Following weekend victories for Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City, it is now set us up for an exciting game tonight, where if Spurs win at City’s Eastlands stadium, we’ll wrap up fourth position in the Premiership.
At one point, City were losing to Aston Villa after John Carew scored but unfortunately for Spurs they came back and beat Villa 3-1.
Spurs on the other hand beat Bolton Wanderers 1-0 with a stunning long range effort from Tom Huddlestone. The victory was deserved, even though Bolton didn’t have much to play for, they kept trying and thankfully didn’t come up with anything.
I would dearly love Spurs to get a win at City tonight, although, this being Spurs it is never simple. Anyone remembering what happened at West Ham a few years ago knows full well anything can happen. I just hope Spurs have employed a food taster for pre-match meals.
The referee tonight is Steve Bennett, who interestingly has only referred just two Spurs games all season. Wonder why that is.
From Harry Redknapp’s comments earlier, it sounds like it’s going to be a pretty open game, and they have some fine quality players with Carlos Tevez, Emmanuel Adebayor and Craig Bellamy. The aforementioned are suspect temperament-wise but one cannot doubt their ability, and recently City have scored quite a few goals.
Interesting that ex-Spurs ‘keeper Marton Fulop will be in goal for City, he of course conceded a goal a minute after he came on as substitute for Sunderland when they visited the Lane earlier in the season.
The big question for us is who will be in goal for Spurs? Heurelho Gomes has a groin problem and we really need him, as there’s question marks surrounding Ben Alnwick. Also, as always, we have doubts over Ledley King, who played at the weekend.
I’m guessing if Harry is expecting an open game then he’ll stick with Luka Modric and Huddlestone in the centre of midfield. As we saw against Old Trafford a few weeks back, Wilson Palacios came back from suspension and didn’t play too well. So I’m expecting an unchanged team apart from the possibility of Gomes and King being out.
So what will happen? We do have a good record up at City, but with their influx of cash and better quality players, they’ve certainly improved. I’m sure they remember their defeat at White Hart Lane, which was their former manager Mark Hughes’ last game in charge, so perhaps they’ll be after blood.
I do have a feeling that we can get three points at City, but we’ve got to keep our heads. We’ve also got to start being more clinical, as tonight if we don’t, it could be costly.