It's fair to say that Preview Percy is not a fan of charity. In fact the one he dislikes most is Comic Relief. Having said that he would like to let it be known that Tottenham's contributions to that particular cause have been much appreciated this week. Here's his look at the visit to the Olympic Stadium of their neighbours Arsenal...
Next we return to home turf where we will play host to Arsenal. Kick-off is at 3pm which means you may have to rush your apple pie and ice cream after luncheon. Dribbling their dessert down their fronts will be the, er, gentlemen of Eyes up Mother Brown should you be able to keep down your own lunch whilst tuning into You Tube.
So Arsenal then. Their results have been improving since the turn of the year. In the run up to Christmas they lost eight out of twelve. Since then they have won eight out of fourteen. On first glance that might appear impressive but a closer inspection shows that the run of fixtures was not exactly amongst the more challenging.
Although the first of those eight wins came against Chelsea, the remainder came against Brighton, West Brom, Newcastle, Southampton, Leeds, Leicester and Spurs. Most teams would be looking at picking up a few points from that lot. More interestingly the defeats in that spell came against Wolves, Villa and Man City, whilst points were also dropped against Palace, Burnley and Man Utd. So a bit of a mixed bag all round then.
All of that has left them in 10th place with 41 points from the 28 they have played thus far. That’s five places and seven points behind us. Which is nice.
Daisy, the socially-distanced, support-bubbling personal assistant with the beautiful smile has again been able to take much of the week off to be pampered in the spa, what with our opponents becoming the latest side to have largely given the winter transfer window a swerve this time around. However, before she disappeared in the general direction of the sauna she did point out that they did make a loan signing in the form of Norwegian midfielder Martin Odegaard, who, nominally anyway, is on the books at Real Madrid.
I say “nominally”, the player has made only a handful of appearances for the Spaniards, having spent most of his time there on loan at places like Heerenveen, Vitesse Arnhem, Real Sociadad and, now Arsenal. He’s already put his name on the scoresheet scoring against Olympiakos in the Thursday Night League and last week in the latest edition of Some Mothers Do Ave ‘Em (aka Spurs, the sitcom that keeps giving).
Of course most column inches around that time concerned the departure of Meut Ozil. Ozil appeared to be a right barrel of laughs to be about to the extent that he was actually left out of the registered squads for both the Premier and Thursday Night Leagues, leaving him eligible only for the Under 23s. Whether or not this decision was influenced by his decision to decline the invitation to take part in a voluntary 12.5% pandemic pay cut only Arsenal will know. However, at best the decision was likely to have been the final nail in his coffin.
Top scorer over all competitions is Pierre Emerick Aubameyang who has 14 in total, nine of which have come in the Premier League. He was missing from the 2-1 win over Spurs for “disciplinary reasons” – i.e. he turned up late. This tells us two things. Firstly boss Arteta likes to make a statement. And secondly, Spurs are so rubbish that teams reckon they can leave out their skipper/top scorer and still come away with three points.
Also on nine in the league is Alexander Lacazette, who was named after the small plastic containers of magnetic tape used to record music, the inventor of which passed away last week. Probably. Lacazette’s presence at Arsenal may not have happened at all but for a quirk of law. Back in 2017 Lyon had agreed a deal for the player to move to Atletico Madrid. However, Atletico were in a spot of bother and received a two-window transfer ban for breaking the rules over the signing of minors. Their appeal to the CAS fell on deaf ears, whereupon Arsenal stepped in paying a fee just shy of £50m for the player – a record at the time both clubs. Lacazette was on target from the spot, converting the penalty controversially awarded as Sanchez collided with him after he has got his shot away. Not that he will be over worried.
They have injury doubts over two. Saka (thigh) is rated as no better than 50-50 having missed out on the 1-0 defeat to Olympiakos on Thursday. Similarly, Willian (calf) is also a major doubt and is given only a 25% chance of being available for selection.
And on we move to the wild and wacky world of Association Football. I mentioned Spurs as the sitcom that keeps on giving and so it continued this week. Apart from the aforementioned defeat to Arsenal, and the throwing away of a 2-0 first-leg lead to lose to Dynamo Zagreb in the Thursday Night League we also had the joy of Joe Hart having a ‘mare on some form of social media.
Now Spurs supporters sit firmly at the bottom of the intelligence league somewhere below reality tv “stars” and the bacteria responsible for dysentery. However, and I know footballers aren’t exactly noted for their mental capacity, but I was surprised to see that Joe Hart considered the 3-0 defeat to the Croatians to represent “job done”. It transpired that someone from his “social media team” had thought that Spurs has won 3-0. Cue a massive bout of blame shifting from Hart to land the unfortunate employee in it, all of the while not commenting on how daft one would have to be to actually employ someone stupid enough to believe Spurs might actually win a game 3-0.
Meanwhile from the “it looks a bit like football but is vastly inferior to the real thing” leagues north of the border it seems that Celtic will be refusing to give the traditional guard of honour to Rangers this weekend “because they didn’t do it for us last time”. Apart from wanting some sort of football mother figure to give both clubs a spanking before sending them to bed before supper, it occurs to me that that having a guard of honour for winning the Scottish League is a little bit like doing a lap of honour after winning the parents’ egg and spoon race in your kid’s school sports. Only slightly more embarrassing.
And so to us. There has been much debate over the selection for last week’s match, the rumblings being along the lines of we were too negative. I’m not totally sure that’s fair on Mr Moyes. The absence of Fornals was the key to this one. Had he been available but left on the bench instead of Noble those rumblings might have had a point. Whenever we had seen Benrahma start previously he has struggled to make much of an impact on the game. Those occasions on which he had looked dangerous have invariably come following his introduction from the bench. Given the unavailability of Fornals and Lingard the choice then became one of Noble or Benrahma and, given that Mr Moyes sees the player every day in training, and given Benrahma’s lack of prior impact from the start I’d give the gaffer the benefit of the doubt on that one.
That said we didn’t really do ourselves justice – and it never helps when you do all the goalscoring for your opponents. Rice was his usual imperious self against a club who will no doubt be sniffing around him in the summer despite the fact that he is far too good for them. Fabianski had a fine game too, reminding us why it is so important for us to keep him fit.
On reflection I think Lingard’s admin absence was the key to this one. He has been instrumental in making us tick from an attacking perspective and it’s good to see him recalled to the England set-up. He will be sent off with the same three-word instruction we give to Declan every time, namely “don’t get injured”.
On the injury front Yarmolenko, Ogbonna, Masuaku and Fredericks are all inching towards squad availability, though to suggest, as some of the injury sites have done, that there are percentage chances of them making some sort of appearance are about as optimistic as Joe Hart’s “social media team”. Based on what Mr Moyes said at the pre-match presser I think expecting sight of Fornals might also be hope over expectation. Randolph will also miss out on the bench, leaving us to possibly have both Trott and Martin sitting in the racing car seats again. This may have something to do with keeping the first XI squad separate from the lower sides due to the pandemic I suppose but it’s still a bit odd.
And so to the prediction. Well by my reckoning we owe this lot one. We have arguably been the better side on each of the last three occasions on which the teams have met and yet we have come away without a single point. The return of Lingard will be a boost and I think that we have the sort of team that will, collectively, be relishing this one. I think we have enough in the tank to take all three points and, whilst I’d like this to take place by virtue of a decent performance, given the recent history of matches between us I would settle for an unconvincing win – it’s what they have been doing to us in recent times after all.
So, with that in mind, I would like to place the £2.50 that would have gone on purchasing both the Rangers and Celtic squads just to stop their sectarian whining for once (not sure what I would do with the change) on a home win. Mr Winstone, if you could take a few moments away from counting your Cheltenham profits, please place that sum on a result of 2-1 to us.
Enjoy the game!
When last we met at The Olympic: Lost 1-3 (Premier League December 2019)
One nil up at half time and coasting against one of the worst teams I saw all season. They had one 10 minute spell in the whole game where they looked adequate. Unfortunately, they managed to score three in those 10 minutes to give a result that baffled all present.
Referee: Jonathan Moss
Bit of a “portly” chap whose passing of the fitness tests each year is a bit of a conundrum. Was in charge last week as Phil Foden failed to get a spot kick because he stayed on his feet. Allegedly the VAR official wanted to ask Moss to have another look but was prevented from doing so by his (non refereeing) boss. Nothing iffy there then.
Danger Man: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
May be a bit miffed on not being able to add to his tally in the free hit against Spurs last week.
Percy’s Poser
Last week the I “heart” Manchester website had the following heartwarming headline:
UK’s best XXXXXXXXXX found – in Eccles
Well done to Mrs Stephanie Outer-Limits of West Mersea for spotting that the missing word was “Neighnours” who, given the location, were presumably lost.
This week we look at the Islington Tribune. As a person of advancing years I was intrigued by a subsection entitled “Never Too Old”. When I clicked on the menu I was given the following helpful advice:
XX XXXXXXXX XXXX
Best of luck with that!
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