please log in to view this image Friday 27th October 8pm Premier League Selhurst Park No injury news yet, but Perisic, Sessegnon, Solomon and Whiteman will still be out. Bentancur may be near to a place in the squad and Bissouma is back from his ban. Neither side has any suspensions. Lineups for each side's last league game: Spurs: Vicario; Porro, Romero, van de Ven, Udogie; Sarr, Hojbjerg, Maddison; Kulusevski, Son, Richarlison. Subs: Forster, Emerson, Dier, Phillips, Skipp, Lo Celso, Gil, Johnson, Veliz. League form: WWDWWW. Palace: Johnstone; Ward, Andersen, Guehi, Mitchell; Hughes, Doucoure, Lerma; Ayew, Mateta, Edouard. Subs: Matthews, Clyne, Holding, Richards, Riedewald, Ozoh, Ahamada, Franca, Rak-Sakyi. League form: WLDWDL. Ref: Andy Madley. VAR: Stuart Attwell. TV: Sky Sports. How would you like to line up for this one and how do you think we actually will line up?
So, do we risk Biss getting another card and missing the Chavs game? We missed him on Monday, particularly later on, and I'd personally like to put the strongest available team out for this one.
Part of me would like to see Ange start Bissouma, trust the player to be sensible, and give us the best chance of 3 points. The other side of it is that Palace aren’t a massive pressing side IMO so Hojbjerg would probably cope better than he would against a Poch team. Bissouma’s ability to deal with being pressed will be more important against Chelsea than against Palace. The other question to me is whether we sit Kulu or Richy for a game and give Johnson a run on the wing. Kulu is playing well but his numbers aren’t great. Neither are Richy’s tbh. But I would be in favour of both starting against Chelsea because they work terrifically hard and their physically helps us retain the ball under pressure, which will be important when pressed. So Palace could be a good opportunity to see what Johnson can do.
Johnson over Richarlison is a real possibility. LF is the only spot I remember Ange changing other than bringing in Porro for Emerson the second game. Solomon came in either because Richarlison was hurt or hurting the team, I can't remember. Then Johnson replaced Solomon presumably because he was the big new signing. So now that he's fit, he may get the start again. Richarlison has gotten to be less bad than he was. While still banjoing away, he's got a good number of assists for the time he's been on the pitch and is giving the ball away less often. Based on what little we've seen so far, I think Solomon has been the best of the three. While Kulusevski is in a dry spell, he may be the most valuable player Spurs have for getting control of a game. I think he's too important to drop. I think Bissouma will start because he'll be trusted not to make himself miss the Chelsea game.
Kulu is definitely a player I want in a big game. Like you say it’s the control he offers, even if he isn’t contributing volume in terms of G/A right now. If we don’t start him on Friday I’d be intrigued to see what he can do in Maddison’s position. I think he played 8 once this season as part of some subs but I’d like to see him get 20mins as I think they can actually do quite similar things there. Playing more centrally with a few more bodies around him might also force some more instinctive decision making out of the player rather than some of the hesitation we’ve seen when he’s been coming in off the wing.
In the same video there's some pretty sweet finishes from Bryan in the same sequence Also, in the practice match earlier in the video, Skippy casually flicking the ball up and volleying it past the keeper
My view is we should always play the strongest team available so I would hope Biss plays and does his best to try and avoid a booking. We can’t afford to muck about and ideally we should do everything possible to open up a 5 point gap before the weekend matches in order to put pressure on those below us.
I wonder if the pundits would kvetch about their favourites having to play catchup and how unfair that is if that were to happen...?
I just hope Ange invests time in him, he’s one of the few current squad players that could be really good for Ange-ball.
Keep getting FB clips of matches from a couple of seasons back (including a Palace game) when Bryan was an absolute star. The lad has talent and I think also the right attitude and attributes to do very well under Ange. And if we actually played him in his preferred role it might help!
If this is true, then I would not have him in the starting Xi. Being a "last resort" sub (if it should come to that) is fine.
“Everyone calls me Lolo, because when he was young my little brother couldn't pronounce 'Rodrigo'. He said 'Loligo', so it stayed 'Lolo'. “As a child I was much taller than the other children, at least an extra foot, so after every win the fathers of the opposing team would ask me for documents to prove my age.
Having Destiny or not probably also affects the 6 selection. Against Fulham he was helping us progress the ball a lot - when Maddison dropped to get the ball, Destiny would come into his position and managed to receive the ball on the half turn quite a few times and deal with the defender there. I’d feel more confident about our ability to break lines without Bissouma if Destiny plays.
