· Last Year's Corresponding Game - Spurs 1 West Ham 0
· The last time we met Bolton in this competiion - Spurs won 6-0
The following are the results of our Cup ties against Bolton Wanderers.
FA CUP
SEASON RD H/A RESULT SCORERS
24-25 2 H 1-1 Seed
2R A 1-0 Lane
34-35 5 H 1-1 W Evans
5R A 1-1 G Hunt
5-2nd R VP 0-2
47-48 3 A 2-0 [AET] Duquemin 2
77-78 3 H 2-2 Hoddle, Duncan
3R A 1-2 [AET] P Taylor (pen)
01-02 4 H 4-0 Anderton, Iversen,
Etherington, Barness (o.g)
FL CUP
96-97 4 A 1-6 Sheringham
01-02 5 H 6-0 Davies, Ferdinand (3)
Barness (o.g), Iversen
Three years ago, in December 2001, Spurs met Bolton twice in the space of 8 days in League and Cup Competition. Having scraped home in the League game by 3-2, thanks to a late Teddy Sheringham winner in front of Sky TV, Spurs thrashed Sam Allardyce's weakened Wanderers side in the 5th Round of that year's League Cup competition by a 6-0 margin, thus gaining retribution for an embarrassing 6-1 defeat at Burnden Park in 1996. That had been Spurs' worst defeat at the hands of a side from a lower league. Les Ferdinand, who is likely to face one of his old clubs tomorrow, scored a hat-trick in our 6-0 win, and actually managed 30 appearances and 15 goals in all competitions that season, which was his best record in our colours.
The two clubs also met in the FA Cup 4th Round that season, when Spurs ran out 4-0 winners. Iversen scored in both games, and so did Bolton's full-back, Barness, with own goals!
The situation will be different this time, I fear. Bolton made it all the way to the Final last season, only losing to Middlesbrough, who of course eliminated us on penalties in the quarter-finals. Bolton's victims in that run included Liverpool at Anfield, and Aston Villa in the semi-final, who just failed to recover from a 5-2 victory at The Reebock Stadium.
This time last year, Spurs beat a West Ham side that included Michael Carrick and Jermain Defoe, with a goal from Bobby Zamora, now playing for the Hammers!
I suspect that Bolton will be little changed from the side that out-played us last Saturday, and that Spurs also will field a stronger side than that at Oldham. Kasey Keller may get a start, and Taricco may make his first senior appearance of the season, although Reto Ziegler may be used to solve the left-side midfield conundrum for Jacques Santini.
There will be at least 3000 Spurs fans making the 200+ mile journey on what promises to be a wet and windy night up 't North. Let's hope the result isn't bleak too, and that the boys can "Do it for Bill!"
The Spurs Odyssey exclusive match report will be posted on Thursday morning.
