Refusing to give up hope for fourth place as long as it remained possible, but knowing we weren’t favourites, the question of who I’d prefer take that place if we could not has been at the back of my mind for a little while now. I’ve made no secret of my disdain for City’s “throw money at the problem” approach to breaching the barrier of 5th place, so it may seem like a no brainer to favour Tottenham.

Not quite. There’s something about Tottenham that just doesn’t sit right with me, never has. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it may be that there’s just something of the wide boy about the club and, if so, that’s not something that Mr Redknapp will alleviate in any way.

However, Spurs are a big club, they’re a member of the 7 clubs ever-present in the Premier League – along with ourselves – and in terms of annual revenue, they’re some distance ahead of those of us who have laboured without the benefits of income from the Champions League.

They earned £27m more than us in 2009/10. The prospect of them pushing further ahead doesn’t thrill me at all, but at least that extra revenue wouldn’t be heading to Manchester.

While I don’t approve of City’s methodology, I have to confess to being at least a little intrigued about who they’re going to go after in the summer. The general consensus seems to be that whether they finish 4th or not, they’re going to spend a lot of money before next season. It may be that question marks will remain over the motivation of any world class players who arrive without Champions League on offer, but that may also mean that a few decent players head out the exit door.

Ultimately, I try to put such emotive views to one side and consider who would benefit us most in 4th place, both for next season and the ones that follow. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s Tottenham, here’s why.

To Know The Future, You Must Understand The Past

I’m not falling into the trap of making predictions, but I’d certainly look to Everton’s recent experience and hope that history repeats itself a little with Tottenham in their place.

Everton finished the 2004/05 season in 4th place, 3 points ahead of Liverpool. As a brief nod to my recent post on position being relative, it’s worth noting that Everton’s 61 points was enough for 4th place in 2005 mostly because of Liverpool’s appalling away record. The red side of the city lost no less than 11 games on the road that season, only Portsmouth, Norwich and Southampton lost more.

By all means give Moyes the plaudits he deserves, but don’t lose sight of the fact that had Liverpool managed to find a single goal at each of their matches at Bolton and Crystal Palace, plus the game at home to Birmingham City they would have turned 1-0 losses into 1-1 draws and the Reds would have taken fourth, not Everton. 61 points is a good performance, but it wouldn’t have achieved 4th place in any season since.

If Tottenham do snatch 4th this season, at least they will have earned it. With 1 game remaining this season, Everton could finish with 61 points once again if they win their last game at home to Portsmouth, but this time it will be worth no more than 8th place.

But it’s Everton’s 2005/06 season that interests me. Moyes spent a lot of money in the summer – he possibly had plenty left over from the sale of Wayne Rooney the year before – bringing several players in for new campaign. Some of those signings were more successful than others, but that’s normal, there’s no need to scrutinise that here.

Getting to the Champions League from 4th place means entering the competition at the 3rd and final qualifying round and they were joined at that point by Man Utd, who finished 3rd, and Liverpool, who were spared the indignity of the UEFA Cup by a late rule change that gave teams the right to defend their titles.

Unfortunately for Everton, it all went wrong. Their first game of the season was the 1st leg of the Champions League 3rd Qualifying Round at home to Villarreal. They lost 2-1. They kicked off their Premier League campaign four days later with a 2-0 loss at home to Man Utd.

They did manage to chalk up a 1-0 victory over Bolton the following weekend, but during the week afterward they went to the El Madrigal and failed to find the victory they needed over the Yellow Submarine to enter the group stage of the Champions League. In fact, they lost 2-1 again and dropped into the UEFA Cup at that competition’s final qualification round before the group stage.

Back in England, their form didn’t improve as they lost their next two league matches to Fulham and Portsmouth, both 1-0. Not ideal form to take to Romania to face Dinamo Bucharest in the first leg of their last chance to attain European competition that season. They were beaten 5-1.

Back to England, two more losses in the league, this time to Arsenal and Wigan. The Romanian team could not have been more confident coming to Goodison knowing that their opponents needed to beat them 4-0 to advance and had by then lost 6 straight games.

Everton did win, but the scoreline didn’t change after Tim Cahill’s 28th minute opener and they were unceremoniously dumped out of all European competition with an aggregate loss of 5-2 to a side that would go on to finish bottom of Group F.

Returning to the run of poor form, Everton then lost back to back games on the road against Man City and then Tottenham before securing an unlikely point at home to Chelsea. They occupied the very foot of the table with 4 points from 9 games, had fallen through the trap door of both European competitions and would be dumped out of the League Cup by Boro before they’d finally find a win at St Andrews.

It’s fair to say they were in bad shape and there can be no finer testament to David Moyes managerial skills or the benefits that can be derived from sticking by the gaffer than the fact he dragged them up to 11th by the end of the season. However, before lavishing too much praise on the Scot, he was, after all, the man who lead them into the mess, let’s not forget who was at the helm at the time.

Can History Repeat Itself?

Well, if Tottenham finish in 4th, I hope not. No, really, I do. They’re better placed to withstand the rigours of a 4 fronted campaigned than Everton were, but it would still be quite handy from a domestic perspective to have them distracted with 6 games in the group stage of the Champions League at least.

After that, I’d be extremely pleased if they followed Liverpool’s path this year to failure at the final hurdle before the Europa League final and desperately chasing European qualification of any kind in the Premier League. That would be ideal.

As for City, if they don’t finish 4th, but still spend ridiculous sums in the transfer market over the summer, I’ve a feeling that patience will be in short supply around Eastlands next season. Any notable patch of poor form and/or early exists from competitions will inevitably lead to the manager being shown the door, player/fan unrest and general hilarity not conducive to success.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

All of which will hopefully leave us as clear a path to Champions League qualification as we could possibly hope for. Of course, we have to deal with the Europa League ourselves, but I’ll save that for next time.

Two Horse Race

So, now we know it’s a two horse race between City and Spurs, who would you want to see take that 4th place?