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Spurs Odyssey Preview - Crystal Palace v Spurs, 26.07.20

· Last season's game - Crystal Palace 0 Spurs 1, 10.11.18
· This season's home game - Spurs 4 Crystal Palace 0, 14.09.19
· This week - last year
· What happened in the Premier League on Matchday 38 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 Record of Spurs -v- Crystal Palace

Prem        Pl   W   D   L  For-Ag  Pts
Home        11   6   4   1  14 - 4   22
Away        10   7   1   2  15 - 9   22
=======================================
Total(Prem) 21  13   5   3  29 -13   44
=======================================
Football Lge
Home(Div 1)  9   5   2   2   14 -6   12
Away(Div 1)  9   5   3   1   16 -9   14
=======================================
Total(Div 1)18  10   5   3   30 -15  26
=======================================
Football Lge  
Home(Div 2)  1   0   1   0    2 -2    1
Away(Div 2)  1   1   0   0    2 -1    2
=======================================
Total(Div 2) 2   1   1   0    4 -3    3
=======================================
Total(Prem) 21  13   5   3  29 -13   44
Total(Div 1)18  10   5   3   30 -15  26
Total(Div 2) 2   1   1   0    4 -3    3
=======================================
Grand Total 41  24  11   6   63 -31  73
======================================= 

Last Six Premier League results:-

C. Palace  -    LLLLLL

C. Palace  0-1    Burnley
Leicester  3-0    C. Palace
C. Palace  2-3    Chelsea
A. Villa   2-0    C. Palace
C. Palace  0-2    Man Utd
Wolves     2-0    C. Palace

Spurs      -    LWDWWW
           
Sheff Utd  3-1    Spurs
Spurs      1-0    Everton
B'mouth    0-0    Spurs
Spurs      2-1    Arsenal
Newcastle  1-3    Spurs
Spurs      3-0    Leicester

Pos            P  W  D  L   F-A   GD  Pts
 7. Spurs     37 16 10 11  60-46  14   58
14. C. Palace 37 11  9 17  30-49 -19   42

..and now, the end is near..

Here we are then. It is the end of the season at last. If you include friendly matches (or in Wolves' case their start to the still ongoing Europa League campaign) this season started over a year ago, and is the longest season ever. It is also one we thought might have been curtailed. Whilst it is sad that no crowds are allowed inside stadia yet, I am very pleased that the integrity of the top two divisions has at least been preserved with issues being decided on matches played and not on a points per game basis.

The season has been a major disappointment to Spurs fans, whose Champions League status has been lost after four consecutive seasons and even a historic final appearance last summer. We have witnessed our victors in that June 2019 Final enjoy success in the European Super Cup, the World Club Final and now the Premier League. This time last year we would not have dreamed that our beloved Mauricio Pochettino would be replaced by "The Special One".

On this last day we do find our club needing to complete a quest for Europa League football. Ideally, we need to finish sixth, just in case Arsenal win the FA Cup next week. Ideally, we need Arsenal to lose that final anyway, because if we did finish sixth in that situation our European campaign would begin with qualification games. We don't have to beat Palace. We need to better Wolves' points tally at Stamford Bridge. If they lose and we draw, our goal difference is marginally better. Of course, we do have to go to Selhurst Park with the mindset to win.

In their first game after lockdown Crystal Palace beat Bournemouth 2-0, moving into 9th place level on point with Spurs. That Bournemouth game was the first Premier League game to be televised live on the BBC and gained the largest TV audience in the UK of any previous Premier League game. Palace were even contenders for a European place at that time.

Since that Bournemouth game, Roy Hodgson's side have lost seven consecutive games, starting with a 4-0 defeat at one of his old clubs - Liverpool. That sequence of defeaats is a first for a Hodgson side. The "Eagles" have scored in only one of those games, and that was in the 3-2 home defeat against Chelsea. Incidentally, Palace's bald Eagle mascot flown in the stadium before games for the last ten seasons died before Palace hosted their first post-lockdown game.

Our last away league game against Palace was the last of a run of five consecutive 1-0 victories. The match before that run had also been a 1-0 in Palace's favour, when they beat us in the FA Cup 5th Round in February 2016. Palace also knocked us out of the FA Cup last year. Juan Foyth scored his first career goal in that Premier League game a full 20 months ago. Whilst we have never played Palace in May before, we did famously win our last away game of the 1997/98 season at Selhurst Park with that 6-2 win against Wimbledon

Our 4-0 win over Palace in September was their biggest Premier League defeat for two years, and our joint biggest London derby victory. It was also our biggest league win over the "Eagles", and our joint biggest win over the South London side, having beaten them 4-0 in a 1987 FA Cup tie. We have also won our last 9 league games against this side.

Son Heung-min scored his first Premier League goal against Palace in September 2015, having scored twice in the preceding game against Qarabag in the Europa League. I remember the headline "If you can score two goals on your home debut, you'll be a Spur my Son", and "Sonny" has certainly proved himself a true Spur.

Dele Alli scored that sensational goal at Selhurst Park in the same season as "Sonny"'s debut goal. Dele has been training this week and could be involved. Eric Dier will also be available after completing his four-game suspension imposed because of his behaviour after our FA Cup defeat against Norwich in March. We will not see Tanguy Ndombele. Jose Mourinho might be loathe to change his winning side, especially after they have had a full week since the 3-0 win over Leicester. He has, after all, used the same starting line-up in our last three games, all of which have been won. Spurs will be looking for a fourth successive Premier League win for the first time since December 2018.

Palace are blighted by injury, missing three central defenders - Tomkins, Cahill and now Sakho. They lost left back Patrick van Aanholt to a shoulder injury recently and Hodgson gave 20-year-old Tyrick Mitchell his debut at Molineux on Monday night. Christian Benteke was sent off after the final whistle at Villa Park two weeks ago and will serve the last leg of his suspension. There might also be a doubt about captain Luka Milivojevic who missed the Wolves game with a knee injury.

27-year-old Wilfried Zaha will be a threat, of course. Zaha will be looking for his 50th Premier League goal for Palace in what will be a 37th league appearance. He scored number 49 in that 3-2 defeat against Chelsea. Andros Townsend has made 13 league starts this season but has started the last two games. He hasn't scored since last September.

I do think that Spurs will win, and that Wolves will drop at least two points against Chelsea, who still need to cement their Champions League place. I am confident and predict Spurs to win 3-0.

Strangely, this is Andre Marriner’s first game this season in charge of Spurs. He thus becomes only the fourteenth official to take charge of a Spurs Premier League games this season. By coincidence, Mr. Marriner’s last game in the middle with Spurs was our last game of last season against Everton!

Declan Mulcahy writes:-

Mr. Marriner has refereed 23 Premier League matches to date this season so it is surprising that he hasn't done a Spurs match. Still better late than never! There are ten matches being played simultaneously. So, they need 40 officials (excluding the replacement officials) at the grounds and another 20 in the VAR studio.

They don't have enough experienced officials for all of the matches. So, a number of games including Spurs game have an inexperienced assistant referee. In this case it is Graham Kane who was the replacement official against Bournemouth. He is a lower league assistant referee and I'm fairly sure he has never been an assistant referee in a Premier League match before.

· Spurs record in recent London Derby League matches

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