Thursday, March 20, 2014

Fixture Focus - Spurs (20 March 2014)

Sport Lisboa e Benfica vs Tottenham Hotspur
(Europa League Round of 16, Second Leg)

European dreams are slowly fading away as past league defeats and poor showing at home against our Portuguese opponents hampered our Champions League qualification and Europa silverware respectively. Sherwood sure have a very steep uphill to climb now.

With a 1-3 deficit, Spurs will be hoping to garner some precious away goals when we visit Benfica’s home ground at Lisbon. But to make matters worse, our regular defenders would not be there to guard our goals, with Vertonghen (suspended), Dawson and Chiriches (injured) out, and Kaboul a doubtful. A very tall order to overcome the game indeed.

Benfica’s European home game record is impressive, with just 1 defeat all the way back in 2012. Although Jesus’ side have 1 suspension in the form of centre defender Silvio, his Portuguese and Latin American ensemble would likely cause more chaos for our boys.

In bowling terms, we had just secured a turkey, but this turkey is not about 3 strikes in a row, but 3 defeats instead. Hope (emphasis bold) we do not get a four-bagger with this one.

COYS!

No comments: