Spurs managed to get past Bundesliga crisis club Hoffenheim; can they continue this run against a similarly out-of-sorts Leicester City?
By Ian King
One dismal run must end
A narrow-ish win against a pretty dismal-looking Hoffenheim in the Europa League and that win against Liverpool in the Carabao Cup notwithstanding, Spurs’ recent form has been dismal, with the small consolation from their trip Everton being that they at least kept the score respectable after having gone in at half-time three down. It’s now one win in ten in the League.
Leicester City’s new manager bounce following the appointment of Ruud Van Nistelrooy at the start of December fell quickly back to earth; one win and one draw on the way down, followed by seven consecutive defeats during which they’ve scored two goals and conceded eighteen. It doesn’t say much for the two teams above them that a win against Spurs could lift them out of the bottom three.
History
Spurs and Leicester have played each other twice in cup finals with Spurs winning both, 2-0 win in the 1961 FA Cup final and 1-0 in the 1999 League Cup final. More recently, this fixture has often brought goals. Over the last decade Spurs have won 6-2, 6-1 and 5-4, while Leicester won 4-1 at The King Power Stadium in 2023. They drew 1-1 on the opening weekend of this season, with a Jamie Vardy goal cancelling out Pedro Porro’s opener for Spurs.
Familiar faces
James Maddison has spent seven out of 23 on the bench for Spurs this season, but his early goal in Germany on Thursday could mean that he is given a more central role against his former club. For Leicester, a lack of goals has been as severe as the weak defending, but they have two former Spurs players, Harry Winks and Oliver Skipp, among their available midfielders.
Team News
Timo Werner, Brennan Johnson, Dominic Solanke and Yves Bissouma have all joined the Spurs injury list–now 14 in total–over the last couple of weeks. But it’s not quite all bad news. Antonín Kinský is available again after missing Hoffenheim and Richarlison came through the trip without incident.
Woyo Coulibaly should make his debut for Leicester following his transfer from Parma, while at the other end of the scale Jamie Vardy is now in 10th season with them, a period during which he has now scored 180 League goals.
Prediction
Their Europa League win in Germany was an improvement, but Spurs still looked brittle, particularly throughout the first fifteen minutes of the second half, and when pegged back to 2-1 it felt as though a very familiar script was playing out yet again. But they managed to hold on this time, and that’s something to carry back into a Premier League campaign that has fallen spectacularly off the rails in recent weeks. Leicester have been pretty bad these last couple of months, a badness arguably masked a little by Southampton’s even-worseness, and beating a running on vapours, out-of-sorts Spurs by 3-2 sounds in line with this fixture’s goal-laden history.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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