Spurs vs Fulham
Spurs vs Fulham
Tottenham take on Fulham at Wembley on Saturday afternoon and the newly promoted side are somewhat of an unknown quantity.
Encouragingly, Spurs are on a run of 18 consecutive home Premier League victories against newly promoted sides. We have conceded just once in our last nine of these fixtures and just seven in the 18 games.
Fulham are the first promoted side to have spent in excess of £100m after promotion, but that didn't help them on the first weekend when they lost 2-0 at home to Crystal Palace after winning only one of their six pre-season fixtures, that being against Crawley Town.
They failed to score in four of those games, Reading 0-0 (neutral venue), Fenerbache 0-3 (neutral venue), Lyon 0-4 (neutral venue), Sampdoria 0-1 (neutral venue). They finished pre-season off with a 2-2 draw against Spanish side Celta Vigo at Craven Cottage.
Jeffrey Schlupp 41 mins and Wilfried Zaha 79 mins scored the goals to sink Fulham in their first game back in the Premier League since the 2013/14 season.
Fulham are the first promoted side to have spent in excess of £100m after promotion, but that didn't help them on the first weekend when they lost 2-0 at home to Crystal Palace after winning only one of their six pre-season fixtures, that being against Crawley Town.
They failed to score in four of those games, Reading 0-0 (neutral venue), Fenerbache 0-3 (neutral venue), Lyon 0-4 (neutral venue), Sampdoria 0-1 (neutral venue). They finished pre-season off with a 2-2 draw against Spanish side Celta Vigo at Craven Cottage.
Jeffrey Schlupp 41 mins and Wilfried Zaha 79 mins scored the goals to sink Fulham in their first game back in the Premier League since the 2013/14 season.
Thir own match report suggested to their fans that they matched Palace and that the scoreline was not a true reflection of the game, a game which saw six new faces for them.
Fulham Line-up: Fabri; Christie, Chambers, Le Marchand, Bryan (Vietto 71'); Cairney, McDonald, Seri (Johansen 82'); Schürrle (Kamara 61'), Mitrovic, Ryan Sessegnon
Unused substitutes: Rico, Fosu-Mensah, Kebano, Cissé
Manager: Slavisa Jokanovic
Former Tottenham boss Martin Jol spent over two seasons as their manager, Clint Dempsey and Dimitar Berbatov both being their top scorers after he took over from Mark Hughes, who had replaced Roy Hodgson.
Fulham had been a regular in the Premier League since 2001/02. That year Steed Malbranque was their joint top scorer with 8 goals, he was top scorer the following season with 6 goals and Louis Saha netted 13 in 2003/04.
Bobby Zamora, Danny Murphy, Mousa Dembélé, Alan Mullery, Scott Parker is one of their first-team coaches, there are quite a few links between the two clubs.
What will Fulham's tactics be?
They beat Newcastle United 3-1 last season. Rafa Benitez has his sides very well organised defensively and are set up to press in several areas. Fulham's solution was the same solution Newcastle used against us, in fact, the solution many teams, including Liverpool, used against us, to switch play quickly with one pass.
If we are pressing towards a touchline then the players are drawn over and thus a winger or full-back who hugs the touchline on the opposite side is always a get out ball.
Their other tactic is to try and pass between the lines dragging the opposition backwards and forwards side to side until they find a hole to play someone in between the defenders.
They have a bull in a china shop centre-forward in Serbian Aleksandar Mitrovic so crosses mixed with aerial bombardment also play a part in their game.
The game on Saturday sees a settled Tottenham squad face a newly assembled squad trying to come to grips with the manager's requirements and thus you would expect nothing more than a Spurs victory.
1 comment
Fulham are yet to find their feet. Always difficult when changing divisions, and particularly so with a number of players to bed into their system and learn to play with each other.
Off Topic:
https://www.spurs-web.com/spurs-news/jack-grealish-would-be-a-tottenham-player-if-bruce-offers-update/
Apparently Steve Bruce says an earlier attempt to sign Grealish would likely have been successful. I call BS on that. Everything in the interview is very Villa-centric and clearly attempting to divert attention elsewhere. Daniel Levy is easy pickings as no-one can be in any doubt that there is a sizable minority of Spurs fans who are more naturally Arse-like moaners and simply want to whinge about anything they can direct at DL. If my memory serves me correctly Spurs were ready very early on and were continually rebuffed by AV. Maybe he meant we could have had him if only we'd met their unreasonabl…