13.15 Bizarrely for ESPN, they have shunned their normal 90-minute preamble to a match in favour of screening the Scottish Third Division match between Queens Park and Rangers, meaning they'll be on air for just five minutes before this match. That's a lot of effort to go to just to put the words Queens Park v Rangers on an on-screen graphic.
Tottenham: Lloris, Walker, Caulker, Dawson, Vertonghen, Parker, Dembele, Sigurdsson, Holtby, Dempsey, Adebyaor.Subs: Friedel, Naughton, Assou-Ekotto, Livermore, Huddlestone, Carroll, Ceballo.
Everton: Howard, Coleman, Baines, Heitinga, Distin, Jagielka, Gibson, Mirallas, Osman, Barkley, Anichebe.Subs: Mucha, Jelavic, Oviedo, Naismith, Hitzlsperger, Stones, Duffy.
13.04 Good afternoon and thanks for joining me for live coverage of this top-half-of-the-table clash from White Hart Lane. To begin could you please all cast your minds back to the beginning of last month.
Things were going well for Tottenham and Andre Villas-Boas. They had just beaten Arsenal 2-1 at the Lane, and followed it up with a 3-0 victory over Inter Milan at the same venue. But from there things went a bit, well, Tottenham....
They lost 3-2 at Liverpool, then needed extra time to see off Inter Milan - despite holding that 3-0 advantage from the first leg - before falling to a lacklustre 1-0 defeat at home to Fulham. Things looked to be improving last week when they beat Swansea 2-1 in South Wales but on Thursday night things took a very bad turn for the worse when this happened:
Can they recover from such a major setback? The statistics show that without Bale Tottenham would only be in ninth position as opposed to their current placing of third. With Jermain Defoe (14 goals in all competitions) also sidelined through injury and not expected to return until later this month, Spurs's next top goalscorer is Clint Dempsey, with eight, while defender Jan Vertonghen has struck seven goals in all competitions.
Everton - three wins from their last three - lie in wait for Spurs as we ready ourselves to learn if Andre Villas-Boas has actually transformed Tottenham from hapless nearly men into a Proper Top Four Team. Let's begin the journey to discovering the answer. But before we do please read the below preview bits:
Match Notes A match that could be pivotal in the top-four ambitions of both clubs has taken on an added significance following Gareth Bale's injury. Tottenham would send a strong message to both Chelsea and Arsenal if they could prevail without their star player and it would also do wonders for dressing room confidence. The players looked tired, however, against Basle on Thursday and will do well not to drop any points on Sunday.
Stat of the game: Gareth Bale's 17 league goals has equalled the tally of Spurs' leading scorer last season, Emmanuel Adebayor, with seven games remaining.
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