Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Chelsea

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Thursday 4th February 8pm
Premier League
Tottenham Hotspur Stadium​

Our extremely disappointing league form continued at Brighton, as did the mystifying team selection and subs.
Now we face a side that we've got an appalling record against, some of which was against our current manager.
Injuries will continue to limit his choices, but he won't be facing his old protege.
Lampard was replaced a couple of games ago by Tuchel, who has started well, embracing Sarri's tactics.
Can Mourinho get us back on track and get one over on his old mates or will we lose to another Chelsea boss?

Lampard's first, and as it happens only, full season as Chelsea manager went well, for the most part.
A 4th place finish and an FA Cup Final is quite impressive for an inexperienced coach.
The purse strings were loosened in the summer, as their transfer ban ended and great things were expected.
Over £220m of signings were ushered into a squad that had been getting the best out of it's youth.
That sort of money brings it's own pressure and they definitely raised the bar for the team.

The start of the campaign went well on most fronts, as the side hovered around the top of the table.
Elimination to us in the League Cup was a negative as was their loss to Liverpool, but that was about it.
They won their Champions League group without defeat and only lost one of the first eleven league games.
The wheels came off a bit after that, as they lost five of the next eight matches and Lampard was sacked.
Thomas Tuchel came in the next day and has picked up 4 points from the next 2 games.

Our meeting at Stamford Bridge earlier in the season was rather dull and cagey.
Both teams seemed more interested in avoiding a loss than trying to win and it fizzled into a boring 0-0.
Bergwijn scooped over early on, then Werner had one disallowed for offside at the other end.
Mendy and Lloris traded saves from Aurier and Mount, but chances were at a premium.
Two late mistakes lead to further chances, but Giroud and Lo Celso spurned both to cement the stalemate:

Our performance last season in this tie was awful, but it will be remembered for other things.
Willian scored twice in the first half, the second coming from the spot after a mad challenge from Gazzaniga.
The second half lead to a red card for Son and accusations of racism from the crowd by Rudiger.
He was instrumental in the sending off and felt that he'd heard racial abuse in response to his playacting.
Nothing was found to support this, but it left a dark cloud over a generally bad day:

Reguilon, Kane, Lo Celso and Alli are still out, but Ndombele will be fine for the match after his knock.
Havertz and Zouma face late tests for Chelsea, who have no other injury issues.
Neither side has any suspensions.

Lineups for each side's last league game:

Spurs: Lloris; Sanchez, Rodon, Alderweireld; Sissoko, Hojbjerg, Ndombele, Davies; Bale, Bergwijn, Son.
Subs: Hart, Doheerty, Dier, Tanganga, Winks, Devine, Lamela, Moura, Vinicius.
League form: DWDWLL.

Chelsea: Mendy; Azpilicueta, Silva, Rudiger; Hudson-Odoi, Jorginho, Kovacic, Alonso; Mount, Werner; Abraham.
Subs: Kepa, James, Zouma, Christensen, Chilwell, Kante, Havertz, Pulisic, Giroud.
League form: DLLWDW.

Ref: Andre Marriner. VAR: Stuart Atwell.

TV: BT Sport 1.

How would you like to line up for this one and what would you change from the Brighton game?
Would you stick with much of the same lineup, make a few changes or go for a wholesale switch?
Which system and tactics would you use and what are you expecting Chelsea to go with?

 

Get rid of the 343 for a start. I felt that after Sheffield social media was overhyping it a bit too much whilst overlooking the fact our opposition were turd. Since then we’ve lost to Pool and Brighton with it having looked utter **** in both games, which isn’t surprising seeing as overloading on our weaker players doesn’t quite make much sense.

That said, we hardly have too many great players at the moment either based on performances. Even Son is hitting his customary anonymous stage we see most seasons but hopefully he snaps out of it tomorrow.

I suppose something like:

Hugo
Aurier, Tanganga, Rodon, Davies
Sissoko, Hojbjerg, Ndombele
Bale, Vinigoal, Son

RW is open for debate obviously but I think if Bale’s ever gonna come good he needs a run of starts to do so. Give him 4-5 successive starts, if he don’t sort his **** out by then, then bin him with the rest of the dross we use on that flank.

Can’t say I’m confident regardless of who we pick though to be honest. Team just looks lost at the moment.

 

Is Aurier back in the fold?

Personally cannot even begin to envisage a positive outcome tomorrow, other than a plague of locusts or the pitch being dug up by the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse leading to the match being called off.

 

Oh good, more players to publicly fall out with!

 

Hugo
Hu Cares Hu Cares Rodon
Hu Cares Tanguy Hu Cares Hu Cares
Hu Cares Vini Son

 

I honestly don’t think there has been a Spurs match I have less looked forward to ever. I am contemplating avoiding it completely as I’m not sure I even want to put myself through it and ruin my evening!

 

At some point you'll have to look at your phone and ruin the moment. Not like you'll be relaxed while the game is on - your mind will be elsewhere anyway. Get the pain over and done with is my advice.

 

I'm teetering on the edge of that myself...but I won't give Mourinho the satisfaction of turning me against my club. I'd even pay to go and cheer the team on for 90+ minutes, just to vent my feelings at this rubbish at the final whistle.

Like RCL, I believe that a full stadium would end this tonight.

 

Let me briefly check Timo Werner's goalscoring form for this season...

...just the four goals you say? Well then, I'm sure we'll help him improve that by 50% this evening

 

One of these things is not like the other things

“It’s not just Dele. When you look, it’s Dele, Kane, Gio Lo Celso. We are speaking about players, without those three, we miss a little bit of some creation and of some magic in the attacking areas. So, we need him back. I made that very sure to him.”

 

You're a Spurs fan you can avoid this game but you can't continue to avoid games. We should be practiced at going through this stuff having suffered Graham, Ramos, AVB, to name some of our 'fun' times. Maybe it's my positive nature but I haven't given up hope that Jose will see what he has created and start to change. He perhaps has to go back to his Porto days and remember how he made it work. The fact that he is in the media right now talking about how easy it is to manage Chelsea shows he is thinking along the lines of a different approach that is needed at Spurs. The fact that he has announced a discussion with Dele and talks with Bale all suggest he is re- evaluating his role at the club. He is an intelligent guy so it will not have escaped his notice that some of his selections have not worked and I wonder if Levy emphasised that he would not sell Dele right now because the market is wrong caused some discussion between the two. All of this speculation makes me want to watch the next game just to see what happens.

 

Don't ever leave this board! We need optimistic voices and yours is one of the most thoughtful.

 

Also a drink

Definitely a drink...

 

So we found the reason why Vini didn't start against Brighton, as well as why we weren't passing the ball into the opponent's third at any point in the match...

 

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He doesn't need to drop deep. Kane wasn't dropping deep until recently and Son still scored plenty of goals.
We'll still end up having opportunities to counter-attack, it just won't be our only weapon.
He's a ****ing idiot if he doesn't pick Vinicius in the starting XI tonight.

 

More than anything else, the comparison makes no sense: Son was playing through the middle with Bale and Bergwijn off him (although Bergwijn was cutting inside so much he was practically an attacking midfielder instead of a winger), and who at any point has praised Bergwijn or Bale for their linkup play? As far as I can recall, Brighton were praising them for deciding to not bother with the whole "tracking back" thing that the lower orders are talking about these days

 

The fact he was probably our best player when he came on against Brighton (though doesn’t say much) shows that he doesn’t have to emulate Kane up top to be good or effective. Sanchez had to make a decent save from him too.

I really don’t understand the treatment he’s been given. He’s the first striker we’ve bought since probably Defoe (unless we include Ade’s loan) who actually looks really good for what we need him to be and yet you’d think he was Soldado’s twin brother or something judging by the way Jose talks about and utilises him.