Stevenage v Tottenham Preseason Friendly Preview

Andre Villas-Boas’ first objective in the pre-season friendly at Stevenage will be for a win to get his Tottenham managerial career off on the right foot. He may say that results don’t matter in these matches, and of course they don’t, but he won’t want to lose this game to give his doubters any ammunition. Last season’s FA Cup visit to Stevenage was the first competitive match between the two clubs. They have, however, played a number of preseason friendlies in recent years.

Tottenham-Stevenage Connection

Previous Pre-season Friendlies:

The Lamex Stadium ground, formerly known as Broadhill Way, is not unfamiliar to Tottenham as the reserve team used to play their games there during the early 2000s and as part of that arrangement a Spurs first team squad visited Stevenage for a pre-season friendly each July over a number of years.  The arrangement started in 2001 and ran for six years. It would have been at that ground that a number of Spurs youth players would have had a taste of first team football alongside experienced internationals.

2001  Won 8 – 1  Poyet (3), Ferguson (2), Kamanan, Freund 
The one and only goal Steffen Freund scored during his time with Tottenham – some people have bought the T-shirt.
2002  Won 4 – 0  Anderton (2), Jackson, Rebrov
2003  Won 2 – 0  Acimovic, Postiga
2004  Won 2 – 1  Keane (pen), Defoe
2005  Won 3 – 0  Kanoute, Mido, Defoe
2006  Won 3 – 0  Defoe (2) (1 pen), Berbatov (pen) 
2007  Won 3 – 1  Keane, Bent, Taarabt

The purpose of this friendly match will be to give as many players as possible some time on the pitch to build up their fitness in preparation for more testing challenges in the next three weeks as they prepare for the first Premier League fixture at Newcastle on 18th August. The management team will want to assess the players fitness and to see how they are adapting to new ideas presented to them in training. They will also want to avoid any injuries so caution will be the watchword. The players who were at the Euro 2012 Championships during June have yet to return so the team will be selected from the remainder of the squad and some of the young professionals.

So far, Spurs have played two matches in their build-up – last Saturday a behind closed doors match was played at Spurs Lodge against Brentford. Spurs won 3 – 2 with Sebastien Bassong, Andros Townsend and Coulibaly scoring. The squad which played was: Gomes, Walker, Gallas, , Kaboul, Vertonghen, Bassong, Lennon, Bentley, Jenas, Livermore, Townsend, Pritchard, Coulibaly.

Jermaine Jenas tweeted that he had played his first 45 minutes since December.

The Spurs XI match against Kingstonian gave match practice to some of the Academy players, young professionals coming through from the Academy, Jonathan Miles, Kevin Stewart and Alex Pritchard and some who were out on loan last season – Jordan Archer, Ryan Mason, John Bostock and Nathan Byrne.

The first pre-season friendly often involves two different teams in each half with young professionals playing along side more senior players and presumably, that will be the same this year.

Former Tottenham youth and reserve team goalkeeper, Chris Day, is still with Stevenage having helped them win promotion from the Conference up top Division One. He never made it to the first team although he sat on the bench a record number of times for the first team. His only first team experience was in the ill-fated Intertoto Cup in 1995-96 when Spurs sent out youth, reserve and loan players. Now aged, 36 years, he still showed his ability in his performances in the two FA Cup matches last season.

The Stevenage manager is Gary Smith who is the son of Roger Smith who was a prolific scoring winger for Spurs reserves in the 1960s.

Stevenage were difficult opponents in the FA Cup and are sure to offer stiff opposition again this year – they will be fully committed and looking to make the headlines. Spurs supporters will be looking for a win as Spurs set out on a new campaign under yet another new manager, Andre Villas-Boas.