The transfer window has finally shut and attention turns back to the actual football. Spurs travel to Hull in what for us is a rare Saturday 3pm kick off.
This game sees us face former Spurs’ midfielder Tom Huddlestone who has impressed since moving to Yorkshire, it will be interesting to see how he fairs today. Jake Livermore however must sit this one out as he is on loan from Tottenham.
Danny Rose is available after he won his appeal against the red card he picked up in our loss to Manchester City. It’s nice to see that occasionally the FA do make the common sense decision. We’re fortunate as the squad doesn’t have much cover at left back, and it’s surprising no move was made to address this in January.
Vertonghen and Paulinho should be fit and it would be nice to see them given some game time.
Hull are on a poor run of form and have lost their last four in the league without scoring a goal (although the game prior to this run was a 6-0 thrashing of Fulham). This sequence of games has included losses to struggling Norwich and Crystal Palace. They sit 13th, 20 points below Tottenham (who are 5th), emphasising the large gap between the teams at the top of the league and everyone else. Spurs are unsurprisingly favourites on Betfair at 2.16, the draw is 3.5 and Hull are 3.85.
Spurs struggled to beat Hull 1-0 in the reverse fixture in October, then needed penalties to knock the Tigers out of the League Cup in the very next match. These games were both at the Lane, Hull are a much tougher prospect at home – five of their six wins have come at the KC Stadium.
Hull are 17th in the league for both possession and pass success rate, so Spurs can expect a reasonable amount of the ball. They are equal bottom in terms of shots on target. Most commonly they play 3-5-2 but they’ve also have used 4-4-2. Most of their attacking threat comes down the right hand side, so Danny Rose may have his hands full. You could argue this is a reason not to play Eriksen on the left as he drifts infield and does not support his fullback.
I have advocated a 4-5-1 formation in our last two games but against a team lower down the division who don’t tend to keep possession I would return to 4-4-2. Hull are likely to play fairly defensively and this will be a completely different proposition to the one we faced in midweek.
My team:
What do you think?
Anything But Penalties 