Tottenham Hotspur v Newcastle United’

Sunday 3rd April at 16:30 at the originally named Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

‘And it’s live’ on Sky’s very own Super Sunday.

As a former history student, I thought I’d do a bit of research on how Tottenham got their nickname of the Spurs’. Here’s a quick overview”Tottenham’s nickname of Spurs is just a short name of the club, but the reason why the club is called Hotspur dates back to the 14th century.

At the time, the famous knight Sir Henry Percy got the nickname Harry Hotspur, it was due to his speed, aggression and courage during battles.

He used to dig his spurs into the horse to make it run faster during the battles with the enemy.

Besides, Harry Hotspur was very fond of cock fights (behave), where spurs were fitted to the cock’s legs.

Henry and his family owned a lot of land around Tottenham, and he himself was immortalised by William Shakespeare in Henry IV. Harry Hotspur is a local legend, up to this day. It should also be noted that Wor Harry was a Northumbrian, so was clearly a Mag!

When football came onto the scene and the club was founded in 1882, people in Tottenham had no doubts ‘ the club should be called Hotspurs FC.

In 1921 Tottenham Hotspurs added a cockerel to the emblem; to date it is a main feature of the football clubs’ logo.

Anyway, I digress’ International breaks are bollox. It’ll have been a long old wait of 17 days from the meek surrender at Goodison Park to our fourth away trip on the bounce as we head to Norf Landan to take on a resurgent Spurs. I’m not counting the 5-0 win at Gulf FC that apparently took place on Thursday 24th March, particularly as the lesser seen Dwight Gayle popped a couple in.

We head to the capital on the back of two narrow 1-0 defeats at Chelsea and Everton, so we’ll be conscious of those below us who are picking up the odd win here and there. We currently sit 14th in the table, with a nine-point cushion and Brentford, Leeds and Everton between us and the drop zone. Our goal difference also gives us an additional point in theory. Whilst murmurings in the local boozers suggest we’re safe, I’ll never take anything for granted. This is Newcastle United remember and anything can happen!! I took some time to study the remaining fixtures, and Everton have a nightmare run coming up, so I’m not particularly worried but we still need to keep pushing for the additional 4-6 points to guarantee safety.

Spurs have been, well very Spursy this season. With 16 wins, a miserly 3 draws and 10 defeats, they sit one position and 3 points outside the coveted Champions League places. Their arch-rivals currently occupy that spot and have a game in hand too. They’ve notched 47 times this season and conceded a slightly worrying (for them) 36 times, so they can clearly be got at.

At home, they’ve won 9, drawn 1 and lost 4 times, with their reverses coming to Chelsea, Man Utd, Southampton and Wolves.

One of their own, (Harry ‘get some sleep’ Kane) has bagged 12 league goals so far this season in 28 starts, which is on the low side for him. I put this down to his early season strop and his clear desire to join the blue half of Manchester. He’s seemingly put this aside and is scoring much more regularly in recent games. His first league goal of the season at SJP in our first game since the takeover, which was a late start for him! Looking at their stats, their mercurial South Korean, Son, is currently sitting on 13 and one goal ahead of the England skipper. ‘Sonny’ is a player that I love, and it would be immense if we could attract his type of calibre in the summer.

I thought their January window was a good one, with both Dejan Kulusevski and Rodrigo Bentacour arriving on loan from Juventus. Both have looked like excellent temporary acquisitions, with the former keeping the impressive Lucas Moura out of the starting line-up.

Onto the Mags and I’ve read some rumours that, once again, our number one custodian is injured, so it is looking likely that Karl Darlow will come into replace him, which worries me’ a lot’

It’ll be interesting to see how Wor Eddie shapes up in the midfield area. I’d expect him to go with Shelvey, Big Joe and Bruno, but who knows? I’d also like to see our match winner, ASM back and firing, with Fraser back on the right of the midfield 5. One thing I was delighted to see from the Dubai photos was both Wilson and Trippier back in light training and having them back in a few weeks will give us a great fillip in the final run of games.

So, onto the dreaded prediction then. We don’t have a great recent record at Spurs and I can’t see that changing this Sunday in front of the Sky cameras, so I’m going for a 2-0 reverse, with Kane and his usual penalty and Son notching for the home side.

Safe journey to the travelling Mags and Howay the Lads’

Paul Karter – @peekeekay