“Leicester City, we’re coming for you…” Oh no, hang on.
Leicester on Saturday afternoon and a chance for the Blue Army to gloat over their nearest rivals for much of the run in to the end of last season. No-one in N17 wants to be reminded how the campaign ended so if the away fans could keep their crowing down to a low murmur please then that’d be great.
The champions lost only one player in the summer from their best eleven and also waved the cheque book, notably to strengthen in attack, though you’d hardly believe that from their league form thus far, away from home anyway.
N’Golo Kante was charmed by Antonio Conte and their midfield is now all wonky.
Add in that referees are applying the rules of the game regarding wrestling at corners, meaning that the likes of Huth and Morgan have to actually defend, and all of a sudden they’ve looked vulnerable at the back. They are twelfth with eleven points, if results had gone a certain way last weekend they could’ve been in the bottom three.
That’s no way to defend a title…
but then conveniently for him, conventional wisdom seems to be that Ranieri isn’t bothered, he’s gone Moneybags League crazy and in that competition they are doing very well. Like us they have a game next week which may mean that Claudio rests a few of his most likely lads – there’s a good chance that we will not see all of Vardy, Mahrez and Slimani start the game. That doesn’t mean that they won’t come at us with pace and aggression like they normally do. Our midfield will be given a good workout.
Chance for another Son pun
Goals have been very much on our mind of late, or the lack of them to be precise. Harry is apparently ‘touching the grass’ now, but whether he’s ready for a place on the bench or not I don’t know. Despite the fact that Son has lost his shine of late it will be tempting for Poch to start with the Korean in the middle as he did against City, after all it is his goals we’ve been relying upon so far this campaign. Eriksen, Janssen and Lamela all need to get their fingers out if we’re going to keep our place at the top of the points gathered in 2016 table.
In theory we should be able to find the gaps and holes that Man United, Chelsea and Liverpool have previously exploited, the trouble is that we are so shot and goal shy, it’s not a given that we’ll be able to take advantage if we do. If we don’t then Kane will be rushed back and he’ll be all desperate and he’ll get injured again and….well, it won’t be very good.
Yet another big game then.
The first one since the last one.
Robert Madley is the referee.
Keep up to date with all the latest Tottenham news and opinion by following SpursWeb’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
