Tottenham Hotspur vs Crystal Palace - Preview

Wednesday night’s outing at Stamford Bridge will go down in history as a 3-0 loss, even though the game told a different story. Before Chelsea even scored their first, Tottenham had three chances to take the lead, but squandered them all. Regardless of the opening domination, Chelsea made the most of defensive errors to sink Spurs.

The question is though, how do Tottenham recover from a damaging score line? We had 60% of the possession at the Bridge, and played some scintillating football throughout.

Similarly, in October, we were beaten 4-1 at Manchester City despite a performance to be proud of- the following game, we trumped Asteras 5-1.

A result like that will be welcomed at White Hart Lane on Saturday. Spirits were high following the dismissal of Everton, and people started believing in Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham Hotspur again- that atmosphere must be retained.

On the field, it looks like the players are buying into the boss’s ideas. Play is fluid, ideas seem telepathic, and everyone works for each other. The return of Nabil Bentaleb has been a welcomed one, with the Algerian putting in a stand-out performance in Wednesday’s loss at Chelsea.

Of course though, a lot of the plaudits went to Harry Kane. Even though he started up top alone, Kane covered every blade of grass, winning possession, taking on players, and causing havoc.

Despite a gingerly return that night, I’m sure many fans will want Nacer Chadli to return to the starting eleven. After he described last season as “the most difficult of my professional life”, the big Belgian has netted six goals in ten league games thus far, including one at Arsenal, finally winning over the Tottenham faithful.

Elsewhere on the pitch, Younes Kaboul could return to partner the ever improving Federico Fazio after Jan Vertonghen was bullied by Loic Remy into conceding the third goal in midweek, and Kyle Naughton is expected to replace Vlad Chiriches at right back. Andros Townsend, Emmanuel Adebayor, Danny Rose and Etienne Capoue remain out, whilst Kyle Walker has a miniscule chance of making Saturday’s 18 man squad.

Crystal Palace come into this with just one win since September, and are only three points above basement side Leicester City. The south Londoners have also won just one of the last five meeting between these sides- a 3-0 win at Selhurst Park back in 2005.

Neil Warnock’s side are only the second London outfit to visit White Hart Lane this season- the other was QPR, who were thrashed 4-0 back in August.

Predicted XI: Lloris; Naughton, Fazio, Vertonghen, Davies; Bentaleb, Mason; Lamela, Kane, Eriksen; Soldado.