A Spurs side in freefall return to Wembley to host a Watford club that has lost only 1 of its last 8 games. Spurs, on the other hand, have lost 3 of their last 4 and the defence has started to leak goals, with 5 conceded in the past 3 matches. Thankfully, Son is back from the Asian Cup and hopefully he will be inserted back into the XI because the Llorente experiment has been a disaster. Clearly the Spaniard is past his expiry date, is too slow and doesn't hold the ball up well enough to bring his teammates into play. Eriksen, Alderweireld and Sissoko should feature as well. To give you an idea of how embarrassing Spurs lack of transfer activity has been over the past year, Javi Gracia was able to make 11 changes to the Hornets side that easily swatted away Newcastle in the FA Cup on Saturday. It is painful for me to write this, but even Watford have a deeper squad than we do because their ownership has been willing to invest in the first team, unlike Daniel Levy and Joe Lewis. Watford are one of those teams that can be brilliant on their day and beat a top side (as we found out in September), but they can also be rubbish. Hopefully, it will be the latter. One small thing that could go in our favour is that the excellent midfielder Doucoure has not been included in their squad for the last 2 games with rumours swirling that he is headed to PSG. With Kane and Dele out, we wll need a more disciplined performance to win the 3 points, especially in defence, where we have been guilty of some schoolboy errors. Despite all the gloom and doom of the past week, we are 7 points better off than after 23 games last season.
Here are the teams! Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris, Alderweireld, Sanchez, Vertonghen, Aurier, Winks, Sissoko, Rose, Son, Eriksen, Llorente. Subs: Trippier, Lamela, Dier, Walker-Peters, Gazzaniga, Lucas Moura, Skipp. Watford: Foster, Janmaat, Mariappa, Cathcart, Holebas, Cleverley, Capoue, Hughes, Pereyra, Deulofeu, Deeney. Subs: Gomes, Britos, Success, Masina, Sema, Quina, Wilmot. Referee: Graham Scott. Looks like a back 3 with Aurier and Rose as wing-backs. Son is back in the team. The inclusion of Llorente instead of Moura or Lamela is puzzling, but Watford do have a big team and Llorente is useful defending set pieces (except when he scores in our goal).
nervous. the store's closed today on account of the cold (and it's damn cold here, I can tell you), which means I can watch. hopefully that's a good thing. COYS!!
for Spurs, as you'd expect. once the word came that the district manager had approved us not opening today (I was due in at 7am this morning), the cold became my friend.
We still don't play to Llorente's strenghts, we have had 3 chances to cross and they have all been low and cut out easily by the defence.