 22. All important, all under 30. Looks like they are about to hit their prime rather than their ceiling. If they do sell Bruno and Isak then they are going to have serious money to re-invest.I don't think any of those examples get anywhere near our aspirations. We want to be challenging for the title.
Palace - Very average season in the league despite a good squad (that stayed fit). 6 points from 33 against top 6 teams.
Newcastle - Seem to have hit their ceiling with Howe and the current squad. Only 3 players under 25 in their squad, and a number of important players now over 30. They will do well to keep Bruno and Isak this summer.
Forest - Spent over 400m, and likely to end up 7th. Will probably lose their best players in the summer.
Wolves - Spurs can still finish this season above them.
It would do good to remember, that even with injuries, Ange's Spurs finished above all of those teams (bar villa) last season.
The nonsense about it only being 10 games that defined our season is just that - nonsense. All teams outside of the top 1 or 2 tend to have hot and cold periods. Villa for instance, were good up until mid-December, then won only 8 of their remaining 21 games - with only 1 of those wins coming against a team in the top half.
I'm not even going to bother with Forest and Wolves one of which did the double over us and we managed a solitary point against the other. We were 8 point clear of Wolves at the turn of the year and now we need Wolves to lose their last two games and a win against Brighton to finish level on points with them.