please log in to view this image Wednesday 24th October 5.55pm Philips Stadion Champions League Group Stage A successful return from the international break leads us back into Europe and a massive early game. We need to win home and away against the Dutch side in our group or our campaign is probably over. With City on the horizon and a cup game coming swiftly after that, our fixtures are mounting up. Can our injury-plagued and fairly jaded side raise themselves for this task? A lot may depend on who's available for selection and how fit they are. PSV finished last season as Dutch champions, as Philip Cocu led them to a 3rd title in 4 years. He left for Fenerbahce in the summer and was replaced by fellow Oranje legend, Mark van Bommel. It's his first full managerial job, as he rejoined the club that he had two spells at as a player. He's hit the ground running in the Eredivisie, despite mixed fortunes in Europe. His side has won all nine league games so far, scoring 36 goals and only conceding 3. Things haven't gone quite as well in the Champions League, though they did have to win a qualifying round. BATE Borisov of Belarus may not be a massive team, but they have reached the group stage repeatedly. It was a potential banana skin for an inexperienced manager and van Bommel passes this test well. They won the first leg away 3-2 and comfortably progressed with a 3-0 win at home. Barcelona at the Nou Camp is not an ideal opener for a Champions League campaign, by anyone's standards. A Messi hat-trick and one from Dembele made for an ugly scoreline, but it was still only 1-0 with 15 minutes left. A 2-1 loss to Inter at home followed, as they took the lead early, but were soon furious with the ref. Handanovic somehow survived an obvious red card, as he handled outside the box. Nainggolan leveled before the break and Icardi took the points for the Italians on the hour. No injury news yet. Neither side has any suspensions. Lineups for each side's last league game: Spurs: Lloris; Trippier, Sanchez, Alderweireld, Davies; Sissoko, Dier, Winks; Lamela, Kane, Moura. Subs: Gazzaniga, Aurier, Walker-Peters, Dembele, Eriksen, Son, Llorente. League form: LLWWWW. PSV: Zoet; Dumfries, Schwaab, Viergever, Angelino; Rosario, Pereiro, Hendrix; Lozano, de Jong, Bergwijn. Subs: Farnolle, Room, van Osch, Behich, Sainsbury, Rigo, Ramselaar, Gutierrez, Sadilek, Malen, Gakpo, Mauro Jr. League form: WWWWWW. Referee: Glenn Nyberg (SWE). He doesn't appear to have ever reffed at this level before. TV: BT Sport 3. This is an extremely important match and our selection will be crucial. How would you line up? Do we need to do something different, considering our two losses in the opening group games? Is there anything about PSV that we need to watch out for in particular?
In Eindhoven in 1944 a team from the US 101st Airborne Division fought a scratch team from Germany and beat them after a hard fought match.
Hugo Aurier, Dave, Toby, Davies Dier, Dembele Lamela, Eriksen, Son Kane That's what I think we'll see. Although I'd personally start Kane on the bench to give him a little bit of a rest, with Son up top and Sissoko keeping his spot in the side.
I agree that this is likely to be the side picked by Poch, but I would leave out Dier and Kane due to their previous exertions, keep a similar formation to the weekend keep Sissoko on the right next to Dembele with Eriksen where Winks was and play Lamela, Son and Lucas as a fluid front 3
Must win game tonight. Hopefully we can secure a 2-3 goal difference to help toward taking us out of the minus, too. Fingers crossed Barca will smash Inter, making a huge dent in their GD as well. Still baffled how we lost to that shower of ****.
Assuming we beat Inter and we both win both v PSV and lose both v Barca then the GD v Inter is all that counts unless we win by a matching 2 1?
I'm not baffled...it's happened before...too much for a team aspiring for the top. Anyone can lose...it's the total meltdown fashion we do it in. Anyway, tonight...Barca don't have Messi, they should still have enough to beat Inter but Inter are resilient. I say...let's start to make plans for the Europey
Assuming Spurs finish equal on pts with Inter, then the results in the two games against each other decide who finishes above the other. So beating them by two clear goals in the return leg is a must.