Spurs face a scary Halloween trip to the East End for a last-16 tie against city rivals West Ham, just 48 hours after playing Man City on an NFL-trampled Wembley pitch. The last 2 times we've played them in the League Cup, we've gone out after blowing second-half leads, something that almost never happens to us, right? West Ham should have the advantage, having had their feet up since Saturday, while Poch will have to field an experimental side with a tough PL fixture at Molineux looming large this Saturday. Don't know the TV situation in the US, but it will be available on the DAZN streaming network here in Canada. The radio broadcast may be available over the Internet on BBC London 94.9. They do a great job on the broadcast and you get the London traffic updates at half time! Note the kick-off time is indeed 3:45 ET because the UK have already set thier clocks back.
Looks like the game is on ESPN+. It will be interesting to see who plays - Aurier, Son, Foyth, Walker Peters?
This is going to be anathema to Poch but the domestic cups are our best chance of success this year. That said, don't think KWP + Aurier as full backs is going to be significantly worse than Davies + Trippier on current form. Edit: team is Gazzaniga, Aurier, Sanchez, Foyth, Walker-Peters, Wanyama, Winks, Eriksen (C), Son, Dele, Llorente
Son was MOTM, obviously, but I think Foyth made the strongest case for getting more playing time. Walker Peters did not impress. Aurier was not bad playing on the left, so it is good to know that is an option. I had forgot N'Koudou was on the team. Gazzaniga was mostly solid. Nice to watch a game and be happy at the end.
Nice to be ahead by more than a single goal! Good that Kane got a total rest and maybe the goal will improve Llorente's mindset.
Nice to see Son finally get up and running. Clearly playing in the WC and the useless Asian Games football competition took a lot out of him. But at least the club got something in return - Son got an exemption from mandatory military service for winning the competition, won't have to play for Korea during this month's international break and is exempt from Korea's first two group games of the Asia Cup in January. Foyth was excellent, making 4 goal-saving tackles and Gazza remains our lucky charm in goal. I feared for this match, because I knew Poch would have to make a lot of changes and I expected Pellegrini to select a strong side against a Spurs team that was there for the taking. Thankfully for us, he elected to play a weakened side, which made no sense since they aren't going to get relegated, bad as they are. That has always been one of my pet peeves - why PL managers of mid-table clubs play weakened sides in the cups. Maybe it's a foreign manager thing - with a few exceptions, they just don't seem to get the history and the importance of the cups.
I think you have to pay $4.99 a month or something for that. Remember the good old days where football was on one channel?
I've had a dream last night about our upcoming tie with Arsenal. In it, we are ahead 2-0 in the seventy-somethingth minute when Lloris comes charging out of the box to clear, arrives late, gets passed, and some Gunner is firing into an empty net, when someone (Aurrier?) comes flying back out of nowhere to clear it off the line. That said, I also dreamt a couple years back that Heung Min Son was packing a U-haul and leaving London, so they're not foolproof as prognostications.
It couldn't have been Aurier, because he would probably have been out of position way up the pitch...
I once had a dream where there was a series of tunnels and secret MI-5 installation deep beneath Brentford's Griffin Park. I was interrogated there, despite just wanting into the away end. Aurier in the right place at the right time wouldn't be the most egregious affront to reality in my footy-dreams.
Talked to my cousin who was at the game and she told me that whenever a pitch invader ran onto the field, the Spurs support would sing: "Is that Mark No-ble, Is that Mark No-ble?... Brilliant!