· Last season's game - Spurs 1 Brighton 0, 23.04.19
· This season's away game - Brighton 3 Spurs 0, 05.10.19
· This week - last year
· What happened in the Premier League on Matchday 19 2018-19
· See the current injury list for all Premier League Teams
· All the Spurs Stats you could hope for here! THFC6061 Sports Stats

Full League Record of Spurs -v- Brighton
 
Prem          Pl   W   D   L   For- Ag  Pts
Home           2   2   0   0    3 -  0   6
Away           3   1   1   1    3 -  5   4
==========================================
Total(Prem)    5   3   1   1    6 -  5  10
==========================================
Football Lge   
Home(Div 1)    4   2   1   1    6 -  4   6
Away(Div 1)    4   3   0   1    8 -  3   7
==========================================
Total(Div 1)   8   5   1   2   14 -  7  13
==========================================
Football Lge
Home(Div 2)    1   0   1   0    0 -  0   1
Away(Div 2)    1   0   0   1    1 -  3   0
==========================================
Total(Div 2)   2   0   1   1    1 -  3   1 
==========================================
Total(Prem)    5   3   1   1    6 -  5  10
Total(Div 1)   8   5   1   2   14 -  7  13
Total(Div 2)   2   0   1   1    1 -  3   1   
==========================================
Grand Total   15   8   3   4   21 - 15  24
==========================================

Last Six Premier League results:-

Spurs      -    WWLWWL
           
West Ham   2-3    Spurs
Spurs      3-2    B'mouth
Man Utd    2-1    Spurs
Spurs      5-0    Burnley
Wolves     1-2    Spurs
Spurs      0-2    Chelsea

Brighton   -    LLWDDL

Brighton   0-2    Leicester
Liverpool  2-1    Brighton
Arsenal    1-2    Brighton
Brighton   2-2    Wolves
C. Palace  1-1    Brighton
Brighton   0-1    Sheff Utd

Pos            P  W  D  L   F-A   GD  Pts
 7. Spurs     18  7  5  6  32-26   6   26 
13. Brighton  18  5  5  8  21-26  -5   20

After the watershed

Our 3-0 defeat at Brighton in early October was a watershed in more ways than one. It was our first Premier League defeat to the "Seagulls", and our first defeat to the South coast side since April, 1983. Okay, there have only been 15 League and 4 cup meetings between the two sides, but that October 5th result was perhaps the start of a slide that led to the departure of Mauricio Pochettino.

Mauricio had already won his last Premier League game in charge of Spurs, as the Brighton defeat was followed by draws against Watford, Everton and Sheffield United and defeat at Anfield. "Poch" did oversee two big Champions League wins over Crvena zvezda, but the 6-game form guide above indicates that we are now truly into the Mourinho era at Tottenham Hotspur. Sadly we come into this game on the back of a very poor home performance and result against Chelsea.

That Brighton defeat started with the error by Hugo Lloris and the injury which has kept him out of the reckoning until now. Hugo is not yet back in training but will possibly return to the first team in late January. Brighton's 19 year old Aaron Connolly who scored his first two Premier League goals against us has not scored since, although he came close on Saturday against Sheffield United. Brighton won two more consecutive league games after defeat at Villa Park, and climnbed into the top half. Since then, despite beating Arsenal away (hooray!) their form has slipped somewhat, although they did have tricky games (all lost) against Man Utd, Leicester and Liverpool. Brighton actually have one less point after 18 games than they did last year.

Brighton become the second team to visit our new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for a second time. In doing so, they are the first team to play here (apart from Spurs!) under two managers. In April Spurs legend Chris Hughton brought his team to Tottenham, desperately needing survival points. Brighton held out until the 88th minute when Christian Eriksen broke the deadlock. Even Spurs outcast Vincent Janssen made his first (brief) Spurs appearance since August 2017 and got almost as big a cheer as did Eriksen. Janssen is now a Monterrey player, although I saw no evidence he was involved in last week's World Club Cup competition.

Chrissy was discarded at the end of the season, although Brighton did survive (by two points) and now former Swansea man Graham Potter is at the helm and doing a steady job in an ever-more competitive Premier League mid-table.

The only previous time we played Brighton at Christmas time was on Tuesday 28th December, 1982. Spurs went into the game in the bottom half, but were in tenth place after winning 2-0 with goals by Ricky Villa and none other than Chris Hughton! Brighton were in 20th place and ended the season being relegated although they did take Manchester United to a replayed FA Cup Final, which they lost 4-0. Famous Brighton fan Des Lynam was gutted.

After losing their away game in April 1983, Spurs lost only one more game that season (at Birmingham) and finished fourth. Defeat at Brighton was followed by a wonderful 5-0 home win on Easter Monday against Arsenal. Chris Hughton scored twice in that game too!

Speaking of five goal wins, we beat Bournemouth 5-0 at "home" at Wembley last year on Boxing day and the year before our victims (also at Wembley) were Southampton. That was a 5-2. Our last Boxing Day game at White Hart Lane was in 2015, when we beat Norwich 3-0. Harry Kane scored in each of the three games mentioned here. Although Harry scored twice in our game against Burnley, he is suffering a bit of a barren spell as that was the only game of our last five in which he has scored. It's time to put that right Harry!

So, after the watershed of October's defeat, can Spurs gain revenge and maintain what is an excellent current record of Boxing Day results? We also need to restore faith and confidence after that awful Chelsea performance. Regardless of whether "Sonny"'s appeal against his red card is successful (it was not), I'd like to see a team change or two. Perhaps especially in midfield with Tanguy Ndombele and Harry Winks beside Sissoko. I am going for a Spurs win - 2-0.

This will be referee Graham Scott's third Spurs game of the season. Both his previous matches in charge have been at home. One was the tricky Southampton game in which Mr. Scott sent off Serge Aurier after only half an hour. The other was a tough draw against Sheffield United. I hope for a more positive result in this game and hesitate to mention that this referee was in charge of Arsenal's home defeat to Brighton along with Chelsea's home defeat against Bournemouth!

· "Ten Years After" - Spurs Odyssey reviews the season in which we first qualified for the Champions League. Heurelho Gomes was a Spurs hero in a 0-0 draw at Fulham on Boxing Day 2009.

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