Archive for the ‘Tottenham Hotspur’ Category

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Tuesday night saw Manchester City take on Napoli at The Etihad. As has often been the case this season they started like an express train and were soon two goals up. It looked for all the world as though they were going to score four or more goals again.

Unusually though, for City anyway, they laboured a little in trying to find a third goal and it was actually Napoli who should have scored but Mertens penalty was straight down the middle, a route whereby the ball will often catch the goalkeepers legs whichever way he is diving, as it did in this case. (more…)

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It has been another successful weekend for Manchester.

City, in particular, looked mightily impressive against Stoke and United managed to keep the back door shut against Liverpool.

Despite Mourinho being criticised, totally ridiculously, for Liverpool’s inability to score, a draw is still a good result at Anfield.

Certain pundits, such as the idiot Garth Crooks at the BBC, thought United should have attacked Liverpool and tried to win the game, a tactic which could easily have gone pear-shaped and resulted in the first loss of the season. No, JosĂ© got it spot on and, had Lukaku not shot straight at Mignolet when clean through, he could have been celebrating another one of his famous smash-and-grab acts. (more…)

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Regular readers could be forgiven for thinking that this has to be the easiest question we have ever posed. Why? Because it has to be the Manchester City midfield based purely on the fact that they have scored more goals than anyone else, and by quite a distance.

Whilst there is an element of truth to this argument, the City midfielders are assisted by the fact that they are currently the best team in the league and also that most of the chances they are creating are being converted into goals, which is a testament to how good their strikers are. (more…)

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In an eagerly anticipated game at Anfield the early Saturday kick-off saw Liverpool face Manchester United. Quite why these games are so eagerly anticipated is beyond the ken of simple folk such as ourselves.

They are often dour affairs with both teams more scared of losing than they are motivated by winning.

At least Liverpool did try to win the game but Manchester United, who had ONE shot on target throughout the ninety minutes, should be kicking themselves for not taking a more attacking approach. (more…)

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In our last article we compared the records of the top six strikers expected to get the goals in the Premier League and today it’s the turn of the players at the other end of the pitch. The ones who are expected, (in some cases it is hope rather than expectation), to save the club from dropping points and occasionally winning them some.

It has been said that a good goalkeeper can be worth up to 15 points per season. This is allowing for the fact that he may be the saviour of the team in many close games where 1-0 or 2-1 for example, remains the score at the end thanks to the keeper, or a draw remains a draw purely because of saves he has made. (more…)

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There are many articles written about the top strikers where they are dissected, compared, praised and criticised in equal measure. Many of the scribes who pen these words of wisdom are trying to convince a footballing public that they have them down to a tee.

They want us to think that they have described them in such depth that we now know everything there is to know about them and can make an informed deduction as to who is the better of them. (more…)

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Now that normal service is about to be resumed in the Premier League, at least for a month until the next set of ridiculous international fixtures are played, the clubs can begin to count the cost of releasing their top players to play in these games.

Sometimes meaningless, sometimes meaningful, it is always a surprise, particularly when the season has already started, to see how willing the teams are to release their players and how inconsiderate the international coaches are. (more…)

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Tottenham Hotspur

The early game on Saturday featured Huddersfield Town against Tottenham Hotspur. This was the first real test for David Wagner and his newly promoted team. They failed it!

Mind you, Spurs had Harry Kane to thank once again for their margin of victory and one does wonder how many goals this team would score without him.

Yes, Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen tend to chip in with a few but Kane outscores everybody by a long way. (more…)

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Tuesday night saw Manchester City face Shakhtar Donetsk, Liverpool played Spartak Moscow and Tottenham Hotspur were in Cyprus playing Apoel Nicosia.

At The Etihad City made relatively hard work of beating Shakhtar who were always threatening on the break. However, a second half goal from Kevin De Bruyne settled the nerves eventually and Raheem Sterling followed this up with a second which he tried his hardest to put over the bar, just failing as it went in off the underside.

That is now two games and two wins with six goals scored and none conceded and is the first time that the club has ever won it’s first two games in the competition. (more…)

It would appear that the top four by the end of this season could very well be made up of the four clubs represented by these players.

Having researched this a little, with the emphasis on “little“, the evidence suggests that, in the main, the teams with regular twenty-plus goalscorers in their ranks are the ones which finish the highest.

Now it could very well be that Sadio ManĂ© of Liverpool and Alexandre Lacazette of Arsenal also score twenty or more goals this season, but we think they will fall short of the other four. (more…)