Having secured our spot in the FA Cup Fifth Round last weekend, Tottenham Hotspur return to Premier League action this Wednesday as we welcome Ralph Hasenhuttl’s Southampton to White Hart Lane.
It’s been another mixed season for Southampton, blowing both hot and cold but given our own semi-inconsistent ways, despite being well placed on a European front, the Saints only find themselves eleven points behind us – but that also doesn’t tell the full story given the games in hand we have built up.
Victory on Wednesday sees us leapfrog above Arsenal again and depending on other fixtures, we could temporarily jump into fourth place which would be another good lift for everyone.
On an injury front, we are again much improved with only Eric Dier, Oliver Skipp and Japhet Tanganga being doubtful or ruled out, and Dier could in fact return for Southampton anyway.
We only a point secured from our visit to St Mary’s, we really should be looking to grab all three points here.
Sinners 3 – 0 Saints. (The good guys don’t always win).
Geof the name is wrong…Not Saints but Scummers, Scum of the South. COYS
As a side note, Mousa Dembele has just retired today.
So we can get him on a free then.
Interesting that Dembele has retired since only last week I read an article which suggested that the beginning of the demise of the team began with Levy selling Dembele in January rather than allowing him to leave on a free in the Summer .
Any Levy apologists please read the article . Just re inforces what many of us on here have been saying for a long time that as long as ENIC keep making profits to the detriment of the team the team will find it impossible to win anything .
I hope Conte has made levy and ENIC think .
I may be on a hiding to nothing here.
But I’m almost sure that Dembele almost openly stated that he wouldn’t stay past the Summer, basically stating that his body couldn’t take the intensity of the premiership.
And perhaps Levey just cashed in before he went for nothing.
Many of us(myself included) think that this was the beginning of the end for Spurs, as we didn’t adequately replace Dembele, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
And I vaguely remember myself thinking that at least we will get something for him.
I may be wrong, but that’s my rememberence of what happened.
I will stand corrected. 🤔🙏
That’s pretty much how I remember the feeling at the time Niall. Dembele wanted to extend his career at a lower pace and it looked like we cashed in whilst enabling him to drop intensity slightly quicker.
The issue was in the replacement as from memory, although a different player, it seemed we banked on Sissoko who was on a slightly upward curve at the point – but it just didn’t work out.
Cheers Danny,
Thanks again for the threads.
However was Sissoko ever on an upward curve?
Bags of energy and enthusiasm, strong as an ox, but with the ball at his feet, uuh. 🙄
Surely that is the point guys . yes let him run down his contract and let him go on a free to satisfy his wishes but we sold him to make money which had a detrimental effect on the team .
Would a few months have made much difference?
Trippier’s comments just show that the players doubted whether the club’s board were serious about challenging.
As others have said, selling Dembele wasn’t the problem per se. It was the failure to bring in someone would could compensate the loss.
I can understand how, from the players’ perspective, it would have been strange to listen to Levy talk up how his stadium was going to help the club compete on one hand, and on the other, letting important players go without replacing them. A bit contradictory.
Eventually, the club did address the situation (albeit too late, but better late than never), but went big on the wrong player, NDombele. That doesn’t help.
Anyways, I didn’t post that to start a big discussion about Dembele’s departure – it was more to thank Mousa for the memories and his contributions. On his day, what a player.
Just for the record.
The Chinese Super League ran from 1st March in 2019 to the end of November 2019.
This would have been as good a reason as any for Mousa to leave Spurs in January and to join Guangzhou before the start of their new season and not toward the end of it.
If he had left Spurs in the summer of the 18-19 season, his full playing season could’ve/would’ve been from August 2018 right through to November 30th 2019. All whilst having to upsticks with his family and then settle in China. And all without a break in play. (Excepting the fact that he was injured at Spurs for at least a couple of months before he left us).
Also, £11m would surely have been more useful to Spurs toward finding a replacement for him, than nothing at all.
As BS has pointed out; We did buy Ndombele (expensive) in the summer of 2019. We also loaned (then bought) Lo Celso. Both players that Pochettino was very happy to get in place of Dembele. And both apperently capable of playing a similar role to Mousa.
Also for the record; He hasn’t yet resigned. He resigns at the end of the Chinese S L season at the end of this year…
Mousa, in his last couple of seasons for Spurs, Was looking pretty knackered to me. This is why he said he needed out of the PL. Too intense for his aging limbs etc… He also said that he fancied a change for the end of his career. (And no doubt a pretty hefty increase from his salary at Spurs)!
Retires… Not Resigns!
Back to the future!
If we beat the Saints tonight, then we will be just 1 point behind WHU sitting in 4th place.
AND; if we can beat them by 5 clear goals, then we will rise above MU on goal difference. (Unlikely but not impossible). 🙂
Come On You Spuuurs!
We’ll all be watching closely. Quite simply put, this is the sort of game we need to win if we want to entertain the possibility of top 4.
I’d love to see both of the new guys start tonight. But I doubt that they will.
Of the two, I think that Bentancur might possibly start due to the injury of Skipp and Hojbjerg perhaps needing a rest and some rotation for a change. (But, Bentancur has done a fair bit of travelling across the world, these past couple of weeks).
I’d like to see Kulusevski play in place of Lucas. Simply because I don’t think that Moura is showing very good form at the moment.
It’ll no doubt all be down to how they have both trained in the past couple of days and if Conte sees them as match-ready and useful for his game-plan tonight.
But, I do expect to see both of them play from the bench at least, if not being as starters.
My team for tonight v Scum of the South
Lloris
Sanchez…Romero…Davies
Royal…Hoj…Bentacur…Reggie
Lucas…Harry…Son
Kulu to replace Lucas in the 2nd half.
Cheers HT for the “moussa” post, I didn’t know the “ins and outs” of it, mists of time and, all that.
Re tonite, just like the rest I would like to see the new signings for more than just a cameo.
And a win tonite would be a massive boost.
Hopefully Kane has now got his head right and it looks like the telepathy between him and Sonny is starting to come back.
We were pretty good on Saturday its, amazing how athletic, front foot, workman like football can be just that wee bit entertaining??
Big win tonite Kane 2 Sonny 1 Kulu 1 COYS 😉
Yes, Niall!
And without the need for the inanely tiresome, bus-parking tactics of Jose Mourinho’s time with us.
And, just as a response to your thoughts on Eriksen; Conte has now said that he would happily welcome Christian back to Spurs.
Who knows? But he is just on a 6 month contract at Brentford. ………
So, if we can convince Dembele not to retire, re-sign Bale for a 3rd time this coming summer, (when out of contract), have Eriksen back… Then it’s all looking backwards to going forward! All 3, on a free!
“Tightarse” Levy would love that!
Sell a few shirts at least. If not to buy us any trophies!
100% HT.
As someone said earlier, he’s just waiting for us to “click”, hopefully it will click tonite.
I can see a good result with a very decent score if we do.
However an old 1-0 still gets us the points, but I don’t see it tonite.