Alan Hansen’s Premier League Preview: Tottenham v Stoke

Harry Redknapp’s Tottenham host Stoke this weekend aiming to continue their excellent start to the season. Spurs sit 3rd in the table and have bounced back well from their defeats to both Manchester United and Chelsea last month. The North Londoners will be pleased to be back at the Lane after tough away trips to Bolton and Portsmouth. The home side will be without their top scorer Jermain Defoe but will still fancy their chances against a Stoke side with a poor reputation on the road.

The Potters have been stereotyped as poor travellers but despite failing to win on the road this season, they have only lost one of their four matches. Tony Pulis’ team has drawn their last three away at Birmingham, Bolton and Everton so may not be the pushovers many expect them to be. Importantly for the Potters James Beattie ended his barren run with two goals in the home win v West Ham last weekend and has a decent record against Spurs. He also scored in the 3-1 defeat at the Lane last season so will definitely be one for the home defence to watch out for.

Tottenham will be buoyed by their win at Fratton Park last weekend even if they rode their luck at times and despite the loss of Jermain Defoe, Harry still has plenty of quality at his disposal. After all Robbie Keane scored four times in his last appearance at the Lane and Peter Crouch is full of confidence after a brace for England. Then there’s Spurs forgotten man Roman Pavlyuchenko who scored on his only start this season at Doncaster in the Carling Cup.

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

Spurs record at White Hart Lane is becoming one to fear. After all, only Arsenal have managed to keep a clean-sheet there in 2009 and Harry’s side have won 9 of their last 10 home league games. Tottenham always give the opposition a chance but it’s interesting to see that only Manchester United have been able to score more than a single goal at the Lane in the last year.

Stoke have not won an away league game at Tottenham in 34 years. Their last success came back in February 1975 when Scottish rock band Pilot were number one with ‘January’, average house prices were just £11,787 and a gallon of petrol cost 72p. Unfortunately for the Potters I can’t see that run ending this weekend as although Defoe is out, Harry Redknapp still has an embarrassment of quality attackers to choose from. I’m backing Harry’s side for a Premier 10 home win.

Tags: Alan Hansen, Premier 10, Premier League, Stoke, Tottenham

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 14:24 and is filed under Features, Home Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.