Tottenham v Huddersfield Town – Match preview

Huddersfield Town come to the currently awkwardly named Tottenham hotspur Stadium on Saturday for a lunchtime kick off.  

It’ll be a long time before we come to the last ‘first’ involving the new stadium, this game ticks both the first weekend and lunchtime kick off boxes as well as the first against an already relegated team. The Terriers have had a bit of a pig of a season and will probably be pleased to see the back of it. 

Tuesday evening was a fantastic night, the songs, the atmosphere, the performance, the unexpected victory all combined to make it a game for the ages. The new stadium is a place for memories to be forged, we have one already. 

There has been a cost of course with Harry out for the remainder of the season (and hopefully the whole summer if Spurs have any influence at all over England and the FA) and Dele currently marked with a status of unknown.  

The remarkable sangfroid with which the premature curtailment of Harry’s season has been greeted by Spurs fans in general is yet another tribute to Pochettino’s management. The absence of England’s number one player and the side’s leading league goal scorer for the past 5 seasons (including this one) is a blow yet the culture of optimism that now surrounds the team and the supporters means that we now just expect someone else (probably Son) to step up and provide the decisiveness that we’re so often reliant for Harry on. 

He’s Heung Min Son of Our Own. 

More fallout from Tuesday night – Dele has broken his hand. Plenty of players have done similar and played a full part in subsequent fixtures, one imagines that this will be the same in this case though I suspect that keeping him out of the firing line of more harm on Saturday would be a wise move given how important his extra touch of class and ambition is to us in bigger games. We’ll need him on Wednesday if it’s at all possible that he could play. 

So, bearing in mind Wednesday, I suspect Davies and Sanchez at least will get outings against Huddersfield. We should not take beating them for granted but the manager is bound to ponder starting Skipp and Foyth as well and maybe even KWP. It will be tempting for him. 

The new stadium has made home games fun again and whilst it’s unlikely to match up to Tuesday night, there’s keen anticipation now at this fixture rather than depression at thought of the trudge to Wembley. 

Alex Pritchard should be starting for Huddersfield, it’s not that long ago that he was being touted as cover and even a replacement for Eriksen. His team have lost 19 of their last 21 games. It’s almost a mirror image of Man City’s form who had won 21 of their last 23 games before Tuesday.  

Anything other than a win to us would be a surprise (we’re 2/9 with the bookies). If we’re fortunate, it may be an opportunity to build our goal difference which could do with a boost. 

Lee Mason is the referee. 

COYS 

Related Topics