The games are coming thick and fast and we can only wonder which Tottenham Hotspur will turn up for this one. Will it be the side that whipped Manchester City to an inch of their lives on Wednesday, or the drunken mob that turned up at White Hart Lane on Saturday still stinking of Guinness?
It’s Tottenham, so we don’t really know, although I would say that today’s headlines regarding our Christmas party, should motivate our players to put in another performance like we saw against City.
Woodgate and King are still out, but I thought Dawson and Bassong played superbly on Wednesday, so there’s no real problem there. Bentley is injured, though he would have struggled to make the bench anyway and Modric misses out with an ankle knock. At least he hasn’t aggravated his original injury.
For Blackburn, David Dunn should be absent again and will be a loss for them. His injury has coincided with Blackburn going on a run of 6 games without a win. Brett Emerton is also injured for the hosts.
I would expect us then to start with exactly the same team that won 3-0 in midweek. The flaw with that plan might be that Blackburn could easily outnumber us in midfield, but that’s the peril of playing a proper 4-4-2 formation in the Premier League these days.
As is so often the case now, a lot will rest on the slender shoulders of Aaron Lennon. It’s unlikely that a Sam Allardyce side will be naive enough to give Lennon the amount of space that he enjoyed on Wednesday. If they do double up on him, it’s up to others to seize the initiative and make the most of the amount of space this will create. Yes Tom, that means you. It’s about time you reminded people how good you can be.
Blackburn are in poor form, but like the rest of the North West, Ewood Park is not traditionally a happy hunting ground for Spurs. We haven’t won there in the past four seasons, with our last victory coming way back in 2004.
We really need a win though, to build on the City result after our recent setbacks. We’ve also now gone 3 league games without an away win, which isn’t a startling statistic for Tottenham, but isn’t good enough if we see ourselves breaking into the top four.
It should be a tight game and a draw would not be a major surprise, but I’m saying that we’ll end up 1-0 winners.
You seem to imply that the team is carrying Huddlestone who has started every game so far this season and we are doing very well.
I know that some people attribute Palacios poor form to the idea that he is carrying Tom. It could ber the other way round.
We need to play at a high tempo and move the ball quickly as we did on Wed.to outmanouvre the five man midfield.
Not really. At least I didn’t mean it that way.
I’m a big fan of Huddlestone and think he’s an incredibly skillful footballer. What I don’t see him doing is stepping up and controlling games, which I believe he has the ability to do. He’s still young though. Look how Lennon has matured in the past couple of seasons.