Well known London rivals West Ham and Tottenham will face each other tonight. If you ask me this is going to be interesting match. Two clubs with very strong squads which can play very very good, but also disappoint a lot will decide will it be blowing bubbles or cock-a-doodle-doo situation tonight. This derby means a lot to fans on both sides and I have every reason to believe we'll see very motivated squads on the pitch.
West Ham lost vs Newcastle with what I call a "beautiful result" of 4:3, while North London side came to very big victory against Luton Town after something which coach called "very good football" especially in first half. West Ham player Phillips went one step more from trolling and showed middle finger to some West Ham fans which shouted something to him after the game. What a man, what a player, what a person. I can tell him he showed that to wrong fans. :) Hammers are very good on their ground and have only one loss, but that loss was not football game, but fire drill which ended in fans running away from stadium before final whistle against Arsenal.
"Winners in life" from North London on the other side didn't look like top squad to me against Luton Town, but Van de Ven will be back and I expect that will be the only change from line up against Luton. Spurs will probably have more of the ball, while Hammers will probably wait for lightweight counter attacks or some set piece situation to score. Spurs are conceding first goal very often in recent period and my opinion is that could happen again. Injury report is more less same like few days ago. Ange was very creative on press conference when he called Timo Werner "important great signing" and in answer saying we have same odds to reach Man City on the table like Man United have to reach us. He didn't tell it was some 1st April joke.
However I hope Tottenham will not be a joke on the pitch tonight, I hope better version of Spurs will show up. Version from Aston Villa and Newcastle game is necessary if we want to do something on this hot ground. It's crucial to avoid making stupid not necessary set pieces because Ward Prowse will punish that. It is important to stop Bowen, Kuduz and to mark Soucheck on set pieces. Of course Antonio need good attention too. If we fail in that it could lead to "Tottenham get battered" chant all around and I don't like that. They are also more physical and it'll be interesting to see how will Ange address that. Referee Brooks who will be in charge so far used his cards right in matches I watched. I hope he will not forget cards in the dressing room like Antony Taylor in City Arsenal game which turned out into wrestling match.
Prediction: if we see right version of Tottenham and if we don't miss to many chances we might even win with something like 1:2, but if we see "we need to concede to start playing" Spurs side with "something else" passes or finishing by players then it can easily turn into disaster like Fulham game.
Prepare yourself for match. It's in 21:15 CET. COYS!
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