After a tough match against Leicester in midweek in which Spurs suffered their third loss of the season, Mauricio Pochettino will be tempted to shuffle the pack and freshen things up a little.
We can see at least two new players move into the starting lineup. Danny Rose would bring pace to the left flank, allowing Ben Davies a rest.
Tom Carroll has done well in midfield over recent weeks, but Mousa Dembele was in fine form before his injury and needs to come back into the side.
With Dembele, Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen all versatile footballers, there are a number of different ways that the side could line up, but this is how’d we’d start the game.
Here’s our team to face Sunderland. What’s yours?
Lloris
Trippier-Alderwereild-Verts-Rose
Dier-Dembele
Lamela-Eriksen-Alli
Son
Walker screwed up a few time defensively against Leicester. Rose will be fresher than Davies today. Dembele for Caroll all day long. Kane looks tired. Needs to be rested. Bring him in at 60th minute if need fire power.
Don’t be silly.
I would say bring Kane in at the second half before it’s too late if Son does not involve much in the game and the scoreline doesn’t favour us. Don’t wait until the 60th, 70th min to bring in any substitutions because they might not be able to give a significant effect on the result. For the last couple of games, I felt that we are too lose at the back and I hope Poch can something to tighten up our defence. I agreed that Walker should be given a rest as this guy is dreaming and not focusing enough on his game. He should go back to learn his basic defending and get counsel by one of our trainer. If we keep on conceding goals, we are not going to win games, as simple as that.
We need to be more clinical in front of goal in order to win games. I hope I am wrong, just liked the Leicester game if we can’t score in the first half, I am afraid we will lose out the game. We need to be leading them 2-0 in the first half in order to ease off some pressure on Poch and on our players. COYS!!!
Here we go again….why are we so lose at the back? It doesn’t look good for us to claim the 3 points if we continue playing this way in the second half. The problem is we should be controlling the pace of the game when we are playing at home. Our midfielders need to hold onto possession of the ball and not give away the ball easily. If we lost possession of the ball, we should try to close them down quickly and win back ball possession. We cannot afford to let them push the ball forward and dictate play in our half. That’s a suicidal thing to do. One of our players need to step up in the second half to break up their play and I hope Dembele will come up to that role. Fingers crossed…
Lloris, Davies, Alderweireld, Vertoghen, Trippier, Diet, Alli, Chadli, Dembele, Eriksson, Kane
Walker is a bit of a liability defensively and needs a rest. Davies has more penetration and accuracy on crossing than Rose (although he doesn’t have Rose’s pace). Eriksson is struggling for form but I would still start him ahead of Carroll. If the movement is fluid enough, there’s no reason why Chadli, Dembele and Eriksson can’t be interchangeable behind or alongside Kane.
Alderweireld is a rock and you can’t leave him out but he’s looked a little vulnerable in the two games against Leicester.