First match thread for the Spurs section!
Match Details
Match Date\Time: Saturday, 12:45 p.m. local, 7:45 a.m. ET
Venue: The Stadium of Light, Sunderland, England
TV: Fox Soccer Channel (U.S. English), Fox Deportes (U.S. Spanish), Sky Sports 2, Sky Sports HD (U.K.), Sportsnet World (Canada)

Injuries for Spurs:
Out: Younes Kaboul (knee). In doubt: Clint Dempsey (groin), Tom Huddlestone (knee), Benoit Assou-Ekotto (knee), Moussa Dembele (hip).

Predicting Lineups:

Lloris, Walker, Gallas, Vertoghen, Naughton, Lennon, Sandro, Brave Scotty Parker, Bale, Defou, Adebayor

Sunderland, who were the first club outside the original 12 members to join the Football League, host Tottenham Hotspur at the Stadium of Light in the 20th round of Premier League matches on Saturday 29th December 2012, KO 12:45.

Sunderland are currently in 13th place in the table on 22 points, while Spurs are in 4th place with 33 points.

This will be the 113th time the two clubs have met.

The first meeting came at Northumberland Park in March 1898 when Spurs were playing in the Southern League in a friendly which Sunderland won 2-0.

A second meeting followed within the year when Spurs beat Sunderland 2-1 in the old second round (today's fourth round) of the FA Cup in February 1899.

Tottenham's first visit to Sunderland came during a mini tour of the North-East to celebrate the turn of the new Century with Spurs winning the friendly match 3-1 on 2nd January 1900.

The first Football League meetings between the two clubs saw Sunderland win at home 3-1 in September 1909 and Spurs having a comprehensive win in the return fixture at White Hart Lane 5-1.

Tottenham Hotspur's all-time record attendance of 75,038 at White Hart Lane came in an FA Cup 6th round match against Sunderland in March 1938. Sundeland won the game 1-0. This was the only FA Cup match Sunderland have won out of the 7 played so far with Spurs winning five and one game drawn.

The only two League matches ever played outside the Top Flight came during 1977-78 when Spurs won at Roker Park 2-1 but lost the return Division Two match at the Lane 3-2.

The clubs first met in the Football League Cup in November 1984 with Spurs drawing 0-0 away but Sunderland winning the replay at the Lane 2-1.
The three matches in the competition have resulted in a win each and one game drawn.

Since Sunderland joined the Premier League in season 1996-97, no further domestic cup ties have been played between the two clubs.

Spurs have a good record during the Premier League Era with 13 wins to Sunderland's 5 and the remaining 3 games drawn. Spurs have taken an average of 2 points off Sunderland in the 21 matches played so far.

The 2011-12 fixture at White Hart Lane ended in a 1-1 draw with Rafael van der Vaart putting Spurs ahead in the second half only for Sunderland's Asamoah Gyan to equalise three minutes later. The match at Sunderland resulted in a 2-1 win for Spurs with Asamoah Gyan putting the Black Cats ahead after 11 minutes before Michael Dawson's equaliser just before half-time. Niko Kranjcar scored the winner for Spurs in the 57th minute.

Last season's match at White Hart Lane in December resulted in a 1-0 win for Spurs with substitute striker Roman Pavlyuchenko scoring the winner with just over an hour of the match played. The three points won put Spurs in third place in the table for the first time during 2011-12. The match at Sunderland in April 2012 was a goalless draw which produced very few chances for either team.

Overall, Spurs have the upper hand over Sunderland with 45 wins to 38 and 29 of the 112 matches played so far drawn.

They Played for Spurs & Sunderland...

Ben Alnwick
Darren Bent
Ted Birnie (Spurs player, Sunderland trainer & coach)
Ivor Broadis
Fraizer Campbell
Graham Carr (scout with both clubs)
Jim Chalmers
Pascal Chimbonda
Ernie Coquet
John Curtis
Calum Davenport
Jimmy Delvin
Márton Fülöp
Phil Gray
Jim Hartley
Alan Hutton
Joe Knowles
Steed Malbranque
Fred Mearns
Bobby Mimms
Bill Murray
George Payne
Andy Reid
Danny Rose
Louis Saha
Jimmy Seed
Paul Stewart
Teemu Tainio
Chris Waddle
Jack Whitbourne

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This could be a good game, Sunderland will feel confident after their win over City and Tottenham are playing pretty good. Both teams to score twice

well it seems that under AVB now they are more balanced as a team regarding their away fixtures,
they eventually stop relying less in the white hart lane solely for positive results, but they still need a bit more time under avb as it was shown in the game against everton where they lost the game literally in the last 3-4 minutes or something while they had a 1 goal lead

tough fixture but i think spurs will overcome it

1-0 to sunderland against the run of play

how on earth did adebayor miss that? ffs

still spurs aint losing this one

2-1.

important win for them, the team is maturing game after game under avb, they are smart and patient on the ball, i think they can make it top 4 although this season is quite dificult since there is also everton among arsenal fighting for it

once again bale goat player

Sunderland are awful

RealGunner wrote:Sunderland are awful

Didn't they beat City in their last game though? They are awful... but play dirty and crap tactics. So they make themselves a nuisance. In 15th place this year and finished the same last year.

It's really strange how City can never win at SOL. It's been like 10 years since they last won over there lol

Sunderland are really poor and and are not safe at all.

They have a decent attack with Fletcher, McClean, Sessegnon and Johnson. I think they'll stay up.

Watched only the second half and well after Adebayor missing a few close range shots in the first and behind a goal, I knew they would come out playing on the counter regularly. Sunderland had the lead and really should have tried to force men back but they insisted on attacking and left few at the back which met so much space for Lennon and Bale to use their pace and put in a decent cross for either Defoe or Aebayor.
Spurs are very weak defending set pieces I have to say. Always looked like a chance of conceding a goal from one though if it wasn't for the confidence of Lloris, Sunderland could have been back into the game...
I don't like AVBs subs changes for this game and also previous games when he is in the lead. Close score in which the opposition are shaky due to pace and skill, he takes off his three best attacking options in Lennon, Bale and Defoe and replaces them with Dempsey, Sig and Brave Scotty Parker... Brave Scotty Parker I can understand as he controls the midfield better and the flow of the game but the other two it was quite strange.
In the end, the win mattered most and Spurs must feel quite pleased coming 4th half way through the season...

Awful dives from both Defoe and Bale. Disgraceful ffs. Suarez would be getting bashed right now.

Tbh MA, Bale got contact both on the knee and on the arms. Naturally these days, any sort of contact, a player will go down. If there was contact, is wasn't simulation...