Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
The final of the seven Premier League fixtures scheduled for today takes us to Wembley Stadium this evening as Tottenham play host to Everton. Mauricio Pochettino’s men can go level on points with Liverpool with a win and could even end up fourth by the end of the weekend.
To do that it would mean that they get the better of Everton and then Manchester City complete a bad weekend for the Merseyside duo by getting a win at Anfield, not only that but there would need to be a five goal swing to go with it.
So moving directly into fourth may well be out of reach this weekend but closing the gap for 24 hours at least is not and Mauricio Pochettino will be making sure that his side do their bit later on today as the battle for the top four intensifies.
Coming into this game the hope if not the expectation was that they would only be a point behind Liverpool especially in their last league outing they played host to West Ham while looking to make it a perfect Christmas record of four wins from four.
Unfortunately though that plan was foiled by David Moyes as a frustrating evening saw the two London clubs have to make do with a share of the points and with that the gap between Liverpool and Tottenham sits at three points and not just the one.
Last weekend did however see them return to winning ways when they played host to AFC Wimbledon in the F.A. Cup, it may have taken a while to find their groove but in the second half they eventually worked their way up through the gears on their way to a relatively comfortable 3-0 win.
The Tottenham lineup that afternoon certainly surprised many due to its strength, but that was a sign that Mauricio Pochettino is taking it deadly serious this season as it arguably provides the North London outfit with their best chance of silverware this season.
Any chance of silverware that Everton had of winning expired last Friday after a Merseyside derby defeat to Liverpool at Anfield. After going behind to a James Milner penalty there were just minutes away from taking the tie back to Goodison Park only for Virgil van Dijk to score on his debut land put Jurgen Klopp’s men through to the 4th Round.
It is now five matches in all competitions since Everton have won and the new manager lift that Sam Allardyce gave the club upon his arrival has now subsided, in the league it is two draws and two defeats since their last league success back in December.
Their last league outing saw them beaten at home by Manchester United by two goals to nil at Goodison Park with goals from Anthony Martial and Jesse Lingard proving to be the difference as Jose Mourinho’s men made the short journey back with all three points.
Although there form has seemingly deserted them as of late they are still ninth in the table which is a marked improvement from where they were earlier in the season and they still cannot rule out finishing 7th once again come the end of the campaign.
Sam Allardyce’s first task when being installed as Everton manager was obviously to shore up the defence and although recent form has gone against what he has installed at Goodison you would have to say that on the whole they are lot tighter at the back.
With that area of the team almost resolved, the focus then switched to the attacking third and that is where the new signing of Cenk Tosun comes into play. The Turkish international completed his move from Besiktas last week and should be in line to make his debut.
But of course no Tottenham preview would be complete without a mention of Harry Kane and he will look to continue from where he left of last week when he bagged a brace against AFC Wimbledon, if Everton can keep him quiet then may be in with a chance of getting something at Wembley.
That is a big if though and even if he is kept quiet there are plenty of other names that could do Everton damage, Spurs made light work of their opposition when they met back in September and although it will be tighter this time around I do believe they will do a season double. Home win for me.
