Alan Hansen, BBC pundit and Telegraph columnist, believes that Tottenham are the equipped side to break into the top four and anything other than a Champions League place will be seen as a letdown.

Hansen said: “there is a vast chasm between fourth and fifth that does not exist, say, between fifth and sixth. Finishing fourth represents a fantastic campaign, increasing a club's revenue streams and enabling the manager to go out and buy better players. Fifth can be seen only as a disappointment.”

"Though both Spurs and Manchester City, their closest challengers, have the look of sides who could become realistic, regular challengers for both the top four and even the Premier League title over the next few seasons, at the moment it is Harry Redknapp's side who are the more impressive.

"They have the better players, the better team and their strength in depth is as good as there is in the league." (Daily Telegraph)

The Spurs faithful would obviously be downhearted to see their side finish below fourth as they are now in pole position with their destiny in their hands, but will other football fans consider them to be failures if they didn’t?

I’m not so sure they would and they will probably point towards Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan’s chequebook at Manchester City as the main reason. But the Sheikh has spent over £200m trying to make the Citizens a top four club. However, considering they cannot even muster a title challenge after spending that kind of cash is something of a joke if you take into account the apparent decline – judging by the amount of losses this season - of Chelsea, Manchester United and most drastically Liverpool.

In their own defence Spurs’ fans will also point out that they should already have broken the top four only to fall victim of a dodgy lasagne. They would also highlight the achievement of Harry Redknapp, who has done an amazing job considering the White Hart Lane were at the wrong end of the table when he arrived and the fact they are in the position they are is a fantastic achievement. It now looks likely that the race for fourth is between Tottenham and Manchester City, with the likely decider being their clash at the City of Manchester Stadium on May 5.

We all know about City’s billions and the investment they have put into their squad, but does anybody really think they are a better side than Tottenham right now?

I do not think they are. Sure the Sky Blues have impressive talents such as Carlos Tevez, Adam Johnson, Nigel De Jong and Vicent Kompany amongst their ranks not to mention a few more. But Spurs are blessed with talent too (many of which didn’t come so cheap either) Jermain Defoe, Ledley King, Gareth Bale, David Bentley and Luca Modric, who I suspect is the sort of playmaker Man City would love to have.

Such is City’s spending power someone will get it right eventually - maybe even the wally who wear scarves in April – so Tottenham’s time will have to be this season if they are to earn that much coveted fourth spot, right?

The Eastlands outfit has so far spent a lot of money trying to attract the world’s best, but because they lack Champions League status the Kaka’s, Samuel Eto’o’s and Dimitar Berbatov’s have all shunned the Sky Blues for clubs competing in UEFA’s flagship tournament. Now, if they were to qualify for the competition they crave so much to be in then in theory they will be able to attract a much higher standard of player like Chelsea were able to do as they were already a Champions League side before Roman Abramovich arrived.

If Harry Redknapp doesn’t see his side into the top four this season then he undoubtedly faces a much harder task to do it next year. I doubt whether Man United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool will collectively lose as many games as they have done this season and as I have already mentioned City will be likely to invest heavily this summer.

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