Tottenham Against Swansea City At White Hart Lane – Match Preview

Tottenham and Swansea have met in the League at White Hart Lane on fifteen occasions. Spurs will be looking to maintain their undefeated record against the Swans as they look for a second consecutive League win at the start of the new season.

Jan Vertonghen scored winner against Swansea last season [@edgey642]Tottenham’s Home Record Against Swansea

P  15  W  13  D  2  L  0  For  46  Ag  11

Last Visit:

Dec. 2012  Won 1 – 0  Vertonghen

It was a late goal from Jan Vertonghen last season which maintained Tottenham’s undefeated record at home to Swansea City. Andros Townsend made an immediate impact having come on as a substitute in place of the injured Emmanuel Adebayor. His forward run, three minutes after being introduced, was brought to an abrupt end with a foul and from the free-kick the ball flicked off a defender’s head and fell for Vertonghen to fire home his first League goal for Spurs with 15 minutes to play.

Related article: Previous League Meetings

Swansea City

Swansea have made a big impression in their two seasons in the Premier League. They finished 11th in 2011-12 and were 9th last season with the added bonus of winning the Capital One Cup with a resounding 5 – 0 win  over Bradford City at Wembley. This gained them qualification for the Europa League which meant an early start to this season.

They defeated Malmo (Sweden) 4 – 0 on aggregate in the 3rd Qualifying Round. A four goal victory in the home leg ensured their progress and an equally comfortable 5 – 1 win over Petrolul Ploiestiin of Romania in last Thursday’s Play-off Round, 1st leg game, should ensure they reach the Group stages.

Having had their Europa League matches, Swansea will have been disappointed to lose 4 – 1 at home to Manchester United in their opening League match. United were clinical in their finishing after scoring two goals in two minutes late in the first half.

Swansea have a strong team with Michu being the surprise star of last season, scoring 22 goals in all competitions. He has scored twice this season in the European games and Swansea have strengthened the team with the acquisition of Wilfried Bony who has scored three goals. Former Tottenham winger, Wayne Routledge scored twice in the Europa League win on Thursday.

They strengthened their midfield by signing Jonjo Shelvey from Liverpool and Jonathan de Guzmán on loan from Villarreal. Jordi Amut, a defender joined from Espanyol and with the experience of two seasons in the Premier League Swansea will be a difficult team to beat. Under Michael Laudrup Swansea have continued to play attractive football and the team has a settled defensive line-up with a hard-working, skilful midfield. He will be looking for an improvement from his team and for them to put last weekend’s disappointing result behind them.

Tottenham

After two good wins in a week, Andre Villas-Boas will be hoping that his players make a quick recovery from their long trip to Georgia in the Europa League. Jan Vertonghen who didn’t travel should be available again but doubts remain over Aaron Lennon and Jermain Defoe. Sandro and Lewis Holtby are working their way back to fitness with both playing for the Under-21 team during the week. Sandro played in the team’s win over Manchester City and Holtby impressed in scoring at West Ham as the team recovered from two down at the interval to win 3 – 2. If Lennon is unavailable, Andros Townsend will be looking to play following his performance against Tbilisi.

This won’t be an easy match for Tottenham. Two well matched footballing teams will be trying to out-play each other and Spurs will hope to build on last weekend’s result and start their home programme with a win. So often last season, it was at home that Spurs failed to win as comfortably as they should, finding it difficult to convert their superiority into goals. With Roberto Soldado in the team they will be looking to show a ruthless streak. A difficult game is in prospect but one from which Spurs will want to take three points.