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Spurs Odyssey Preview - West Brom v Spurs - 26.11.11

· West Bromwich Albion 1 Spurs 1 - 11th September, 2010
· This week - last year
· What happened in the Premiership in Match 13 2010-11

· See the current injury list for all Premiership Teams
· All the Spurs Stats you could hope for here! THFC6061 Sports Stats

Full Record of Spurs -v- West Bromwich Albion

Prem         Pl   W   D   L   For-Ag  Pts
Home          5   3   2   0    9 - 5  11
Away          5   1   2   2    5 - 7   5
=========================================
Total(Prem)   9   4   3   2   14 -12  16
=========================================
Football Lge
Home(Div 1)  45  22  11  12   79 -46  55
Away(Div 1)  45  12   7  26   54 -94  31
=========================================
Total(Div 1) 90  34  18  38  133 -140 86
=========================================
Football Lge
Home(Div 2)   8   3   3   2   12 -10   9
Away(Div 2)   8   1   1   6   14 -20   3
=========================================
Total(Div 2) 16   4   4   8   26 -30  12
=========================================
Total(Prem)   9   4   3   2   14 -12  16
Total(Div 1) 90  34  18  38  133 -140 86
Total(Div 2) 16   4   4   8   26 -30  12
=========================================
Grand Total 116  42  26  48  173 -182 113
=========================================

Last Six Premiership results:-

West Brom

S'derland  2-2   West Brom
West Brom  2-0   Wolves
A. Villa   1-2   West Brom
West Brom  0-2   Liverpool
Arsenal    3-0   West Brom
West Brom  2-1   Bolton

Spurs

Spurs      2-1   Arsenal
Newcastle  2-2   Spurs
Blackburn  1-2   Spurs
Spurs      3-1   QPR
Fulham     1-3   Spurs
Spurs      2-0   A. Villa

Pos           P  W  D  L   F-A   GD  Pts
 3 Spurs     11  8  1  2  23-15   8  25
10 West Brom 12  4  2  6  11-17  -6  14
A Hawthorny problem

Spurs might be third place and (according to Villa manager Alex McLeish) one of 6 "Super teams" in the Premier League, but they face a prickly and difficult task at The Hawthorns tomorrow. Yes! We have our first Saturday 3 o'clock kick off since 24th September at Wigan. We'll even have our first Saturday home game next week against Bolton! Wow!

First we have to deal with Roy Hodgson's "Baggies" though. Following Roy's appointment in place of Roberto Di Matteo in February this year, the Black Country side edged their way up the table, away from relegation fears, finishing in 11th place - their highest Premier League finish. Their recent form is pretty good too, with three wins in the last six games, including an away win at Villa Park, when Shane Long was cruelly tackled by Alan Hutton. Former Reading man Long made a faster than anticipated return to action last week, and scored the winning goal against Bolton in front of the delighted 26,221 crowd. That home crowd can be as vociferous as anyone in the league if driven, so one of Spurs' tasks will be to keep them subdued.

Last season, despite hogging around 60% of possession in both home and away games against West Brom, Spurs could only manage draws in both games. The away game was played in September (West Bromwich Albion v Spurs - 11th September, 2010). New Spurs signings William Gallas and Rafa van der Vaart made their club debuts, and Luka Modric put us ahead in the 27th minute with a fine shot beyond the reach of Scott Carson, now playing his football in Turkey, but still in the mind of Fabio Capello as shown in the recent England game against Sweden.

Soon after his goal, Modric was astounded when referee Howard Webb did not award him a free kick, and was actually penalised for picking up the ball as he made the false assumption the free kick would be coming. Luka had to go off injured as a result, within minutes. Mr. Webb got one of his low marks (5.3) from the Spurs Odyssey voters that day! Brunt got West Brom's equaliser before the break in a situation when Gallas looked a little tentative, and Cudicini's handling was not good. West Brom kept Spurs under plenty of pressure as the game wore on, matching Spurs for the number of shots on goal.

One of our problems in our games against West Brom was the absence of Benoit Assou-Ekotto for almost all of both games. He was left out of the away game, as Spurs prepared for a Champions League match in Bremen, and in our home game, "Benny" had to go off within only 7 minutes. On both occasions, Gareth Bale took over left back duties, where he is not as effective as when he is marauding down that left wing. Odemwingie (who has been out of recent games with a knee injury) put West Brom ahead in the fifth minute at white Hart Lane, before Pavlyuchenko and Defoe put us ahead, only for the visitors to level the scores in the 81st minute through Simon Cox, who scored his only lague goal of last season against us! (Spurs 2 West Brom 2 - 23rd April, 2011)

Despite West Brom's yo-yo status as a top tier club (they only got back to the top flight in 2002 after a 17 year absence, and have suffered three relegations since), Spurs have only managed one away win in 6 games, which include an FA Cup draw at The Hawthorns. Our one win came in West Brom's first Premier League season, and that was largely thanks to the man they loved to hate, former Wolves man Robbie Keane, who scored two of Spurs' three goals in a 3-2 win. (West Brom 2 Spurs 3 - 21st April, 2003)

If we are to justify that tag of "Super Club", and further assert our claim to a top four place (and even beyond), then this is just the sort of game we need to win. It doesn't always work out that way of course. Hopefully Spurs can field an unchanged side, but of course Ledley King has had less time to recover from Monday night's game, and we are yet to learn of any twinges or knocks suffered as a result of that game, or since. There's a whole phalanx of Spurs players champing at the bit for a chance to prove their worth. These include Gallas, Sandro, Corluka, Bassong, Defoe and Pavlyuchenko, all of whom may be on the bench, and all of whom may have to wait till next Wednesday's Europa League game against PAOK for a start.

The games we'll be most interested in this week-end (other thaan ours of course) will be Manchester United v Newcastle, kicking off at the same time as us, and Liverpool v Man City on Sunday afternoon. Do you know, I think I'll even root for defeats for both Manchester teams, provided we get three points!

The bookies suggest that our match should be the shortest odds game for Spurs to suffer their next defeat in the course of their next seven league matches. That's another indication of a fixture that is recognised as being quite tough. On Monday night though, Spurs demonstrated the finest arts of football, and even managed to play within themselves for a lot of the time. I'll take us to win 2-0 again.

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