Preview - Tottenham vs. West Ham

Last weeks result against lowly Hull is a season low, and it can't get much worse. Again us fans can feel robbed, another bit of bad luck has cost us. A poor referee has stolen any points from us. 

After last week’s disappointing result at Hull City, what better way to pick ourselves up than a London derby with Spurs.

We now have a tough few fixtures ahead of us and I without Carroll we're going to be in real trouble.

If it wasn’t for Gareth Bale’s left foot, we probably would have taken three points from Spurs last season. There we were, wishing that Gareth Bale wasn’t as good as he was and, if all else failed, that he didn’t play for Tottenham.

Well, we got our wish, but at the expense of them spending the £80million Real Madrid paid for him on a group of players that, arguably, make them a lot stronger this time around.

One positive we can touch upon, though, is our shrinking injury list. Stewart Downing and Joe Cole are back fit and raring to go, leaving just Alou Diarra and Andy Carroll as our only remaining long-term absentees.

So what can we expect on Sunday afternoon? It’s certainly going to be a long 90 minutes for us if you go buy the current form of both sides, but you can expect the players to give everything they’ve got. Although, on recent evidence, that probably won’t be much. Don’t get me wrong but, if we can’t score away to Hull City, what chance do we have of scoring away to Spurs.

It is to be hoped that the headlines are driven by what happens on the field, rather than off it where it is to be expected that Tottenham's fans will sing what they want.

Only Olivier Giroud and John Terry have scored against them in 11 games so far. West Ham need a tonic after a poor spell. 

Younes Kaboul will miss out after picking up a knee injury in Spurs’ Europa League win over Anzhi on Thursday night.

Danny Rose, Aaron Lennon and Etienne Capoue are not expected to return until after the international break.

Jermain Defoe’s goal scoring form in the Europa League may go unnoticed, though, with Roberto Soldado expected to get the nod up front.

Each week we have all hoped he would try someone else in place of Modibo Maiga but he has started with him each time. Goals continue to be our problem and, once again, we need to hold our fire until we see or hear the starting line-up. My guess is it will be the same starting XI that played Hull and, if that’s the way it’s going to be, positive predictions are hard to come by.

I'll predict a 3-0 loss, it's not going to be a nice afternoon.

COYI