Wigan vs Tottenham: Preview

Wigan 5/2 Draw 11/5 Tottenham 10/11

Saturday 3pm.

What a difference eight days can make to a season, the doom and gloom that gathered after consecutive heavy defeats to the Manchester clubs has lifted – and now the hope at White Hart Lane is of a Champions League place again. Time well tell, all talk at this stage of the season is a little premature.

Tottenham will make one change to the side that battered Liverpool, with Rafael Van der Vaart replacing the injured Niko Kranjcar. William Gallas is still not fit, so Younes Kaboul and Ledley King will continue their partnership at the heart of defence. Wigan are without Hugo Rodallega for at least another month, with Steven Gahouri and Antolin Alcaraz also missing from Roberto Martinez’s squad.

What was striking about Wigan’s late collapse against Everton was just how much they suffer when exposed to pace – not encouraging then that they know welcome the cumulatively quickest team in the league to the DW Stadium. On the positive side, Franco Di Santo is starting to add goals to his repertoire – finally – and Victor Moses is showing signs of becoming the player he was predicted to blossom into while he was at Crystal Palace.

The youth in Wigan’s team never really gets enough focus; Ben Watson, James McArthur, James McCarthy and new Chelsea loanee Patrick Van Aanholt all have ability in abundance. Unfortunately, this is a Spurs team with a lot of experience and a lot of class – and anything other than seeing the away side completely dominate midfield would be a shock.

Furthermore, the arrival of Emmanuel Adebayor seems to have rejuvenated Jermain Defoe, and the partnership between the two of them looked incredibly dangerous. Interestingly, Adebayor’s link-play last Sunday was extremely good – something you don’t often associate with him. If Spurs can get all parts of this team firing at the same time then they sky – by which we mean third place – is the limit.

Tottenham, 2-0.