Key events
10 min Munoz is up and Wharton will swing the free-kick in, mishitting low filth that Sarr clears into touch. So Richards will fling in again, Palhinha heading away.
8 min Ouch, Munoz landed on his shoulder and needs treatment.
7 min Spurs are sitting off Palace as they build, jogging about with no pressure on the ball. That’s allowing the visitors into the game and they easily get out, Guessand feeding Munoz out wide. His first touch takes him away from Souza, who piles through him and is booked. The youth of today, no respect.
5 min “I think this is the last chance saloon for our players and our team,” emails Alexandra Ashton. “This is essentially the strongest possible XI we can field (aside from Richarlison, who is a powerful supersub), with players in their actual positions, Tel, Kolo Muani, and Solanke all playing. If the players put forward another limp performance, they clearly deserve to go down, as they won’t play for anyone. A single point would lift us, a win would ease fears somewhat, but a loss would be our death knell.”
I think the difference between staying up and hoping others are worse is whether Solanke can get scoring. Without that, it’s hard to see where goals are coming from – and I can’t say I’ve much faith. Solanke isn’t a bad player, but at 28 he’s had one really good season at elite level.
4 min Wharton flicks a pass right, his studs landing on Tel’s metatarsus. The game is stopped, but is soon back under way.
2 min Spurs are playing thee at the back, the centre-backs Van de Ven, Danso and Porro, with Gray and Souza at wing-back.
1 min For now, at least, the home fans are behind their team, but Palace win a throw well inside the Spurs half. Richards launches it long and it bumps off two heads before falling to Wharton, who laces it at goal … straight at Vicario, who punches to safety.
1 min Away we go!
Public service announcement: these are the best tunes in Ibiza, by far. Be sure I’ve spent much time researching this.
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Our teams are ready to emerge. Imagine the excitement of the Tunnel Club lads as Kevin Danso puts one foot in front of the other; amazing stuff.
I do like an unexpected double consonant in a surname; Buchholz is the Sangakkara of the MBM.
“As an Arsenal fan,” says Jeff Buchholz, “I’m counting Tottenham’s relegation as a trophy (even though we have no further control of it). So if, fingers crossed, Arsenal win the league and Spurs are relegated, I’ll regard that as having done a double; a treble if we add one of the League Cup, FA Cup, or Champions League. The quintuple is on!”
If Arsène is to be believed, top four is also a trophy, so we’re actually talking about a sextuple.
“If Tottenham do get relegated,” fantasises Declan sorry, Daniel Rice, “do Arsenal fans celebrate next season’s St Totteringham’s day this season?”
“This relegation thing seems to me a bit more nuanced than you suggest,” writers Richard Hirst. “I would be as delighted as the next person to see one of the ‘Big Six’ (does that still apply?) go down, but the owners of Forest and West Ham are not exactly the type to inspire love and affection, so relegation for either or both would be no bad thing. And of course we would all (or almost all) rather see Man Utd go down (sorry) along with Everton, thus ridding the Premier League of the last Fergie acolyte. Anyway, as long as Fulham aren’t involved who really cares?”
I said it! That feelgood fairtytale bit was my attempt at a little joke.
Glasner speaks, saying Guessand has been contributing goals and assist, but isn’t used to so many games so was given a rest. He doesn’t like to change his back three but the same trio played against Wolves and kept a clean sheet; Richards will take the central role and lead the younger men on his outside.
On Spurs, he says every team can win everywhere, so his team are focusing on themselves.
Palace, meanwhile, will look to play off Strand Larsen, with Sarr and Guessand asked to run at defenders, width supplied by the excellent wing-back pairing off Munoz and Mitchell. I quite fancy those two to cause problems, especially if, behind them, Wharton and Kamada are at it with their passing.
So where is the game? I imagine Spurs are playing 4-3-3 – if they are – partly to get down the sides of Palace’s outside centre-backs and in behind their wing-backs. For what it’s worth, 4-4-2 is also a decent antidote to three at the back. Otherwise, they’ll want to serve Solanke cut-backs and low crosses to the front post, with Kolo Muani asked to clear space for him, by carrying the ball, bumping defenders out of the way or both.
I guess Man City 1995-96 is one, going down with a draw against Liverpool after wasting time thinking they were safe, while United won the double. And United, by the way, are in with a good shout of worst day ever, losing the league at Anfield, to Leeds, having not won it in 25 years – Liverpool had done so 11 times in the period – with Ian Rush, who’d never previously bagged against them, scoring.
The A problem Spurs have is the teams below them are decent and playing pretty well. I just can’t see a team with a midfield of Anderson, Sangaré and Gibbs-White going down, while West Ham have a good attackers in form – they’ve scored 11 more league goals than the other two. Imagine if they send Spurs sown and Arsenal win the title, perhaps one or two other bits as well; this could be one of the great nightmare seasons (feel free to suggest contenders).
“Consensual doesn’t mean it’s not adversarial,” returns James Humphries. “That’s the key difference between a boxing match and an assault charge, no?
… Honestly, I dunno what my end goal here is. Much like spurs in that respect, I guess.”
But politics isn’t consensual either. Obviously the framework is, but as an endeavour, it is not.
Email! “As a Motherwell fan I have some sympathy with the idea of trying to force teams to play football rather than just kick the opponent into the air (mind you, as an agricultural centre-back I am opposed to it, there’s yer paradox),” begins James Humphries. “But, like: of course football is consensual? It’s a whole bunch of people who, at least notionally, have agreed to be at place x, time y, under rules z.
If someone’s not consenting to playing football, then either they’re being forced to take part in a generally consensual institution (see also: standard views of the democratic state), or they’re just in a spectacularly weird thought-experiment with a bunch of people who are playing football!
(Can you tell what I used to do for work?)”
Bracketeer? But otherwise, politics, say, is consensual according to your tenets, yet it’s also adversarial, so.
Palace make two changes to the side which lost to Manchester United at the weekend, one enforced – Chadi Riad for the suspended Maxence Lacroix – with Evann Guessand in for Brennan Johnson. Jefferson Lerma, out injured for nearly a month, is back on the bench.
Igor Tudor makes his third formation change in three games, presumably pursuing the pretence that one exists which won’t make his team look dreadful; from 4-4-2 at Fulham, it’s now 4-3-3. Good luck, old mate.
Otherwise, Radu Dragusin is left out of the squad altogether – goodness me, imagine how badly you’ve got to play to accomplish that – with Yves Bissouma, Xavi Simons and Conor Gallagher relegated to the bench. Coming in are Souza, Kevin Danso, Pape Matar Sarr and Mathys Tel.
Teams!
Tottenham Hotspur (4-3-3): Vicarious; Porro, Danso, Van de Ven, Souza; Palhinha, Sarr, Gray; Kolo Muani, Solanke, Tel. Subs: Kinsky, Austin, Simons, Bissouma, Richarlison, Gallagher, Olusesi, Kyerematen, Rowswell.
Crystal Palace (3-4-2-1): Henderson; Canvot, Richards, Riad; Munoz, Wharton, Kamada, Mitchell; Sarr, Guessand; Strand Larsen. Subs: Benitez, Lerma, Pino, Johnson, Uche, Clyne Hughes, Sosa, Devenny.
Referee: Andy Madley (Huddersfield)
Preamble
Football is not a consensual pursuit … cue someone saying yes it is. But him – of course it’s a him – aside, we can surely all agree that we never agree, and not just to force a second most ingenious paradox into an already exceedingly self-conscious paragraph.
However! There is surely not a single individual who doesn’t support Spurs who doesn’t also want them to go down; on that, the entirety of the footballing community is in concurrence.
Usually, footballing antipathy is extremely specific, and obviously there’s the Tottenham Way thing, the first floatation thing, Alan Sugar, and so on. Except feelings would be similar were it any of the other rich clubs in danger: in an era dominated by money, it failing to such unprecedented degree would be astonishing, not spursy but spursiest.
Actually, strike that: going down and losing the Champions League final to a last-minute own goal having led 6-0 at half-time would be spursiest, but you get the point.
Things that seem too good to be true usually are, teaches the truism. But at this stage, with Spurs just a point ahead of Nottingham Forest and West Ham – what a feelgood fairytale it’ll be if one of those stays up – having not won in the league since the end of December, it’s pretty much the only reason to think they’ll survive. Just consider how much Igor Tudor, in situ not even three weeks, despises them already – with good reason.
As for the visitors, Palace were in danger themselves not that long ago, but now they’re safe and still in Europe, they might be the team Spurs would pick to face this evening. Win, and the mood’ll brighten; fail so to do, and consensus might start feeling like prescience.
Kick-off: 8pm GMT
