Tottenham Hotspur Vs Leicester City: Opponent watch with Chris Miller

As Leicester City aim to bring an end to their dry patch against Tottenham Hotspur at the Wembley Stadium on Sunday, Foxes of Leicester spoke to Chris Miller, a renowned Spurs blogger, for the usual sneak peek.

Q. At the time of the reverse fixture, we asked Football London’s Alasdair Gold if Tottenham Hotspur are in the Premier League title race – “I’m not sure,” he said. Were we to ask you the same question, what would your answer be? 

"“No. We can impact the title race because we play Liverpool and City, but we don’t have the depth of squad to challenge them. The Champions League starts back up again this week and that’ll be us spread thinly again, and I suspect we’ll end up 10-12 points behind the eventual winner.”"

Q. Loads of injuries to contend with (Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Ben Davies are all out injured), and almost all of the missing players are part of the reason why Spurs have done so well. Although the absences are yet to have a bearing on the results, could we finally see an implosion against Leicester City? 

"“I hope not, we’re just coming out the other side of it. Son is absolutely crucial for us at the moment, though, and you do feel that if he doesn’t score, we might struggle to make a breakthrough.“That said, Eriksen is due a good game and I hope he’ll step up and take some responsibility for goal-scoring. Winks, also, is starting to show signs of getting in the box more.”"

Q4. With the two main men in Kane and Alli missing, there’s more reliance than usual on Son-Heung Min – and it’s a well-documented fact. It also means that he is going to get more “attention” than usual. Does he and can he thrive when subjected to a treatment of sorts by the likes of Harry Maguire and Wilfred Ndidi?

"“He’s got such quick feet that any ‘treatment’ can be to the detriment of those dishing it out. I don’t think that will be something that stops us winning – we’re pretty resilient to that stuff – it’s more likely to be missing chances when they fall our way that costs us. Llorente in particular has been guilty of missing some massive chances in recent games.”"

Q. Spurs host Borussia Dortmund just four days later. How will that affect – if at all – Mauricio Pochettino’s approach and tactics et al against Leicester? 

"“He tends to rotate the full-backs for PL/CL weeks but that is difficult on the left at the moment due to Ben Davies’ injury. However, he showed last week that he’s willing to play Vertonghen at left-back, so he might do that again for one of these matches. If he does, that will be a potential weakness against Leicester’s pacy attack.”"

Q. If you are Claude Puel, how do you plan to hit Spurs? Do you take the gung-ho route or do you lure them in before doing the damage? 

"“Aside from the above, right-back is an obvious weak spot for us, so I’d expect Harvey Barnes to get some joy there. If we play 3-5-2, Barnes needs to take advantage of Trippier’s high position, and if we play 4-2-3-1, he needs to run at Trippier at every opportunity.“Other than that, defending deep and trying to remove space nearly always works well against Spurs. Leicester have good counter-attacking players so that could work well, especially using long-balls into the channels.”"

PREDICTION

"“2-0 to Spurs.”"