Whether he’s played a lot of football or not recently, you can bet that Emmanuel Adebayor will be starting this game – how Tottenham missed him at St James Park.
Andre Villas-Boas may also be tempted to shift the balance in his midfield and start Rafael Van der Vaart instead of Jake Livermore, giving the side a bit more attacking depth – West Brom at home is clearly a different fixture to Newcastle away, and he can afford to move towards a less cautious approach.
West Brom were very decent against Liverpool, their midfield combination of Youssuf Mulumbu and Claudio Yacob looked especially promising, and they’ll offer some resistance to Tottenham. Steve Clarke’s side are no longer just lower table fodder who can be brushed aside by the bigger teams, they’ll compete wherever they go this season.
What’s worrying from the visitors perspective, was the volume of chances they handed-out to Liverpool. Luis Suarez may have spurned all of them, but Tottenham won’t – and with Adebayor now in the side, they’re going to be just as potent as last year. The key here has to be creating pressure on Spurs’ midfield, and not allowing ball-players like Sigurdsson and Van der Vaart to pick their passes. And while we’re at it, they might want to keep a lid on Gareth Bale and Aaron Lennon.
You get the sense though, that Tottenham are beatable at the moment. Shane Long and Peter Odemwingie are an effective, hard-working partnership who can hassle a defence into mistakes – as we saw last week – and Spurs are more than capable of coughing up an error if they’re asked enough questions.
Interesting, this won’t be a stroll in the White Hart Lane sunshine – or at least if it is, then it will be an excellent result for Andre Villas-Boas.
Tottenham are 11/20, the draw is priced at 3/1, and West Brom are available at 5/1.
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Did you see the West Brom game last week? They lined up 4-2-3-1 with two holding midfielders (the correctly labelled Yacob and Mulumbu), Morrison playing centrally behind Long, and Odemwingie pushed out wide on the right. Thus, Long and Odemwingie aren’t really an “effective partnership” at all – Long is more of a harrying lone forward. In fact, until scoring the penalty Odemwingie was fairly anonymous. Just because WBA aren’t fashionable doesn’t mean you should avoid doing your homework on them and just start guessing.
“You get the sense though, that Tottenham are beatable at present”. Really? Whatever gave you that sense? The fact they’ve just been beaten perhaps?
I seriously don’t see Mulumbu and Yacob being overrun in midfield by Gylfi Sigurdsson and Sandro, but considering every major media source is reporting Kaboul is out and Vertonghen’s in then why should anyone trust your predicted Tottenham line-up? I don’t AVB will consider lining up with both Gylfi and VDV in the starting lineup, Sandro would get slaughtered (no disrespect to Sandro, but asking him to marshall the middle alone against is suicide – Morrison tracks back in a way that VDV doesn’t, and Mulumbu and Yacob bossed Liverpool’s midfield for the majority of Saturday’s game).
Personally I think both teams with line-up very similarly, with a lone striker, two deeper midfielders, two out-and-out wingers and an attacking midfielder just behind the main striker. I may be wrong, but then I watched both games last week so I have something with which to back my theory up. The writer of this piece clearly can’t say that.
Just like liverpool beat us easily premier league owl? #idiots
this is incorrect, Kaboul is out with a knee injury