please log in to view this image Sunday 26th July 4pm Premier League Selhurst Park Four wins and a draw in the last five matches and we're suddenly one of the form teams, somehow. We need another victory to end the season on a high and have a chance of finishing sixth, in all likelihood. Palace are in the opposite position, having nothing to play for at all and in awful form. They can only move up to 13th, can't be caught by the 15th place side and have lost the last seven league games. It would be typical of Spurs to balls this up, so can Mourinho manage to avoid a slip up? Roy Hodgson's side have had a rather uneventful season. No big transfers in or out, never in the relegation zone and not often close to the European places. Crashed out of both cups to lower league sides at the first hurdle, too. It's the sort of campaign that a lot of Premier League chairmen would love. The fans will have been less impressed and will be rather worried by how it's ending, though. Our hosts spent a lot of the time keeping things tight and neither scoring nor conceding many. They only participated in one match before February in which either side scored more than two goals. Jordan Ayew is their top scorer with 9 goals, which isn't too bad, but there's not a lot else through the side. Star man Wilfried Zaha has 4, van Aanholt and Milivojevic have 3 and a few other chip in with ones and twos. It's clear where their problems are and what they need to work on in the summer. Our trip to Selhurst Park last season had a surprise hero in Juan Foyth. He'd conceded two penalties in the previous game against Wolves on his Premier League debut. He popped up after the hour to net the only goal of the game, in a tightly contested match. The scrambled, scrappy winner was pretty representative of the way things went, too. A Zaha-less Palace blew a couple of chances to level it up late on and we took the points: The game at our place earlier in this campaign was very, very different. An uncharacteristically sloppy start from the visitors meant that the contest was basically over by half-time. Two early Son goals sandwiched a van Aanholt own goal, as we scored three times in 11 minutes. Lamela made it four just before the break and a big scoreline threatened. The second half was a lot more sedate, as both sides seemed to settle for the half-time score: Only Ndombele misses out for this one, as everyone else is fit and Dier returns from his ban. Tomkins, Cahill, van Aanholt and Sakho are out for our hosts, while Milivojevic faces a late test. Benteke faces the last game of his suspension, as he was sent off against Villa three games ago. Lineups for each side's last league game: Spurs: Lloris; Aurier, Sanchez, Alderweireld, Davies; Sissoko, Winks; Moura, Lo Celso, Son; Kane. Subs: Gazzaniga, Tanganga, Vertonghen, Foyth, Skipp, Fernandes, Sessegnon, Lamela, Bergwijn. League form: LWDWWW. Palace: Guaita; Ward, Dann, Sakho, Mitchell; Townsend, McArthur, McCarthy, Schlupp; Zaha, Ayew. Subs: Henderson, Kelly, Woods, Riedewald, Kouyate, Pierrick, Kirby, Meyer, Gordon. League form: LLLLLL. Ref: Andre Marriner. VAR: Andy Madley. TV: Sky Sports. How would you like to line up for this one and what would you change from the Leicester game? Would you stick with much of the same lineup, make a few changes or go for a wholesale switch? Which system and tactics would you use and what are you expecting Palace to go with?
Can't see Jose changing the XI for this, it's done well in recent weeks even if I think it was a risk not to rotate at the time. But a week's rest should've done them good and hopefully we'll go all out in order to try and get 6th with the hope Chelsea do us a favour, thankfully they need something positive from the Wolves match to secure their CL spot for next season. Palace are on a dreadful run though so we need to ensure Dr Tottenham isn't working Sunday.
I do hope we have a little bit of rotation at some point in the game, be it Skippy getting a few minutes or Verts getting onto the pitch for us one final time I do have to say that we really should've brought Verts on against Leicester just so he'd get one final appearance at our stadium, and considering Sanchez was on a booking it made sense to do so when closing the game out
6 and 8 years service to the club respectively. Much respect to these guys. Whilst Vorm won't have a chance, would be good to see Jan get on if we can afford too, just a shame there won't be any fans to give him a proper farewell.
The one time I reckon it’d be good to not change the team and he does so . Dier in for Sanchez. Odd considering we’ve been fine at the back in recent matches.
Proof that Dier is Joses preferred option, harsh on Davinson and also with Zaha on their left I would have thought that his additional pace might be important. I am not confident about today I hate playing teams on an awful runs as we are often the fall guys on these occasions. Chelsea have 2 chances to help us out I wonder if they might actually do that out today with a win? and even then we can still balls it up by losing. Finishing with 4 wins would be a statement and finishing the season with a bit of style would be nice but I will take the win and move on. C O Y S
Dier comes straight back in and it shows Jose's faith in him vs Sanchez, who has looked pretty solid alongside Toby but has to be fair previously looked like he has the occasional mistake in him. Hopefully Jan gets on the pitch at some point, even away with no fans, it would be nice to see our no.5 kicking the ball in anger one last time. Let's go out on a high and secure European football, COYS!
Yeah, Lesta had a strong finish 2014-2015....................................sort of set them up for the following season
