After last week’s disgrace, it’s hard to drum up any kind of positivity for this game.
Last season’s dominance over Spurs will always go down as one of Sam Allardyce’s biggest achievements as West Ham boss. Yes he delivered us a day out at Wembley and a promotion back to the big time, but there was something about those three wins against Spurs last season that made it even more special.
Tottenham fans will bang on about how this ‘our’ cup final. What they fail to realise is that it’s probably more of a ‘cup final’ to them these days, especially on Sunday.
We seemingly have nothing to play for other than a top ten finish, and perhaps a spot in the top eight if we can put a run of results together. Spurs will deem finishing outside the top five as a complete failure, leaving them without European competition next season. Simply put, they must beat us if they’re going to realistically make that happen.
That makes Sunday’s game even bigger for them than it is for us, and they’ll be aware that they rarely win a league that immediately follows a Europa League outing.
We’ve been boosted by a few players returning from injury, which is nice. Winston Reid and James Collins are the most notable players to return to fitness, and I think we expect to see Sam Allardyce ring the changes after last week’s embarrassment at West Brom.
Here’s how we may line up against Spurs on Sunday…
Click on Big Sam to reveal
