Spurs travel to Old Trafford tomorrow night (kick-off 8.15 PM BST) to take on Manchester United, who are currently 5th in the Premier League.
Spurs will be looking to build on a four-match unbeaten run in all competitions, which includes winning three successive games against Brighton, Eintracht Frankfurt and Everton, whilst United – who themselves are unbeaten in four in all competitions since their capitulation at the Etihad – will be looking to return to winning ways after a 0-0 draw at home to Newcastle on Sunday.
The hosts may very well have to do this without the services of Spurs old boy Christian Eriksen, who has sat out training this week with the illness that kept him out of the Newcastle match.
United will also have to do without the services (or lack thereof, based on the tosh that this lot has served over the years!) of Harry Maguire, Anthony Martial, Donny van de Beek, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Brandon Williams and Axel Tuanzebe.
However, Scott McTominay and Martin Dubravka will return to their squad after being unable to partake in the Newcastle match, which McTominay sat out through suspension, and Dubravka due to the terms of his loan deal from Newcastle.
For Spurs, Emerson Royal serves the final match of his 3-game ban. Moreover, Richarlison will definitely be out with the calf injury he picked up against Everton, although the injury is not as bad as first feared. The match is also likely to come too soon for Dejan Kulusevski, who is continuing his rehabilitation from a hamstring injury.
The absence of the attacking duo has culminated in rife speculation that we will see the 3-5-2 that finished the Everton match on Saturday from the outset, but Antonio Conte was keen to refute those noises…perhaps to keep United guessing:
“Tomorrow, Lucas Moura can be a possibility,” Conte said, quoted by the Evening Standard. “Gil can be a possibility, Perisic like a striker is a possibility. I have another day of training sessions to make the best decision.
“You know we like to play with a 3-4-3, with three strikers, and if we can’t change then I prefer to continue to play with a 3-4-3. Otherwise I will find another solution but I think we have the possibility to play with a 3-4-3.”
The match will be viewable via the Amazon Prime streaming service for those unable to get to Old Trafford.
This was a game for conte and the players to make a statement.
And this is why conte won’t win anything.
What a shambles. Overwhelmed, outclassed and humiliated. Grossly unfair for Man U to have such a talented all round squad …just look at the bench and the unavailable players. We need a Sancho, Anthony, Fernandez.
Thank goodness for Lloris tonight. Could have been 8-0.
This is what happens when u sit back and let them have the ball, look at the attempts they have for a defensive tactics. Conte needs to wake up, as the big guns are right behind us
We need a goal and brings on a DM skip, conte throwing in the towel again.
Hasn’t got the balls to sub kane or son
No skip, so our new signing Spence but sess comes on instead in his position.
Why don’t we shoot outside the box
Does anyone still think that Conte’s tactics of pouring the opposition into submission and hoping for something on the counter attack re going to work. Three difficult games this season so far and three pitiful negative performances. We may as well have stuck with Jose. We have again hired a coach who is out of touch with the modern game and totally cowardly in his approach. We are totally unbearable to watch and under going absolutely no where. All we have achieved this season is a handful of wins against poor opposition and a series of embarrassing performances against any half decent teams. Please Mr Levy, don’t offer Conte a new contract. He doesn’t deserve one.
The first impression when the players were lined up in the tunnel was the ugliness of the kit. Those yellow socks do not belong on a kit for THFC.
From that, it all went downhill. Hard to find anything about which to feel good in today’s match.
Ugly performance.
Conte out! ENIC out!
my good feelings going into the match were wrong. There wasn’t much good in this match. Unless you like to feed on a diet of manure.
Bad losses to Arsenal and Manure. The rest was mere illusion?
It’s hard to play a team with more talent to begin with but even more difficult to when they’re hungrier to win the ball as well. We actually passed and moved the ball at the beginning and had a few chances but as the game wore on had absolutely nothing to offer. We were completely shut down moving out of our side of the field. Very disheartening loss and difficult to see how we can match up w the top teams out there going forward.
Best start since Bill Nicholson and Greaves?
All illusion.
Ugly socks predict ugly performance.
Cannot use the word “ugly” often enough for this performance.
Not worthy of the time wasted watching.
Our last three managers were Mourinho, Espirito Santos, and Conte? WTF? No wonder Mr. Joe Bahamas removed his name as a principal influence on the club.
In my lifetime we have gone from playing beautiful football to begging for hygienic paper to wipe the stench off stinking bottoms.
“I am not a quitter,” said Mr. Conte? “I am not stupid,” said Liz Truss? We could copy and paste back and forth from the political pages to the sports pages and mix the names and it wouldn’t make a damned bit of difference.
“I am truly Totally embarrassed,” said the Knobhead.
“You don’t score by passing backwards,” said someone who should manage our team. Didn’t catch who it was who said it, though. But that person makes a lot of sense.
Geoff,
You got it right, mate:
it’s better the see tomorrow’s match yesterday. Seeing today’s match today is a fool’s self abuse, At least if you see today’s match in six months, the hurt already has receded. The advise I was given as a wee lad was wrong: do not live in the present. It hurts too much.
Manure plays to attack first and thus control the match. Conte plays to attack last and to… What is it again that he is trying to control? ah yes, to counterattack and discourage the other side?
I know there are those on this site who have little patience for me when I write about playing beautifully, and I don’t think beauty means necessarily attacking all the time, especially at the expense of forgetting to play defense. But sitting back and allowing one’s self to be on the butt end of being attacked, attacked, attacked, while waiting for those rare moments when one can counter attack? Well, today it wasn’t beautiful. It was ugly.
Does anyone feel like defending ugly football, especially when it is embarrassing football?
Balance can be beautiful, but the only time I’ve seen playing rope-a-dope played beautiful was in Kinshasa when Muhammad Ali played it to perfection. Today’s display of rope-a-dope showed the wrong side playing the dope.
I’m yet to appreciate Mr. Conte’s style, and have serious doubts it will win me over.
Okay. Maybe with a few more signings over the next open windows…
But maybe that’s the wrong rope-a-dope, too.
I want a bit more bravado in the attack. To dare is to do. To sit back and wait isn’t for my team and runs against its traditions.
Disagree with me? Speak up.
But there will be twelve more threads on the morrow and all comments will be lost in the shuffle.