8 fixtures +African Cup of Nations

The fixtures are piling up for Tottenham, which is not new. Last season Spurs played more games than any other Premier League club and this season the story is just the same, thanks to having to play a qualifying round of the UEFA Europa League.

8 fixtures +African Cup of Nations


Tottenham are through to the knock-out stages of that competition, the semi-finals of the League Cup (this season called the Capital One Cup), sit 5th in the Premier League and have a FA Cup Third Round Replay to play at White Hart Lane against Burnley next week.

That will mean a minimum of eight games in January when of course the 30th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), the international football championship of Africa, Takes place. It is being held from 17th January to 8th February in Equatorial Guinea after Morocco refused to host the tournament on those dates due to the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa.


January 2015

Show last 5 matches and coverageCompetitionFixtureDateKick-offStatus

Premier League Sat 10 Jan17:30

FA Cup - Third Round Wed 14 Jan20:00

Premier League Sat 17 Jan15:00

League Cup - Semi-Final Wed 21 Jan19:45

League Cup - Semi-Final Wed 28 Jan19:45

Premier League Sat 31 Jan15:00

February 2015


Show last 5 matches and coverageCompetitionFixtureDateKick-offStatus

Premier League Sat 7 Feb12:45
Tottenham only have Nabil Bentaleb going to the AFCON 2015 from the first team squad with Togo not qualifying and Benoit Assou-Ekotto not playing for the club. It always amazes me, when clubs know about this tournament, they buy African players and then complain they shouldn't go and represent their country. If you don't like it don't buy them, simple.

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The Tottenham squad are said to be the fittest in the Premier League and late goals have been attributed to that but Arsenal score a lot of late goals so clearly it's more of a mentality thing as Benjamin Stambouli remarked recently.

“If you’re two goals down with only three minutes left, the teams here think they can score three times in the last three minutes. That isn’t the case in French football. 
“We are not believers in France like you are in England. Maybe our football has more tactical discipline, maybe it is more organised, but the spectacle is not like it is here. In France, the results are often 0-0 or 1-0 and the football is very tactical. In England it is about the show. 
“Even if you’re winning the game here, you’ll still attack all the way to the end. You might lose the ball, concede a goal and end up drawing the game, but still the fans are happy because they have seen goals. It’s a big difference. 
“The first game I played in the Premier League was at Sunderland in September. We took the lead after two minutes, but Sunderland equalised two minutes later. It was incredible – something I had never seen in France.”




Having beaten Chelsea the game plan at Burnley appeared to be contain for 45 minutes then try to win the game in the second 5 minutes, it didn't work but we didn't lose either, continuing to remain unbeaten is important to maintain and build confidence which breeds better performances.

Tottenham may have a lot of fixtures but Pochettino has demonstrated he is happy to rotate the squad to keep players as fresh as possible. he will be hoping for a positive transfer window but nobody can be brought in until here are departures.