MF’s Match Preview: Tottenham v Norwich City

Free spending Norwich come to White Hart Lane on Saturday afternoon as the seemingly interminably long international break comes to an end. Don’t go thinking that this is where the season starts to gain any momentum though, there’s another one along in a few weeks.

The Canaries lashed out nearly £30 million during summer. £30 million? That’s nearly a whole Erik Lamela! Early indications are that they spent wisely with Ricky Van Wolfswinkel, Nathan Redmond and Leroy Fer all getting good reports. £5 million was spent on the goals of Gary Hooper, as yet to make it off the physio’s table. And maybe that’s what they were missing in their only away league game so far, a 2-1 defeat to ten man Huddlestone City Tigers or whatever they’re called these days. That’s easily their most disappointing result though the others being a Carrow Road draw with Everton and a 1-0 win over Southampton.

But we need to talk about us. Where did it all go right? Far too early to go down that particular route of course but there will be few fans who don’t think we’ve a better squad than we did last season, a season during which we achieved our record points total for the Premier League don’t forget. The question is, how long until the players start to prove it? The performance at the Gooners was notable for several things, our share of possession being the main one. No good if you don’t do anything with it of course (as the Arse have proven many a time) so the pressure will be mostly on one man at the weekend – Christian Eriksen. There are goals in Lamela, Soldado, Paulinho and Chadli and also Sigurdsson, Defoe, Townsend of course but someone needs to make the opportunities and that man is Eriksen, or so most of the hype seems to indicate. There’s no way of course that the Dane can do it by himself, he’s just another cog in what we hope will soon become a well-oiled machine, he’s a pretty important cog though.

Kyle Walker had a fairly torrid time in Kiev when he was faced with the best attacker on the field. This won’t be the case on Saturday but in Nathan Redmond – who I believe has been cutting in from the left for Norwich, he’ll be up against a lively foe. Hughton gambled on the promise Redmond showed at Birmingham and has so far been rewarded as the little feller has given everyone he’s faced something to think about. Walker’s taken a lot of flack during the week, here’s a chance to show what he’s made of by putting Redmond in his pocket for 90 minutes.

For what it’s worth, my predicted line up is – Hugo, Walker, Dawson, Vertonghen, Rose, Paulinho, Dembele, Eriksen, Chadli, Soldado, Lamela. As I say, there’s goals in them there players.

Norwich are no mugs as they’ve proved in the last couple of seasons against us at WHL, nevertheless only a win will do.

Lee Mason is down to officiate. COYS.

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