1 min: Spurs get the game started, and instead of the more common post-kick-off hump forward and straight out of play they pass it around their backline for a while before humping it forward and straight out of play.
Graham Potter has a chat with Amazon. I basically waited for him to say something interesting (or, indeed, for him to be asked something interesting) but it never happened. Here’s a sample paragraph:
We lost Lewis yesterday with a bit of sickness, so that’s one we have to adjust around. Few players coming in, but at this time of year we try to use the squad as best we can. We’ll carry on with what we’ve been working with and see how the game goes. Overall, our performance levels have been quite good. Everybody wants to win, but it’s sport. Someone has to win, somebody has to lose, and we have to just respond to that.
Amazon, broadcasting every Premier Leaguegame today as you may have heard,do the rounds of the grounds, with the presenting teams already in place for all the afternoon games, and Gabby Logan broadcasting live from her car as she drives towards Anfield for the evening kick-off.
Mourinho is also asked about his ambitions for the January transfer window:
I like the players very much. I like them as players, I like them as the human group they are, and I’m really happy with them, and I want to give them all I have to give them and I want to improve them, and I don’t think it’s fair arriving five weeks ago to look to windows. I need time. After the 2nd of January we have a couple of weeks where we can work. Since I arrived, it has been really difficult to work with the intensity and the dynamic that you want. I prefer time to players.
Also, on the subject of festive football:
If you love football your heart is full of joy. It is one of the things I didn’t like in my Italian adventure, in my Spanish adventure, it was not to play football in this period. It is something I really love. I understand that families have to love us and they have to understand us, to cope with it. But for everybody who goes to this stadium it is amazing and it is our job and our responsibility to give them what they love. You give people what they love, and you are the only country that gives them that.
Apparently Tanguy Ndombele is not injured, he simply has not been picked for today’s squad.
“It seems Jose has leaned his lesson with regards to Dier, but still can’t see that continuing to play Aurier is costing us,” writes Steve Porter. “He’s a red card/penalty waiting to happen and he indirectly depletes our midfield by forcing Sissoko to drop back to cover.” I don’t think that’s entirely fair: as Willian showed at the weekend, he’s also an easy goalscoring change waiting to happen.
Brighton do indeed ring the changes, with Ezequiel Schelotto making his first start of the season (there have been only three substitute appearances), Lewis Dunk out of the squad altogether, and Shane Duffy, Bernardo, Steven Alzate and Aaron Connolly also coming in.
Brighton bring bad memories to Tottenham, primarily of a 3-0 thwacking at the AmEx Stadium in October, a match full of unfortunate incidents from a Spurs perspective including the dislocation of Hugo Lloris’s elbow, an injury from which he is yet to return. Mauricio Pochettino was sacked the following month, without winning another league game. Results have improved since José Mourinho’s appointment, but Tottenham’s most recent game – against Chelsea on Sunday – was another trial, and Son Heung-min will miss this match as a result of his red card in that one.
Brighton’s record on their travels is poor, and it gets worse the further they travel. It’s the 16th-best away record in the Premier League overall, but they have only won one point when forced to go further north than Watford (that’s 0.2 points per game) compared with seven points garnered in London and its environs (at 1.75 points per game). As such, the omens are good of further glory here but the long-term prognosis is bad (with only the trips to West Ham and Southampton to come within their approximately-65-mile comfort zone). But there is also a question of priorities: they are hosting Bournemouth in a couple of days and could perhaps decide that focusing on that match might mean they win one of the two fixtures where a full-on commitment to this one could end with them winning neither.
Anyway, welcome. It’s Boxing Day. How are we all feeling?
#THFC: Gazzaniga, Aurier, Alderweireld, Sanchez, Vertonghen, Winks, Sissoko, Lucas, Dele, Sessegnon, Kane (C).
@WilliamHill latest (18+)bit.ly/TLTWBrighton#THFC
#COYS
Here’s how Albion line-up for today’s lunchtime game with @SpursOfficial, live on @primevideosport.
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