Fulham – Tottenham, early preview

Despite Fulham being at the bottom of the table they built on their success in games with Everton and West Ham, having been three matches undefeated since. The Cottagers form might concern in light of new information from The Athletic insiders, who claim that some Tottenham players aren’t satisfied with Jose Mourinho training methods and lack of attacking actions in-game. The Portugese still didn’t lose the dressing room, and Daniel Levy surely counts on him as a long-term investment, but some questions remain.

The biggest claim is tactical overload from the manager and ignoring attack. Some players are annoyed that Mourinho training is mostly built on avoiding mistakes. In possession play Tottenham still rely on combinations worked out under Pochettino.

Because of the managers’ different approaches the training also differs. Pochettino mostly strived to domination and possession, while Mourinho concentrated on making new plans for every rival, every new match. So the training isn’t focused on the Tottenham game, but rather on the strengths and weak sides of the rival. Tasks mostly adapted to different scenarios, anticipated by Mourinho, and potential mistakes he wants to avoid.

Sometimes this attention to details brings big success, as in cases with “Manchester City”, “Manchester United”, “Arsenal”, but some players get bored doing the same aspects again and again. The insiders in the locker room said that they are “tactically overloaded”. They’re also not very happy with the attacking plan, centered on Jose relying on star players up top to create chances.

Some changes we’ve already seen in Burnley and Wolfsberger annihilations with Bale and Alli finding that old spark, old joy in the game, which might be a big help to Son and Kane for the remainder of the season.

As for Fulham, they dominated Crystal Palace by possession with 59% and shot attempts with 16 and The Eagles having just 3. Plus, the Cottagers don’t participate in European football, so they have more days to recover.

Tottenham, on the other hand, has only Giovani Lo Celso as injured and built up confidence in the last two games. As considered by the bookmaker-ratings.com analyst the success in these games was crucial after two losses in the matches with direct competition for top four, West Ham and Manchester City.

In the last game against Burnley Spurs had 58% possession, and while Burnley had 10 goal attempts Tottenham made 16.

It’s hard to predict what’s going to happen in this game, but a lot depends on the manager approach. If we’ll see Garreth Bale in the same form starting from the first minutes he might make a difference too.