. Last season's game - Brentford 2 Spurs 2, 26.12.22
. Premier League Matchday 1 - last year
. 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- Brentford

Premier         Pl   W   D   L   For-Ag  Pts
Home             2   1   0   1     3-3    3    
Away             2   0   2   0     2-2    2
============================================
Total (Prem)     4   1   2   1     5-5    5  1.25 Pts per game
============================================
Lge Div 1 
Home             0   0   0   0     0-0    0
Away             0   0   0   0     0-0    0
============================================
Total (Div 1)    0   0   0   0     0-0    0
============================================
Lge Div 2
Home             3   2   1   0     7-1    7
Away             3   1   1   1     5-4    3
============================================
Total (Div 2)    6   3   2   1    12-5   10
============================================
Total (Prem)     4   1   2   1     5-5    5
Total (Div 1)    0   0   0   0     0-0    0
Total (Div 2)    6   3   2   1    12-5   10
============================================
Grand Total     10   4   4   2    17-10  15
============================================

Last Six Premier League results:-

Brentford  -    WWLWWW

Chelsea    0-2    Brentford
Brentford  2-1    Nottm Fst
Liverpool  1-0    Brentford
Brentford  2-0    West Ham
Spurs      1-3    Brentford
Brentford  1-0    Man City

Spurs      -    DDWLLW
           
Spurs      2-2    Man Utd
Liverpool  4-3    Spurs
Spurs      1-0    C. Palace
A. Villa   2-1    Spurs
Spurs      1-3    Brentford
Leeds      1-4    Spurs

Pos           P  W  D  L   F-A   GD  Pts

8. Spurs     38 18  6 14  70-63   7   60 
9. Brentford 38 15 14  9  58-46  12   59
22-23 Final positions 

A new start, in more ways than one.

I've written at length in this article about Harry Kane's departure to Bayern Munich today (12th August). Spurs have to start a new season, and indeed a new era without their top scorer and talisman. Harry also captained the side 17 times last season, and indeed in three of our pre-season games.

Harry is irreplaceable and the signings of James Maddison, Guglielmo Vicario, Manor Solomon, Micky van de Ven, Ashley Phillips, and Alejo Veliz will not fill the void. Those last two signings are ones for the future anyway. Richarlison was bought for big money before last season and now has to step up to the plate and score his fair quota of goals.

Harry Kane was ever-present for Spurs in last season's Premier League and scored 30 goals, finishing second only to the Manchester City phenomenon Erling Haaland and 10 goals ahead of Brentford's (currently banned) striker Ivan Toney.

We have a new coach too, and I have enjoyed Ange Postecoglou's style of football, seen in a less than ideal four pre-season games, although there have been concerns about the ability of our defence at times when we have been so committed to attack.

Asked what success looks like for Tottenham post-Kane, Postecoglou replied:

"The same thing it looked like for me yesterday. Nothing changes. We'll try to build a team that, hopefully, plays football that excites our fans and brings success to this football club and the ultimate measure will be our fans."

Apart from Harry, we also know that Bentancur, Forster, Ndombele, Gil, Sessegnon and goalkeeper Alfie Whiteman are unavailable. The injured man we miss most - Rodrigo Bentancur - is apparently still a month away from fitness. Nothing has been said about goalkeeper and club captain Hugo Lloris, who did not take part in the pre-season and has been allowed to find a move. Hugo is still contracted to Spurs until next summer.

New goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario will make his debut, and I fancy we will see Micky van de Ven make his debut beside Romero. A Spurs 4-3-3 could be Vicario; Emerson Royal, Romero, Van de Ven, Udogie Destiny; Hojbjerg, Bissouma, Maddison; Kulusevski, Richarlison and Son. Son has now been announced as club captain, with Romero and Maddison as his "assistants". Eric Dier and Ben Davies appear to have been marginalised in this matter.

Brentford are without the banned Toney, and goalkeeper David Raya is in the middle of a move to Arsenal, of all places. Spurs had been linked with Raya early in the summer, but Brentford's asking price was seemingly too high for our Chairman, for a man with only one year left on his contract!. Bryan Mbeumo is available having been taken off early in a pre-season game. Brentford signed Dutch goalkeeper Mark Flekken from SC Freiburg in the summer, and Kevin Schade will possibly play in Toney's place. Schade was signed on loan - also from Freiburg - last January but signed full terms in the summer.

Brentford also signed defender Nathan Collins for a club record £23m deal from Wolves. The Republic of Ireland international, 22, who only moved to Wolves from Burnley for £20.5m last summer, joined on a six-year deal. Collins has partnered Brentford's Ben Mee wheen at Burnley.

Harry Kane scored 41 goals for club and country last season. Spurs finished eighth and that was the Premier League's lowest-ever finish by a club with a player who has scored more than 25 goals. Blackburn and Sunderland both finished seventh with Alan Shearer scoring 31 and Kevin Phillips hitting 30. Kane was the first player ever to score 30-plus goals in two separate 38-game Premier League seasons.

We have only ever played Brentford 10 times before in league meetings, but we did meet them in the opening game of the season once before. This was on 20th August, 1949 in Division Two. This was a promotion season for Spurs and we started nicely, winning 4-1 thanks to goals by Len Duquemin, Les Bennett, and two second half goals by Les Medley. You could say it was an "L" of a game! This was Arthur Rowe's first competitive game as Spurs' manager.

Spurs were promoted with Sheffield Wednesday that season. Spurs finished with 61 points, nine ahead of Wednesday. Those days were two points for a win, of course. Both Sheffield United and Southampton finished with 52 points, but goal average kept them below Wednesday. In 1951 and 1961, Spurs clinched both their league title successes in matches against Sheffield Wednesday.

The last time we began a season with a London Derby match was 9 years ago when we beat West Ham 1-0 at Upton Park, thanks to a debut goal for Eric Dier in added time.

Brentford's win over Tottenham in May 2023 was only their second league win over Spurs (in only 10 such games) and their first away win against us. Their other league win was at Griffin Park in March 1948.

Brentford just missed out on a European place last season but became the only team to achieve a league double over champions Manchester City. Only Chelsea and Spurs had previously achieved this feat in a season where City won the Premier League title. Brentford's win over City was the first for any club in 26 games since Spurs beat them on February 5th.

Tomorrow's game kicks off at 2pm and is live on SKY. I am boldly predicting a 2-1 win for Spurs.

Match referee Robert Jones had charge of 26 Premier League games last season but none of them involved Spurs. This will be only his third Spurs game in the middle. His last game in charge of us was a 2-0 away win against Brighton in March 2022. On that occasion Harry Kane scored his 95th away league goal to break Wayne Rooney's record.

Did you know? - 20-year-old Romeo Beckham (son of David and Victoria) had been on loan from Inter Miami last season playing for Brentford's "B Team". He has now been signed on a one-year contract for the same "B Team".

. Spurs record in recent London Derby League matches

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