Safety-conscious Saints can nick a point against Tottenham at 10/3

The alchemy of games in-hand to cold hard points has never been a straightforward one, especially when you’re Spurs and you’re trying not to let Arsenal overhaul you in the race for the Champions League places yet again. Lately Tottenham have lurched from the sublime comeback against Man City to a last gasp draw at Wigan made all the more ridiculous by result that preceded it and a Southampton side still in search of point to guarantee safety have the necessary guile to glean a point at White Hart Lane – Coral offer 10/3 the draw.

Despite sitting in the lofty position of thirteenth Southampton are not mathematically safe from the drop until Wigan lose and they can be relied upon to ask searching questions of the desire in Lilywhite hearts. Their away record is strong too for a team in their position, with just three losses in their last 12 road games.

Two of those losses came by a single goal to Liverpool and Manchester United and whilst the only wins in that sequence came against strugglers QPR, Villa and Reading they’ve made their opposition work for almost every point they’ve dropped, scoring in nine of those 12 games.

Both sets of fans have had goals to cheer in eight of Tottenham’s last 10 games and both teams scoring in the fixture can be backed at 8/13 with Coral.

The Saints have a knack of turning it on against the bigger sides that both delights and frustrates their supporters in equal measure with a 2-1 St Mary’s loss to QPR following a watershed 3-1 home win over Manchester City. Since the first of January they’ve mustered three wins and three draws from seven games against the league’s top seven.

Tottenham will at least have Southampton old-boy turned deadlock breaker par-excellence Gareth Bale in the line-up. The Welshman has scored in his last four completed games either side of his injury withdrawal against Basel and he can be backed to continue his one-man Champions League football mission by notching at any time in proceedings, with Coral offering odds of 4/5 for him to do so.