14 hours ago, KonaKai Blue said:

Kane could be back for this one. 

Massive game that we must win to have a hope of top 4. Win this and its clearly achievable. 

No way. He can't be rushed to start anymore, the guy's legs are so brittle nowadays. 

If Tottenham is anything like they were last night against Brighton we will beat them. They were absolutely abysmal. What Jose is expecting is that we will hold on to the ball all game long. He will just let Son and Moura wait for a long ball. 

I am guessing it is 3 at back as well. 

12 hours ago, Browerkid said:

Kane is out.

 

they have only won 2 of their last 8 games when he was playing

Having played only two games under TT probably makes this difficult for JM as he is not sure of the patterns to analyse to break us down under the new manager.

If Zouma was playing he would probably already know which weaknesses to target yet as Rudiger is reasonably fresh he will need to look elsewhere.

Should be an interesting match. 

 

Why is everyone starting Giroud though? We are one dimensional with him upfront, we will resort to aerial crosses which will be easy for a drilled Spurs defence to deal with, and his lack of mobility means a Spurs back 3 sat deep will leave no space for the 2 to run behind.

Assuming we persist with 3-4-2-1 I think we could line up something like:

                       Mendy

             Dave - Silva - Rudi

CHO - Jorginho - Kovacic - Alonso

                Mount - Pulisic

                       Werner

 

I think Spurs will make it much harder for this formation, they're not going to let the fullbacks, especially CHO camp in their half lke Burnley and Wolves did, so maybe James comes in on the right and CHO plays behind the striker instead. Otherwise we might see us revert back to playing with a back 4. 

The idea of Son and Bergwijn being allowed to run at pace at Silva and Dave is a bit scary so I expect something tactically to be tweeaked. 

Of the three forwards, in their limited minutes, starting for Tuchel I actually think Werner has looked best, his pace and movement has created the most chances for either himself or others so I think he might get the nod for this one. 

With only two games under Tuchel, our defense is looking solid, and it will probably get better.

I am hopeful we become a team that beats the teams it should on a consistent basis. We have loads of talent, hoping Tuchel is the piece we need.

With a win here we put out a statement: "Guess who's back"

22 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

With a win here we put out a statement: "Guess who's back"

13 minutes ago, coco said:

Spurs fans don't seem too happy with Jose at the moment and his unique brand of football he's serving up. 

To be fair though, barring their last two games their form hasn't been that bad. I didn't watch the games but apparently their last two matches, the Brighton game in particular, they were absolutely woeful. 

So it's either an ideal time to play them or Jose is gonna play a counter attack masteclass and Gareth Bale will have is one moment of note this whole season. 

Jose has always had a problem with back three formations even when he was good, he just can't seem to find an answer to them and doesn't know how to utilize that system well himself either so he just makes it worse trying to match up (last night case in point).

Absolutely should be a back three on Thursday.

expect spuds bring out their dirtiest game, Lamela and Aurier with leg breaking tackles

Don’t think Kante should be starting this one. Obviously he is our best player but he hasn’t played a game for Tuchel yet so I worry that he may jeopardise all of the work Tuchel did so far, Jorginho and Kovacic have been decent so far.

Keep it the same for Tottenham, the stakes are too high. Put Kante back in the team for the following game, against Sheffield.

I imagine we are going to see the lineup Tuchel has the most trust in this week. If we go with the same formation as we have been, I hope Kante is fit and we can play him next to Mason. As good as Kova and Jorginho were against Burnley, I feel like they will be exposed against Mourinho.

Imagine it will be a 3-4-2-1:

Mendy | Azpi Silva Zouma | Reece Kante Mount CHO | Havertz Pulisic | Werner is the lineup I think I'd like to see... I'd like to see Callum as the LWB with Reece on the right. CHO has basically made it impossible to not play him the last few matches.

Mendy | Azpi Silva Rudiger | CHO Jorginho Kovacic Alonso | Mount Werner | Giroud is the lineup I think we will see from Tuchel however.

49 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Spurs fans don't seem too happy with Jose at the moment and his unique brand of football he's serving up. 

To be fair though, barring their last two games their form hasn't been that bad. I didn't watch the games but apparently their last two matches, the Brighton game in particular, they were absolutely woeful. 

So it's either an ideal time to play them or Jose is gonna play a counter attack masteclass and Gareth Bale will have is one moment of note this whole season. 

I watched Spurs lose both previous games and they looked incredibly bad, what will be concerning for Jose is that these were not competitive games, they were completely dominated in both games. Liverpool should've scored 5 or 6 with the number of chances they had and Brighton scored 1, hit the post and Alderweireld cleared one off the line which will go down as the worst miss in the league so far.

 

In both games they scored 1 which was a screamer from Hojberg other then that they haven't really created any clear cut opportunities, they looked threatening in the first half against Liverpool but since Kane went off injured they've looked completely toothless. Doherty was dropped due to being poor against Liverpool, Ndombele has been their best player this season with the exception of Son and Kane but he appears to have picked up an injury, Le Celso, Kane, Reguillon are all out for the game and apparently Aurier has had a falling out with Jose.

I will be thoroughly disappointed if we fail to win this game even if Jose decides to park the bus, Likelihood is that he plays Rodon, Dier & Alderweireld as the 3CB's with Davies as the LWB if we can't score past that backline I'll be worried especially considering Brighton cut them open on numerous occassions.

Edited February 1, 20215 yr by Imran_CFC

7 hours ago, JM7 said:

I always felt the rivalry with Jose and Frank was starting to get quite heated. You could sense Jose was annoyed by him - despite not saying it. 

Yeah and confirmed when Mourinho was asked about Frank's sacking he replied 'he doesn't want to talk to me at the moment, he probably doesn't want to talk to anyone' or something to that effect. You know he reached out to frank and frank shot him down ?. Also klopp and lampard had a bit of a thing going. It's going to suck to see tickle greet klopp like an old friend. That was the thing I loved most about lampard managing us, he had absolutely no time for klopp, beilsa or Mourinho. He knew what these rivalries meant.

1 hour ago, mojo said:

expect spuds bring out their dirtiest game, Lamela and Aurier with leg breaking tackles

Who will Lamela spit at with no fans in the stadium?

We certainly seem to be playing Spurs at the right time. They looked out of sorts yesterday, and we appear to have some renewed confidence. The historic rivalry should ensure that this game is fiercely contested but hopefully we can pile on to their current problems.

Arguably we helped to kick start their season when we lost the penalty shootout to them in the League Cup. It certainly helped Jose at a time where he was under some scrutiny. There would be a degree of symmetry involved if we could beat them on Thursday and put him right back on the hot seat.

Andre Marriner will referee, he was ref when we won there in this

Edited February 1, 20215 yr by coco

Well this is the match that stirs something within me nowadays....Its the nasty spurs..forget how they played against brighton they wont play like that against us..jose and their players wont allow it...this will be a tough game, and even tho were all excited over the burnley show, i believe a draw is on the cards for this one....hope kane isnt back but that Son is normally awesome...i believe we should keep pretty much the same team and let em extra gel in their specific play...second half of the second half bringing on 3 fresh and powerfull legs to attack the scum....good luck to our boys...i get up stupid time of the mornings for work but certainly wont be sleeping by 9 pm thurs

 

2 hours ago, dansubrosa said:

Don’t think Kante should be starting this one. Obviously he is our best player but he hasn’t played a game for Tuchel yet so I worry that he may jeopardise all of the work Tuchel did so far, Jorginho and Kovacic have been decent so far.

Keep it the same for Tottenham, the stakes are too high. Put Kante back in the team for the following game, against Sheffield.

If Tottenham are overruning our midfield and giving us problems, we can shot Kante on, he's usually very effective when coming off the bench. 

1 hour ago, Munkworth said:

Who will Lamela spit at with no fans in the stadium?

Is that a  card offence?

@Munkworth and @dkw Only a few days till the Whiteharts, luckily maybe no Debbi Ali, and Harry's Magic chin, Tinxy Winky and Maybe Eric to overcome, 'Feel our Ferocious Heat' , Lmfao

1 hour ago, coco said:

Andre Marriner will referee, he was ref when we won there in this

In other words the guy who didn't give a penalty for an assault on Alonso.