please log in to view this image Southampton host Tottenham Hotspur at St. Mary's Stadium on Saturday 25th April 2015 (KO 12:45) in the 34th round of 2014-15 Premier League matches. The Saints come into the game in 7th place on 56 points with Spurs in 6th place on 57 points. This will be the 184th time the two teams have met each other with Spurs having won the last five straight Premier League matches. Spurs and Southampton were two of England's top teams at the start of the 20th Century with the Saints reaching the 1900 & 1902 FA Cup Finals and Spurs going one better by winning the competition in 1901, thus becoming the only non-League club to achieve the feat since the formation of the Football League in 1888-89. The first meeting between the clubs came in December 1893 and the friendly finished as a 1-0 win to Southampton, Four more friendlies were played over the next four years and the first competitive match was played in March 1897 with Southampton drawing their home Southern League fixture 1-1 and Spurs drawing their home fixture 2-2 a month later. The clubs were regular opponents in both the Southern League and Western League until 1908, when Tottenham switched to become a Football League club. Those non-League encounters were usually hard fought affairs and Southampton had slightly the better of things overall. The first FA Cup encounter between the clubs came in January 1902 with holders Spurs held 1-1 in the 1st Round (today's 3rd Round) at White Hart Lane. The replay was also drawn 2-2 and a second replay was held at Elm Park, Reading with Southampton winning 2-1. The Saints made it all the way to the Final that season before losing to Sheffield United in a replay. Tottenham played Southampton four times during World War One in the London Combination and won three of those games to Southampton's one. The Spurs home games were played at Highbury and Homerton, as White Hart Lane had been taken-over by the army. Southampton, who were founded in 1885 started-out as St. Mary’s Church Young Men’s Association and moved to The Dell in 1898, joined the newly-formed Football League Division Three in season 1920-21 and won promotion to Division Two at the first attempt. They remained in the Second Division for 31 consecutive seasons. The first League meeting between Tottenham and Southampton came in September 1928 with Spurs drawing 1-1 at The Dell and winning 3-2 at White Hart Lane in January 1929. The clubs played a further eight seasons in Division Two prior to World War Two and Spurs won 9 and drew 3 of the 18 games played during this period. Ten games were played during World War Two with Spurs winning five, Southampton winning two and three games drawn. The first of three key player transfers from Southampton to Tottenham came in 1949 when right-back Alf Ramsey joined Spurs. The General would become a huge part of Spurs successive Second and First Division Championship winning teams in the early 1950's and play for England 32 times. Tottenham and Southampton resumed their matches in Division Two in the four seasons after World War Two before Spurs won promotion to Division One for the 1950-51 season. There was also an FA Cup 6th Round match in January 1948 at the Dell which Spurs won 1-0. Southampton won promotion to the First Division in season 1966-67 for the first time in their history and Spurs won both fixtures 5-3 at home and 1-0 away. The Saints kept their First Division status until season 1973-74. The second key transfer came in January 1968 when Spurs bought Southampton centre forward Martin Chivers for a then British record fee of £125,000. Spurs striker Frank Saul moved in the opposite direction as part of the deal. Big Chiv took a while to find his form, partnering first Jimmy Greaves and later Alan Gilzean but once he came back from a broken leg, he became England's finest attacker in the early to mid-1970's. October 1968 saw the first Football League Cup match between the clubs and Spurs won the 5th Round match 1-0 at the Lane. Tottenham were relegated for season 1977-78 and both Second Division matches with Southampton ended as 0-0 draws, the latter giving both clubs promotion to the First Division, along with Champions Bolton Wanderers. The 28 games played in Division One from 1978-79 to 1991-92 resulted in 12 wins for Tottenham, 9 wins for Southampton and 7 draws. During this period, the clubs met twice in the FA Cup with a win apiece and once in the League Cup with a win for the Saints. There were also two games played in the Screen Sports Super Cup, a competition which took the place of European matches for English clubs which were banned. Spurs won both of these games 2-1 at home and 3-1 away. Both Tottenham Hotspur and Southampton were founder members of the Premier League in 1992-93, but the Saints were relegated at the end of the 2004-05 season. Spurs have the edge during these encounters with 14 wins to 10 with 5 matches drawn. The very first Premier League game for both clubs was a 0-0 draw on 15th August 1992 at The Dell. A fifth round FA Cup replay in March 1995 saw an amazing hat-trick by Ronnie Rosenthal to give Spurs a 6-2 win. Southampton won the last FA Cup meeting in January 2003 4-0 at St. Mary's Stadium, which had become the Saints new home in August 2001. In May 2007, Spurs secured the services of the third key player from Southampton when Welsh left-sided player Gareth Bale was signed initially for £5,000,000 with an additional £2,000,000 paid in add-ons. Tottenham'sSpanish attacking midfielder Iago Falque was loaned to the Saints, who won promotion back to the Premier League as runners-up in the 2011-12 Championship. The Premier League match at St. Mary's Stadium in October 2012 resulted in a 2-1 win for Spurs. Gareth Bale opened the scoring after 15 minutes with Clint Dempsey adding a second for Spurs after 39 minutes. The Saints second half goal was scored by Jay Rodriguez. Gareth Bale scored the only goal in the game at White Hart Lane in May 2013. The first game in charge of Spurs for Tim Sherwood came in December 2013 at Southampton and the Saints took a 13th minute lead through Adam Lallana but Emmanual Adebayor levelled in the 25th minute. Jos Hooiveld scored an own goal to put Spurs 2-1 up before Rickie Lambert equalised in the 59th minute. The winning goal for Tottenham came from Adebayor five minutes later. Jay Rodriguez and Adam Lallana put the Saints two goals up within half an hour at White Hart Lane in March 2014 but Christian Eriksen goals either side of halftime and a Gylfi Sigurdsson late winner gave Spurs all three points and a second successive League Double over Southampton. During the Summer of 2014, Tim Sherwood was sacked as Spurs manager and replaced with Mauricio Pochettino from Southampton. Spurs beat Southampton 1-0 at White Hart Lane in October 2014 with Christian Eriksen scoring the winning goal after 40 minutes. please log in to view this image Full History of Tottenham Hotspur v Southampton Matches 1893-2015 please log in to view this image They Played for Spurs & Saints....Paul Allen Gareth Bale Lee Barnard Dave Beasant Joe Blake Kevin Bond (Saints player, Spurs asst manager) Tommy Cable Martin Chivers George Clawley Peter Crouch Ian Culverhouse Calum Davenport Alf Day Ally Dick Kerry Dixon Dickie Dowsett Jack Elkes Harry Evans (Saints player, Spurs asst manager) Iago Falque Tommy Forecast Alex Glen John Gorman (Spurs player, asst manager at both clubs) Alf Hawley Glenn Hoddle (Spurs player, manager at both clubs) John Hollowbread David Howells Doug Hunt Philip Ifil Ernie Jones Joe Jordan (Saints player, Spurs coach) John Joyce Kasey Keller John McConnachie Frank Osborne Tomáš Pekhart Mauricio Pochettino (manager with both clubs) Alf Ramsey Grzegorz Rasiak Harry Redknapp (manager with both clubs) Jamie Redknapp Matt Reilly Ron Reynolds (also Saints scout) Dean Richards Graham Roberts Dick Rowley Neil Ruddock John Sainty (Spurs player, Saints coach) Frank Saul Graeme Souness (Spurs player, Saints manager) Archie Turner Wilf Waller please log in to view this image Tottenham Hotspur Premier League Player's Squad Numbers 1993-94 to 2014-15 Southampton Premier League Player's Squad Numbers 1993-94 to 2014-15 please log in to view this image All glory to @THFC6061 Full Match Article Here
If Villa wins the FA cup, the seventh place PL team won't play in the Europa League. Otherwise, Spurs, Liverpool and Southampton all will, barring a very strange turn of events. So we either have an otherwise meaningless race for fifth and sixth, or one in which the loser will not play a bunch of extra games next season in places all too likely to be involved in armed struggles in the fond hope it might lead to something other than squad burnout and Thursday-Sunday hangovers. However that might be, I just want us to win, especially since it would help convince everyone that Pochettino is the right man for the job. I would also like to see a good game. The latter looks fairly likely, considering how good both teams have looked at times, and how good the first game was.
So the worse case scenario is we finish 6th and Arsenal win the cup? With the best being finishing 7th and Villa? Only issue is that won't do our UEFA coefficient any good for our triumphant return to the CL the year after
I think seventh and Arsenal winning is the worst result, and seventh and Arsenal losing is the best--if missing the Europa is our priority. I'd take fifth and another year of playing in What May or May Not Be the Ukraine, personally. Any concerns we might have in the CL are fine by me as long as they're real, rather than theoretical.
The main relevance of 5th, 6th or 7th (if Arsenal win) is what round we come in. I assume 5th goes straight into league, 6th plays 1 qualifying round and 7th plays 2? If Villa win we either play 1, 2 or don't qualify.
Of course. I want us to win every game we play, regardless. However starting our season in July is a big disadvantage
That's how he looked when I first became interested in football. That pic is not a surprise to me, remember those days well! Hoddle and Neil McNab protected by John Pratt. The good old days (relegation apart)
Bit of a Catch 22. You can always treat the early EL rounds as glorified warmup games in terms of personnel and approach, at best we're into the competition proper and get the training intensity nice and high from the start, and at worst we avoid a whole load of extra fixtures and travel. We'll be playing absolute dross at that stage after all.
Rumours that Hugo may be back for the game is good, though if he's not 100% I'm more than happy to stick with Vorm. Should be a good game, the second Pochettino derby of the season, if we can play like we did against Newcastle then I'd put us in with a good chance of winning, especially as their form has been up and down over recent weeks too. Lloris/ Vorm Dier, Fazio, Jan, Rose Paulinho, Bentaleb Lamela, Eriksen, Chadli Kane Think Lamela should have another chance in the XI, even if he was poor against Newcastle, the only way he'll improve is with minutes on the pitch. Paulinho had his best game of the season last week so I think he deserves to keep his place.
Lamela's odd. I would not minimize in any way how wretched he was in the first half. And yet his work rate is admirable, he assisted for Kane's goal and is in fact our leader in assists, both in the PL and overall, despite being only a part time starter. The problem seems to be that he can't manage the one touch passes we're trying to play, even while being as good as anyone at making the ones that lead to goals. It's easy to understand why Roma played him behind the striker (I hear). It would seem better to get him the ball in the penalty box rather than having him play a part in moving the ball up the field, just as it also seems better to have Eriksen move the ball up the field more often. Would you believe Eriksen paired with Bentaleb and Lamela playing behind Kane? He's shown he can get the ball to Kane at the right time and in the right place. Though for this game I agree Paulinho should stay where he was. He both made me think he might have a future yet at Spurs paired with Bentaleb, and must have upped his sale value a bit.
A win tomorrow would be Spurs sixth consecutive Premier League victory over the Saints and a third consecutive "Double".
Spurs need to be in Europe. To not want to be in the the Europa has little logic to it if your reason is to finish as high as possible in the league. I have predicted a draw but really expect us to win.
Tottenham Hotspur XI: Lloris, Dier, Fazio, Vertonghen, Davies, Mason, Bentaleb, Lamela, Eriksen, Chadli, Kane.Subs: Chiriches, Soldado, Yedlin, Vorm, Townsend, Dembele, Stambouli. Pauli's wife is expecting so he's not in the squad at all.
