Another disappointing result at the weekend. More dropped points against the bottom clubs. Despite what many yido's are saying at the moment fourth spot is certainly not out of our grasp yet, we still have a game in hand on City and we have to play them soon.
However it does mean that we need to start pulling the finger out very soon, no more excuses and no more dropped points. The games we have left now are even more crucial than before and so we need to come together as a team and make it happen.
Tonight could be the very catalyst for that, in what has been described as the biggest game of our history (not sure about that but definitely of the last 20/30 years) we travel to The Estadio Santiago Bernabéu or The Bernabéu to you and I.
Real Madrid in the quarter finals of The Champions League is quite an occassion and so the boys must be on top form if we are to come out with a good result! The kind of performance against AC Milan away would be just the trick, however even with that its going to be a difficult one.
When we first got through to the group stages I said I just wanted us to qualify, after winning the group and after our displays against Milan I want more. Its true we have done ourselves proud as a club and even if it does go wrong in the quarters we can still hold our heads high, however I'm a positive Spurs fan and I want some success this year! I think this is echoed around most of Tottenham as well!
There has been a lot said about injuries of late, we have a list as long as Santa's at the moment of players out - Kranjcar appearing to be the latest one, however Real aren't completely unscathed either. Benzema, Gago and Leon are all out. With Marcelo and Di Maria big doubts. The big one is that Ronaldo has been included in the squad for the match, he has been injured for the last few weeks and is obviously not 100% but has been risked so we will see if he starts or not. Quite frankly I expect him to.
A good plus is that a large number of the Madrid squad have yellow cards which could be a huge boost for us in the second leg if they pick up a caution tonight! On the other hand we have none.
Madrid of course lost their first home game for an age at the weekend, a 0-1 defeat to Sporting Gijon. This was also Mourinho's first home defeat for over nine years - some record! However they do come to an end eventually and hopefully this is good news for us! In La Liga they are 8 points off of top placed Barcelona and although second in the table are getting a lot of stick from the Spanish press and fans alike...
We all know about our recent run of form, not great in The Premier League but like I said this provides the opportunity to kick start ourselves back into gear! Kranjcar and Pienaar are the latest two injury setbacks and they join the likes of Hutton, King, Woodgate and Kaboul on the growing list. Gallas is a doubt, however I have a sneaky feeling he will start tonight, Huddlestone has now returned and we will probably see him on the bench. Our big news is that Bale is fit and will start tonight as well - hopefully he'll be in a destructive mood and cause problems for Ramos as he did with Maicon!
So what about a team? I'm going for:
Gomes
Corluca - Dawson - Gallas - BAE
Lennon - Sandro - Modric - Bale
VdV
Crouch
I would be very surprised if there was any differences to this to be honest, the only maybe area being the striker but I think Crouchy will get the nod! So thats that, hopefully we will all be in dreamland later on tonight after a convincing win away...I only know this is going to be a very interesting night!
COYS!
By the way for your enjoyment, heres some piccies of the lads training in The Bernabéu:
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