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Tottenham Tackle Impressive PSV Eindhoven

The Champions League is back in our lives next week in a big way, with arguably some of the biggest and most important matches of the competition thus far (for this season, at least). It’s a competition that will forever be viewed as the proving ground of many ‘elite’ top level clubs, in addition to showcasing what teams from slightly smaller divisions around Europe are capable of. That’s the beauty of the UCL and the diversity that it brings, and while you may have some controversy in regards to different viewpoints from time to time, the same can be said of any other league around the world.

Take the Premier League as a perfect example. In this game that we’re about to discuss, Tottenham Hotspur are going to be representing English football – but at the same time, they’re going to be scratching and clawing in order to even keep their Champions League hopes alive. So while it’s all well and good when people point out the past dominance of English clubs at this level, as well as Liverpool’s appearance in the final last year, it’s worth remembering that it’s not always the easiest thing in the world to put together great performances in Europe when you’ve also got other competitions to worry about.

On the other hand, PSV Eindhoven will be representing the Eredivisie, which is the definition of a fascinating league in our eyes. For years and years now we’ve heard about how Dutch football represents some of the finest displays available to us in the beautiful game, and yet, they haven’t been able to showcase that either in their top national league or European competition. Sure, they’ve reached a final or two, but the displays of the Netherlands in the Euros & World Cup in recent years should tell you all that you need to know regarding what the general consensus is about the Dutch game.

Either way this game will serve as a quick turnaround for both clubs, with Mauricio Pochettino in particular not being given much of a chance to breathe. They’re in for a ruthless schedule as we prepare for the nitty, gritty winter months, and they need to be gearing themselves up for that. The media and fans have been raising question marks about Spurs this season with some suggesting that they’re just one or two injuries away from a complete collapse, but it remains to be seen as to whether or not that’ll go down. Of course, this is football, so you never really can predict what’s going to happen next.

The last six games have served as an intriguing ‘journey’ of sorts for Tottenham Hotspur, with their slump early on in the campaign leading many to believe that they could be down and out, sort of like Manchester United. They’ve been able to overcome that adversity, though, kicking off this recent stretch with back to back victories against Cardiff City and West Ham United. A draw against PSV themselves in their first group stage bout was disappointing and they certainly won’t forget about it heading into this one, although despite a narrow loss and a win against Man City and West Ham, it still feels like their win against Wolves last night was a little bit too close for comfort.

PSV’s recent six game stretch began with a narrow 2-1 loss against Inter Milan, and while they showed signs of life in that game, they would’ve been hoping for better at home. Thankfully they know how to bounce back domestically in a league where they have won all 11 of their games thus far, including 6-0 and 4-0 wins over VVV-Venlo and Emmen. The aforementioned 2-2 draw against Tottenham will likely have been viewed as a point gained for them, followed by six more points gained against Groningen and Vitesse.

With one win a piece and one draw these two teams haven’t actually waged war all too many times in the past, which is perhaps an indication of how well they’ve done to reach this point in their respective histories over the last few decades. Interestingly enough we’d probably argue that if you put PSV into the Premier League then they’d probably fare as well as Spurs have throughout the history of the division, or perhaps a little bit lower down than that depending on your levels of optimism.

Tottenham will go into this game knowing full well that they went through a war against Wolverhampton Wanderers at the weekend, although they certainly have plenty of weapons to choose from. It’ll be interesting to see if Trippier starts following his somewhat poor showing at Molineux whereas Foyth will almost certainly miss out after conceding two penalties, but when you’ve got Kane, Son, Eriksen and Alli to make up for that, we don’t think it’ll be too much of an issue.

PSV are a somewhat unknown entity outside the realms of Dutch football and that’ll suit them just fine, because playing the role of the underdog is nothing new to them in European competition. The two main men up top will be Luuk de Jong and Hiving Lozano, both of whom actually scored in the reverse fixture – so they shouldn’t have any kind of ‘fear’ when it comes to leading from the front. The nature of their setup in comparison to Tottenham’s will likely lead to a bit of a shootout if neither team can gain control of the game in the middle of the park, and that’s always a fun thing to contemplate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RryppgEFEok

Tottenham vs PSV Eindhoven Betting Prediction

While Wembley Stadium may not exactly be their ‘home ground’, that’s the situation that Tottenham finds themselves in at least until the new year and they need to start embracing it. If they don’t then they could suffer from a poor atmosphere week in and week out, and a lot of that falls onto the shoulders of the fans. In this game we think they’re going to be tired early on after the weekend, which will allow PSV to push their own game plan onto them.

It won’t work, however, and we believe that Spurs will ride out the wave of momentum before striking with two quick consecutive goals to put them in the driving seat – kind of like their rivals Arsenal have been doing as of late. Alas, it’s not going to be that easy and we do think PSV will score to cause a bit of a panic at the back for Tottenham, but that’s all it will be: a panic. We think Tottenham have learnt from their mistakes in the last few weeks, and they’ll wind up walking away with a crucial 2-1 victory.