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25 min: Gray buys a ticket to the raffle from 25 yards. The ball bounces harmlessly wide left. That’s about as good as it’s got for Spurs as an attacking force.
24 min: King knocks the ball past Kudus and is shoved over from behind for his trouble. No booking, possibly because King was heading back towards his own goal. The referee has been kind so far.
22 min: … and Leno to punch clear. But Spurs come again, Kudus looping in a cross from the right. Bassey mistimes his jump at the near post, and the ball spins off an unsuspecting Andersen and over the bar. That could easily have flown into the net. Nothing comes of the resulting corner.
21 min: Richarlison races after a long pass down the right and wins Tottenham their first corner of the evening. That’s met with some more ironic cheering. Kudus to take …
19 min: Bergvall, who has a cheeky challenge in him, catches Andersen late as the Fulham captain passes out from the back. It should be a booking. The referee makes do with a lecture.
17 min: Fulham are first to everything in midfield. Spurs have been abysmal from front to back. Meanwhile here’s some more Drinking Vessel Liquid-to-Air Ratio Analysis from Richard Hirst: “Not that I’m ungrateful for the two early goals but how many 2-0 leads were lost today!”
15 min: Sessegnon barrels down the left and crosses long for Wilson, who is totally free down the inside-right channel! Wilson rolls across to Jimenez, who rolls home, but the flag pops up for offside. Sessegnon had needlessly gone early. Spurs get away with one. The home fans are beyond restless.
14 min: Wilson, just inside the Spurs box, has a shot blocked. Sessegnon curls the rebound in from the left. King competes but handballs. Spurs are all over the shop at the back, and a third Fulham goal looks much more likely than a momentum shifter for Spurs.
12 min: Another long ball down the Fulham right. Wilson hares after it. Vicario comes out and this time does what he should have done earlier, blootering the ball deep into the stand. Ironic cheers greet the clearance. The poor guy looks utterly shell-shocked.
11 min: More incredulous gasps from the home supporters as Iwobi barges his way down the left and enters the box. Van de Van extends a leg to deflect out for a corner. Vicario, under so much pressure from his own fans, punches clear to the edge of the box. Chukwueze is given too much time on the edge of the D, and curls a shot across the keeper and off the outside of the left-hand post. Goal kick. So close to a third for Fulham. The keeper wasn’t getting to that had it been on target.
9 min: Two minutes and 16 seconds between Fulham’s opener and that defensive fiasco. Such a cool, well-executed finish by Wilson, though, who sized up the situation and took full advantage.
8 min: That was an astonishing howler by the keeper, and he’s getting pelters from his own supporters as a result. The powder keg of frustration well and truly lit.
GOAL! Tottenham Hotspur 0-2 Fulham (Wilson 6)
Vicario comes out of his box to deal with a pass down the Fulham right and, instead of clearing into the stand, slaps a pass back upfield. Straight to King, who feeds Wilson on the touchline. With Vicario out of position, Wilson sweeps a first-time curler into the unguarded net! Boos ring around the stadium. What a disaster for Spurs!
5 min: That’ll test the resolve of both Tottenham’s players and fans. It’s not been the happiest ground. And …
GOAL! Tottenham Hotspur 0-1 Fulham (Tete 4)
We do have an early goal, though! Chukwueze, making his first start for Fulham tonight, jigs in from the left. His pass across the face of the box looks misplaced, but somehow gets all the way through to Tete, who takes a touch and drives for goal. His low shot takes a flick off Udogie and into the bottom-right corner, foxing the wrong-footed Vicario. What a start for the away side!
2 min: The first groan of the evening isn’t long in coming, though, as Van de Ven slices a simple pass into the stands on 98 seconds.
55 seconds: No.
Fulham kick off. Earlier today, Phil Foden scored the fastest goal of the season after 59 seconds for Manchester City against Leeds … only for Newcastle’s Malick Thiaw to beat that mark by four seconds against Everton a couple of hours later. Something’s clearly in the air today, so can anyone better that here?
The teams are out! Spurs in white, Fulham in third-choice black. It’s a nippy autumnal night. We’ll be off in a minute or two.
Thomas Frank speaks to Sky Sports … “We need to come out with energy and intensity … really put that into the game on and off the ball … the rest will take care of itself.”
… as does Marco Silva. “It is a competition between all the wingers we have … [Samuel Chukwueze] has been knocking at the door … we need the right decisions from all of our players in attack.”
Pre-match predictions / Drinking Vessel Liquid-to-Air Ratio Analysis. “Sterling work re. preamble; by stating the bleeding obvious, that this has got stinker written all over it, we will now of course be treated to a goal-buster of epic proportions. And if not, can’t say we weren’t warned, eh? Lovely stuff, can’t wait” – Dave Estherby
“The Fulham fan (ie. me) says: ‘This is Spurs, they are rubbish at home, we might actually do something away. Ah no, we’re Fulham after all, this is when Spurs find their home form.’ The Spurs fan says: ‘This is Fulham, they are rubbish away, we might actually do something at home. Ah no, we’re Spurs after all, this is when Fulham find their away form.’ The neutral says: ‘One team’s rubbish at home, the other’s rubbish away, this is going to be a crap game.’ No prizes for guessing who’s going to be right” – Richard Hirst
Newcastle have just won 4-1 at Everton; Rob Smyth has the details of that rout. Everton’s failure to take at least a point means Spurs remain in the top half of the table going into tonight’s match, though they’ve been nudged down into 10th by Brentford’s earlier 3-1 victory over Burnley. Fulham remain where they started the day, in 15th position. That’s where they’ll stay whatever happens tonight, but Spurs can go fifth with a win, seventh with a draw.
To Be Fair dept. While the preamble suggests both teams will go into battle tonight more in hope than expectation, there are scraps of comfort to be had. Fulham are coming off the back of that aforementioned win over Sunderland, and that was their second Premier League victory in three games. They’ve also won two of their last three Premier League games against Spurs, drawing the other. Spurs meanwhile can take succour from a far better performance against PSG than the no-show at Arsenal, and the fact they’ve outperformed their xG (11.2) by nearly nine goals (20) this season. Admittedly that stat isn’t quite as impressive when you take into account some of their absurdly low xG totals – 0.1 against Chelsea and 0.07 against Arsenal are the two lowest totals of any club so far this season – but when things aren’t clicking, you take whichever positives are on offer, no matter how small.
Tottenham make four changes to the side that started the 5-3 Champions League defeat at Paris Saint-Germain. Kevin Danso, João Palhinha, Destiny Udogie and Mohammed Kudus come in for Djed Spence, Pape Sarr and Rodrigo Bentancur, who drop to the bench, and captain Cristian Romero, who misses out altogether through suspension.
Fulham make one change to their starting XI following their 1-0 home win over Sunderland. Samuel Chukwueze replaces Kevin in attack.
The teams
Tottenham Hotspur: Vicario, Porro, Danso, van de Ven, Udogie, Joao Palhinha, Gray, Kudus, Bergvall, Richarlison, Muani.
Subs: Kinsky, Simons, Tel, Johnson, Spence, Odobert, Sarr, Bentancur, Davies.
Fulham: Leno, Tete, Andersen, Bassey, Sessegnon, Iwobi, Berge, Wilson, King, Chukwueze, Jimenez.
Subs: Lecomte, Cairney, Traore, Cuenca, Kusi-Asare, Lukic, Castagne, Kevin, Smith Rowe.
Referee: Stuart Attwell
VAR: Andy Madley
Preamble
Only Wolverhampton Wanderers have a worse home record so far this season than Tottenham Hotspur; no side have won fewer away points this term than Fulham. The resistible force meets the moveable object at 8pm GMT. It’s on!
