With an unexpected rest in midweek and on the back of Thursday evening’s comfortable, but nervy, Qualifying Third Round tie against Shkendija, Tottenham Hotspur are quickly back in action on Sunday as we face Newcastle United at White Hart Lane.
With the club learning that we have been handed a bye through to the fourth round of the EFL Cup today, it means we face Chelsea in the next game but gain the advantage of having played one match fewer in this bizarre cramped run of fixtures.
As for Newcastle, manager Jose Mourinho will undoubtedly rotate the pack once again to help keep everyone fresh so we can expect returns for the likes of Matt Doherty and Hugo Lloris and we continue to be without Gareth Bale, but if fellow newbie Sergio Reguilon misses this one, I’d imagine he’ll be in contention for the Cup clash on Tuesday evening.
Form wise at this very early stage of the season, we are level pegging with the Geordies in the table but now we seem to have found our goalscoring boots, we should have every confidence of dispatching them and taking ourselves onto six points.
Always easier said than done though isn’t it.
Newcastle...
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TQ – you know it’s just his height is a bit off for a target man otherwise would take him hands down especially for around £15m and maybe £50K a week or so – home bloody grown, Prem proven, fast, skillful, versatile, etc! Just he’s only 5tf11 so a little, little short to play as a target man but I’m sure he’s got a decent leap on him given his athleticism overall and basically 6ft really and you can’t always have absolutely everything especially for that kind of money so I’d still take him LOL and here’s hoping – we could do a lot, lot worse indeed and I’ll stick by that ……….!
MS and JK incoming – I can feel it LOL ……………..!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8776771/Jose-Mourinho-increasingly-frustrated-clubs-failure-land-new-striker.html
Gotta believe that this friend story makes sense and could well be credible – indeed it’s ridiculous to still be with only 1 STR/CF 2 weeks into the season after what happened last season and even the season’s before that and with the schedule we had/have in the 1st 3 weeks – not really good enough from the board quite frankly even if they have delivered 5 overall quality signings so far!
I know HK10 is irreplaceable and is the main man but still how hard can it be to find a decent 2nd back-up – JK for bloody example – don’t need to go too far or spend too much for example LOL! Penny pinching here is clearly not the way to go about things ……………!
So far we’ve been lucky – but these next 8 days could well find us out quite frankly – hope HK10 can deliver as best possible and not get injured, etc – here’s hoping for all our sakes especially the board’s ……..!
Don’t rate Newcastle’s defence much apart from Lascelles obviously who is certainly solid, S Longstaff and Shelvey in CM is actually not bad if chosen together – up front you have to respect Maximin, Fraser, Almiron and Wilson if that’s indeed who they go with – definitely decent – good amount of pace and trickery, etc in those 4 – have to keep our wits about us for sure – don’t want to be caught out like last season and suffer a sucker punch! Ideally Davy should start, problem is we’ll need him again on Tuesday when facing the likes of Werner/Abraham most likely! Could really do with having Tanganga’s pace available ATM also – bloody typical especially if we want to attack team’s as we should do given we are at home in both matches …………!
We have played four games so far this season, mostly against modest opposition and in all but the second half against Southampton (who made it pretty easy for us) the performances have been aimless, lacking in purpose or aggression and the defending has been shocking. I am not expecting anything different today, Newcastle will defend deep and Jose and the players are clueless on how to break these teams down. A dull nil nil draw is the most likely result today. I think the signing of Bale has raised fans expectations, I’m not sure why, we iswell past his best and always injured.
EJ…..have you considered that (having sold Wilson) Bournemouth may not be willing to sell King as well?
TQ – morning mate – he’s got basically 9 months left on his contract – highly unlikely to sign a new 1 meaning in January he can sign a pre-contract elsewhere and they get absolutely zilch for him not to mention doubt he wants to spend said 9 months playing in the Championship especially as already 28 and not a spring chicken anymore not to mention that there will be several suitors surely from the Prem so indeed why stay?!
All surely has to point to an exit in the next week really and truly IMHO of course!
I mean if they had kept hold of their best players (always an almost impossible and thankless task for a relegated team – although so far Norwich bucking this trend and actually doing OK surprisingly – Aarons, Godfrey, Buendia, Cantwell, even Pukki and Krul, etc but the 1 thing most of these have is they are young and have time on their side and by sticking together, etc could actually fight for promotion again already this season giving them reason to stay and give it a go) then maybe he might think it worthwhile to extend his contract (even if only for an extra season, so effectively 2 year’s more in total to protect both himself and the club naturally for the obvious reasons) and remain and see if they could get promotion within a season – but with Ramsdale, Ake, Fraser and C Wilson all foing, H Wilson having to return to Liverpool, etc – they only really have him, Brooks, Lerma, L Cook and Solanke left who are any good (which is on the face of it relatively OK for the time being still) but then the only 2-3 of those I can see staying and even then quite a bit of a surprise are Lerma, L Cook and Solanke – indeed can’t understand why these 3 are also not generating any decent interest so far – bit strange really)!
Geof……..as promised, match report from our ladies FA cup game against the gooners yesterday.
Let’s get the bad news out of the way first…….we lost 4-0 however firstly we need to put this into context – the gooners had won their previous 2 games by a combined aggregate of 15-0 I think. Secondly, the score really doesn’t reflect how well we played, of all the games I have watched over the last year or so this was by far the best technical performance I have seen from our ladies side.
There is no doubt the new additions have raised the level at which we play and goes a good way towards closing the gap to the big 4, and that’s before Alex Morgan has kicked a ball for us! We now have a very solid looking centre back pairing with Harrop particularly impressing me but Zadorsky looking really decent as well. Kennedy has added some really good experience making us much more solid in midfield. Ayane played well up top as a number 9 where she would normally play wide left but I suspect she will be backup to Morgan in the long term.
All in all I was very impressed with our play, we matched the gooners right up until the 70th minute when our weak link (IMHO) right back Neville gave the ball away cheaply for Jordan Nobbs to score, they added a second to this within a minute, probably because legs were getting tired from the excellent effort that had been put in by the whole team. Despite giving away another couple of goals they didn’t give up and played decent stuff right up to the final whistle.
To be fair TQ – given all those listed and even adding in players like Begovic, Smith, Cook, Gosling, Rico, Stanislas, Billing Mepham and Kelly – I can honestly not believe they got relegated – too good to go down surely would have to have applied here if ever it was the case – at least IMHO – don’t know what the hell happened to them last season but quite frankly ridiculous – even their average players (named in this post) mostly had good solid Prem experience and then with the likes of the previously mentioned in the other post who were all quality players in the majority just cannot fathom their relegation – 1 of the strangest ever for me – defo see them as a regular solid mid table team for sure and never relegation fodder, etc!
Just goes to show really doesn’t it ………!
EJ….they went down because 17 teams scored more points than them over the season! 🙂
Indeed TQ, Indeed – LOL – fair play matey!
I wonder how many disputed handball decisions we will see today, feels like we are seeing at least one in every match at the moment, the new laws are ruining the game IMHO. Brighton were robbed of a very deserved point yesterday, in at least one of the handball penalties awarded a case could quite reasonably be made that the ball was deliberately aimed at the opposition players hand/arm which is a scenario many of us were concerned might come about following the law changes. When respected figures like Roy Hodgson come out and criticise the laws so strongly they should listen.
TQ am in agreement with you there, if accidental handball by a defender is a pen then why is an accidental hand ball by an opposition player not a handball, note Chaves player in build up to there equaliser, something stinks here.
As for today, Come On You Spurs, and let the Geordies av it. COYS
PY…..apparently the handball by Havertz would have resulted in the goal being disallowed last season but not this with the rule changes because it wasn’t part of the action that lead directly to the goal but happened a couple of actions before. Go figure! lol
TQ….yes I know, but its either a hand ball or not, utter bollocks. COYS
Today’s line-up:
Lloris (C), Doherty, Dier, Sanchez, Davies, Hojbjerg, Winks, Lo Celso, Lucas, Son, Kane.
Subs:
Hart Reguilon Toby Sissoko Ndombele Lamela Bergwijn
TQ …. Thanks for the feedback, mate. I became seriously interested in Women’s football due to watching the Matildas …. hence my interest in Chelsea who now have Kerr. But I also now have an added interest in Spurs due to another Matildas player, Kennedy. I believe she will be a great addition to the team when she had settled in. Your feedback allows for a lot more optimism going forward. Cheers.
HT …. Good lineup for the game. The bench isn’t too shabby either.
Looks like we’ve lost Sissoko in the warm up – Gedson’s back in now?
Should be out of sight at half-time, hope we don’t end up regretting not making more of our opportunities.
Not surprised to see Sonny subbed at half-time as he did start on Thursday, would expect Davies to be replaced around 60 minutes also.
We’ve been done by the same fecking joke of a handball law. This game has become a farce.