Spurs face a dangerous Leicester City side at Wembley as they look to maintain their unlikely title challenge. I say dangerous because Leicester are one of those sides that can upset a top side on the drop of a hat as we saw over the Christmas period when they beat Chelsea and Manchester City back to back. They pose a threat on the break with the pace of Vardy and with Poch's penchant for playing a high line and the fullbacks way up the pitch, we could be vulnerable on the break if we give the ball away in midfield. Claude Puel gets plenty of stick from the Leicester support, but he does a good job of setting up his teams, although the Foxes can be guilty of overplaying in their defensive third. Again, it will be interesting to see how Poch lines us up. Will he hand another start to Llorente, or will he go with a similar set-up as he did against Newcastle? Whatever the starting XI, hopefully we can secure a comfortable win and save the nerves for the CL on Wednesday.
Not watching as I have to head into work shortly....I'm gonna need multiple sources to prove that Sanchez really did score.
Leicester is dangerous, fast, quick of thought and play. But, we've done just enough to keep them at bay. The penalty stop by Lloris was brilliant. Lloris has been great for the part I've watched (2nd half only, had a bad night sleeping, couldn't get up on time). 2:0, that second goal was a work of persistence in possession in dangerous space. This has been fun to watch, what I've watched. Highly energetic match. COYS!
Am I happy with a three game winning streak? Yes. Have we done anything to show that we can beat Dortmund? No.
The contrast between the Son yellow for diving, and the PK call leading to the Vardy miss, was quite stark. Quite refreshing to see a team come at us, compared to the many that come to Wembley and sit back all game. Quite a relief to bag 3 more points. After 26 games last year, we had 49 points. 11 points more now.
possibly hugos best match of the season I was disappointed in how some of the subs came in and gave the ball away multiple times around the 70-80 minute mark though. wanyama and toby both were spraying hopeful longballs to nowhere when Spurs really needed to possess the ball and slow the match down oh, and when vardy came on to take that pk, I had a gut feeling he was gonna blow it.
I actually started to complain about that; how we were already defending too deep, and how taking Llorente off for Wanyama was going to allow us no outlet and no relief. Fortunately Sissoko released Son for his 60 yard scoring run before I hit 'post'.
Never in doubt, right? Michael Oliver is a total tw**t. He looked bent on screwing us from the opening kick, got both penalty decisions wrong and amazingly did not call a foul on Leicester until the 52nd minute. Our tactics played right into their hands. Puel correctly targeted Trippier as the weak link as you could have driven a lorry through the space left by our happy wanderer full-back. Even at 2-0 up, he was still high up the pitch way out of position. I think the WC has gone to his head, he has had a really poor season. The fact that we constantly gave the ball away in midfield didn't help. Is Hugo back? The last couple of games he has been excellent.
Fortunately the ref did not affect the outcome. Trippier must have been told to stay pushed up so high, right? The midfield was getting overrun and I was thinking they should put in Lamela, but I saw later that he wasn't in the 18 - is he injured? Speaking of which, it appears Rose is injured, that's why he was subbed out.
Poch likes to plush the FBs up the pitch, but Trippier is not a spring chicken, he should know better than to be caught out at 2-0 up. Rose played the same way on the other side, but also was tracking back and making some good tackles in defense. The midfield struggled because we kept giving the ball away. If you watch our best games, the one constant is we really pass the ball well with few giveaways. Lamela had a back injury and Rose injured his shin on a foul that the inept Oliver didn't book the Leicester player.