· Last season's game - Spurs 1 Derby 1 , 29.04.2000
· See the current injury list for all Premier League Teams
· All the Spurs Stats you could hope for here! THFC6061 Sports Stats

This preview was written by Brian Judson

Full Record of Derby County -v- Spurs

Premier       Pl   W   D   L   For-Ag  Pts

Home           4   1   3   0     4-3    6
Away           4   2   0   2     5-6    6
=========================================
Total (Prem)   8   3   3   2     9-9   12
=========================================
Football Lge
Home (Div 1)  24  13   4   7    41-25  31
Away (Div 1)  24   3   8  13    29-60  16
=========================================
Total (Div 1) 48  16  12  20    70-85  47
=========================================
Football Lge
Home (Div 2)   1   0   1   0     0-0    1
Away (Div 2)   1   0   1   0     1-1    1
=========================================
Total (Div 2)  2   0   2   0     1-1    2
=========================================
Total (Prem)   8   3   3   2     9-9   12
Total (Div 1) 48  16  12  20    70-85  47
Total (Div 2)  2   0   2   0     1-1    2
=========================================
Grand Total   58  19  17  22    80-95  61
=========================================

Spurs may lie in mid-table and seemingly incapable of catching the leaders but at least they are nowhere near as bad as Derby County are. I watched Liverpool crush Derby with a Heskey hat-trick last weekend. None of the Derby players seemed to have a clue what to do. After all, Heskey is not as good a striker as Owen and Fowler have been in the past. Poom did well to keep the score down to 4-0 as it could easily have been more than that.

Over the past few weeks, there has been increasing restlessness among the White Hart Lane faithful. They claim that there are few signs that Tottenham have progressed under the current management. But pause for reflection for a few minutes and consider Manchester United. At the same stage of Alex Ferguson's stewardship i.e. two years after Ferguson had been appointed manager of Manchester United, they spent the entire season of 1988-89 bumping along in pretty much the same position as we are at the moment. Their team was in transition and the fans were on Ferguson's back. There was to be a further period of waiting before they took off to achieve their current eminence. In a word, patience is required.

In the away game last season, played on October 16th 1999, Spurs kept their first Premiership clean sheet of the season. With 37 minutes gone, Spurs deservedly scored. Ginola, this time on the left, deceived three defenders with his run, and made open ground. He had time to measure his cross, which reached Armstrong at the back post, who scored with a determined header. Ginola took all the plaudits, and deservedly so - for it was his goal, as much as the struggling striker's.

The Spurs midfield lost its grip in the second half, and the strikers failed to hold the ball long enough to take the pressure off the defence, as Derby battled away. Jim Smith tried all his substitutes, and allowed Eranio more licence to come forward. Fans' favourite Baiano also caused some mayhem, and Beck was a handful for Perry, but the Spurs goal remained intact.

The return game was played on April 29th 2000. Stephen Clemence scored his first league goal for Spurs to snatch a hardly deserved draw in injury time. This was yet another uninspiring performance by the home side, who failed to capitalise on Derby's loss of left back Stefan Schnoor, when he was given his marching orders five minutes before half time by card happy referee Neale Barry.

Derby put Spurs under the cosh on the hour, and Kinkladze lifted the ball over the over-committed Walker (for a change) to put Burley clear near the bye line. Anderton did well to head clear the danger, but Spurs then had a scramble to clear from a Carbonari effort. The Derby defender stayed up for the next corner. Sol got drawn out of the area as Kinkladze tricked Young again, Delap picked up the ball, then cut back for Carbonari to drive into the corner for a deserved goal.

The boo boys were just getting ready to vent their anger, when up popped Clemence standing almost on the goal line, when an Anderton corner was headed goalwards, and Clemence at first blocked the header then back-heeled it over the line.

And so to tomorrow's match. Spurs have generally fared fairly well in home games against Derby County. Even allowing for the current injury problems we have at the moment, I feel we will still be too good for them. I think we can win 2-0 at the very least.

Cheers, Brian

Follow @spursodyssey