How Tottenham Hotspur would have fared if every Premier League season ended after 29 games

After four-successive top-four finishes in the Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur look set to miss out on qualifying for the Champions League next season.

The Lilywhites made a slow start to the season, culminating in the departure of Mauricio Pochettino in November, and have struggled to push on under Jose Mourinho.

Spurs have punched above their weight in recent times and have even flirted with winning the Premier League and Champions League, but with 29 games of this season played they have little left to play for on the face of it.

At the time of the coronavirus-enforced break to the 2019-20 campaign, Spurs find themselves eighth in the table and seven points adrift of Chelsea in fourth.

There is still a chance that the English top-flight season will not be concluded, though Premier League chiefs are desperate for that not to be the case.

Here, Sports Mole looks at how Tottenham would have fared down the years if every season had ended after 29 matches.

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If the 2012-13 season had been halted nine matches short, Tottenham would have finished third instead of their eventual position of fifth.

That would have meant automatic qualification for the following season's Champions League, at the expense of bitter rivals Arsenal.

As it turned out, though, the Lilywhites once again finished below their North London neighbours and had to settle for a place in the Europa League playoffs.

It was a familiar story three years later, meanwhile, as Tottenham faded in the closing weeks of a campaign made famous by Leicester City's title win to slip from second to third, again allowing Arsenal to leapfrog them.

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It has worked the opposite way, too, given that they would have finished seventh in 2014-15, rather than securing fifth place and automatically qualifying for the Europa League group stage.

Going further back, in 2006-07 Tottenham found themselves eighth after 29 matches. Fast forward a couple of months, however, and they were fifth - the difference between mid-table mediocrity and European football.

The biggest positive leap made by Spurs over the last nine games of a Premier League season is a tie between 2006-07 and 1997-98, climbing three spaces in both of those campaigns.

History very much indicates, then, that the Lilywhites are unlikely to make up the ground on the top four even if the current campaign does resume.

Full list:

1992-93 season Position after 29 games: 9th Final position: 8th

1993-94 season Position after 29 games: 16th Final position: 15th

1994-95 season Position after 29 games: 6th Final position: 7th

1995-96 season Position after 29 games: 6th Final position: 8th

1996-97 season Position after 29 games: 10th Final position: 10th

1997-98 season Position after 29 games: 17th Final position: 14th

1998-99 season Position after 29 games: 10th Final position: 11th

1999-2000 season Position after 29 games: 7th Final position: 10th

2000-01 season Position after 29 games: 13th Final position: 12th

2001-02 season Position after 29 games: 9th Final position: 9th

2002-03 season Position after 29 games: 9th Final position: 10th

2003-04 season Position after 29 games: 11th Final position: 14th

2004-05 season Position after 29 games: 9th Final position: 9th

2005-06 season Position after 29 games: 4th Final position: 5th

2006-07 season Position after 29 games: 8th Final position: 5th

2007-08 season Position after 29 games: 11th Final position: 11th

2008-09 season Position after 29 games: 11th Final position: 8th

2009-10 season Position after 29 games: 4th Final position: 4th

2010-11 season Position after 29 games: 5th Final position: 5th

2011-12 season Position after 29 games: 4th Final position: 4th

2012-13 season Position after 29 games: 3rd Final position: 5th

2013-14 season Position after 29 games: 5th Final position: 6th

2014-15 season Position after 29 games: 7th Final position: 5th

2015-16 season Position after 29 games: 2nd Final position: 3rd

2016-17 season Position after 29 games: 2nd Final position: 2nd

2017-18 season Position after 29 games: 4th Final position: 3rd

2018-19 season Position after 29 games: 3rd Final position: 4th

2019-20 season Position after 29 games: 8th Final position: N/A