Colour me shocked, last night I attended Leicester City vs. Huddersfield Town and it was a brilliant game! Leicester have not sat back on their laurels having had a bad start to their season, they’ve splashed some serious cash on Luis Alberto from Lazio, Marouane Fellaini from Manchester United, Joshua Brenet from PSV, Ricardo Esgaio from Braga, Juan Forlin from Oviedo and Guillermo Burdisso from León in an effort to retain Premier League status while Huddersfield have mainly kept faith in the team that they’ve used all season.
Leicester had squad problems, Jamie Vardy recovering from a pulled hamstring was only fit enough for the bench while Riyad Mahrez wasn’t even fit enough for that, himself in rehabilitation from a hip injury. Regardless, Leicester absolutely tossed it away having taken the lead through on-loan Lazar Markovic. His strike was one of those crosses from wide that caught the goalkeeper out and sailed in over his head. Brenet hit a back pass too short and Huddersfield’s Kacey Palmer ran onto it to equalise. Good work from Aaron Mooy then found Smith on the right, his cross was headed home by Tom Ince.
Just when Leicester needed to attack, two big problems hit them. First Adrien Silva was tripped and injured, then Iborra was shown a straight red for a horror-two-footed lunge on Palmer. Wes Morgan brought down Quaner for a penalty, which was duly dispatched by Schindler. Huddersfield win 3 – 1 and now are six points clear of the relegation zone, which should be enough at this stage. It looks like Leicester or Crystal Palace will be down now!
There is other good news as we are now SAFE FROM RELEGATION! Oh yes! Leicester have three games left with only nine points to play for, we are eleven clear! It does mean we’ve paid some dosh out, Tottenham have bagged £3 million, Hill £1.5 million, Wilfried Bony £250,000 and Sam Clucas £200,000.
That brings us to Tottenham.
The bookies are suggesting we are 6-4 favourites, which is just wrong on so many levels. Harry Kane leads the goalscoring charts and we all know that his partnership with Dele Alli is one that should be replicated with England this summer.
Davinson Sánchez is injured and unavailable, Kieran Trippier is only just recovering from a tight thigh suffered in training and Ben Davies has a twisted ankle. I won’t show you the predicted Spurs team because my scouts have proven themselves to be out of touch by highlighting that they think Alderweireld will play full back and January signing Mario Mandzukic as a winger. I suspect it’ll be more 4-2-4 with Son and Lamela supporting Kane and Mandzukic up top.
We’ll be missing Tammy Abraham, Kyle Naughton and Luciano Narsingh won’t be fully match fit.
Concerningly, Mike Dean is the referee. Cue penalties galore.
Jorge Jesus is Tottenham manager these days as the London club look to get into the top four, which looks a tall order consider they are eight points behind Manchester United in fourth. It looks like a battle royal for fifth and the definite Europa League spot between Spurs (53 points), Stoke (53), West Ham (52) and Manchester City rejuvenated under Luis Enrique (52).
Giving me hope is their away form. In the last ten matches they’ve played four at away grounds and lost three, drawing one. In fact, their form in general is patchy and they may be suffering some Champions League hangover, having narrowly missed out on aggregate to PSG.
Join us tomorrow on @TheHigherTempo for a Sunday game, kick-off is at 1:30pm so teams are released 15 minutes before. If you offered me a point right now, I’d rip your hand off.
