Ads

New on Sports Illustrated: Tottenham Hotspur-Crystal Palace Preview

Jose Mourinho expects a "globally difficult" game against Crystal Palace on Sunday but pointed out Tottenham have overcome similar hurdles against West Brom and Burnley already.

Spurs are flying high heading into the weekend, top of the table after taking seven points from three games against Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal, keeping a trio of clean sheets.

It was put to coach Mourinho that Palace might be a different proposition due to their own reluctance to go on the offensive, a conservative tactic Tottenham have used well.

But while talking up the threat of the Eagles, the Spurs boss backed his team.

"Palace defend but Palace attack," Mourinho said of the Palace approach.

"In spite of not analysing them yet with detail, I can say that, yes, they defend and defend with lots of people and experienced people, but they still have quality in attack, an organised attack and counter-attack and set-pieces.

"They are a team that can threaten in many situations. The game is going to be globally difficult.

"But without comparing opponents - of course Palace is in another dimension - West Bromwich and Burnley were of course very difficult matches for us but we managed to win those matches."

Even if Palace can frustrate Tottenham, they know in-form forwards Harry Kane and Son Heung-min are capable of taking any half-chances.

Roy Hodgson said: "It's going to be very difficult to limit the likes of Kane and Son to no chances. They're also players who don't need many chances to punish you."

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Crystal Palace - Christian Benteke

As Palace routed 10-man West Brom 5-1 last week, Benteke scored twice - as many as he had netted in his previous 31 Premier League appearances. The Belgium international should be full of confidence now but has not scored in consecutive league appearances since April 2017.

Tottenham - Harry Kane

Creating one for Son and netting the other in Tottenham's win over Arsenal, Kane has now scored 20 goals and assisted 11 in 29 Premier League games under Mourinho, averaging an involvement every 83 minutes. Since 2004-05, among the 175 players to play at least five league games for the Spurs coach, the only two with a better average goal/assist ratio under Mourinho are Cristiano Ronaldo (one every 59 minutes) and Gonzalo Higuain (one every 72 minutes).

KEY OPTA FACTS

- Crystal Palace are winless in their past 10 Premier League meetings with Tottenham, with their 1-1 draw in this exact fixture last season ending a run of nine straight league defeats against them.

- Twenty of Tottenham's past 25 Premier League goals against Palace have been scored in the second half of games. However, all five of their strikes against them last season came in the opening 45 minutes.

- Spurs coach Mourinho has won 40 of his 63 Premier League London derbies (64 per cent), the highest ratio of any manager to take charge at least 20 in the competition. However, he is winless in his last two London derbies against Palace (D1 L1).

- Palace have lost 18 of their past 22 home Premier League matches against teams starting the day in the top four (W1 D3), with their only win in that run coming in Hodgson's first win as Eagles boss in October 2017 against Chelsea.

- Palace have scored more goals in their past two Premier League games with Wilfried Zaha in the starting XI (nine) than in their previous 19 without him in the line-up (seven), a run stretching back to January 2017.

SHARE

Author

Hi, Its me Hafeez. A webdesigner, blogspot developer and UI/UX Designer. I am a certified Themeforest top Author and Front-End Developer. I'am business speaker, marketer, Blogger and Javascript Programmer.

  • Image
  • Image
  • Image
  • Image
  • Image
    Blogger Comment
    Facebook Comment

0 Comments:

Post a Comment