After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, Spurs finally get to open the new stadium with a fixture against Crystal Palace. After flirting with the relegation zone for most of the season, the Eagles are now 8 points clear of Cardiff following their 2-0 win over Huddersfield on Saturday. We head into the game in freefall with just 1 point from our last 5 games, with 3 of those losses where we conceded the winning goal in the final 10 minutes, including Lloris's horror show at Anfield on Sunday. A lot is wrong with our game right now: poor passing, lack of clinical instinct when we are on top of games, schoolboy defensive errors, poor goalkeeping and bad tactics and substitutions by the manager. Other than that, we're flying! Poch and Levy gave their usual speech about being ambitious and becoming an elite club, yada, yada, yada, but it is starting to get tiresome and I will wait and see if they back up the big talk by revamping the squad in the summer. otherwise I fear we will become a glorified version of Newcastle or West Ham. A lot of that will depend on whether we finish in the top 4. With Man U throwing away points yesterday at Wolves (maybe some of the OGS magic is wearing off, why on earth did he play Ashley Young in a back 3? not that I'm complaining...), we need to take advantage of the new stadium with 5 of our final 7 fixtures at home aganst opposition we should beat. I say should, because we saw what happened at Burnley and Southampton.
The club is streaming a live inaugural show for the new stadium on Facebook starting at 1:30 ET. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1953932001384407
Here are the teams: Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris, Trippier, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Davies, Sissoko, Alli, Son, Eriksen, Rose, Kane. Subs: Sanchez, Winks, Wanyama, Walker-Peters, Foyth, Gazzaniga, Lucas Moura. Crystal Palace: Guaita, Wan Bissaka, Tomkins, Kelly, Van Aanholt, Kouyate, Milivojevic, McArthur, Zaha, Batshuayi, Schlupp. Subs: Ward, Dann, Meyer, Townsend, Hennessey, Ayew, Benteke.
Chance for Schlupp who got behind Trippier (once again) but Toby comes over to force the shot over the goal.
Interesting, 9 of the 11 tonight played in the last game at WHL (Dembéllé and Wanyama, who is on the bench tonight).
Nothing against the performers for the opening ceremony but it felt a little B league... Couldn't they get Adele (who's a Spurs fan) for a powerful performance on such an important occasion. More importantly can we open this place with a win for F's sake. COYS!
Eriksen's shot saved by Guaita, good move from Spurs, Kane to Trippier and the RB picked out Eriksen in the box.