Sportstar

Welcome to Sportstar’s live coverage of the Premier League match between Tottenham and Ipswich Town, which is being played at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London.

STARTING LINE-UPS:

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR

IPSWICH TOWN

MATCH PREVIEW

Tottenham Hotspur will fancy its chances against 18th-placed Ipswich which is yet to win a match when the two meet in their Premier League clash in London on Sunday.

Spurs, seventh in the league with 16 points from 10 matches, has struggled to put together a winning streak in the league, with two wins and two defeats in its last four matches.

The North London club trails league-leader Liverpool by 12 points, but Postecoglou said it was futile to focus on the standings this early in the season.

“We still have a hell of a long way to go. What’s important for us is to keep progressing in the way we have been. Our football for the large part has been pretty consistent, pretty good,” the Australian said.

“We’ve had a couple of stumbles along the way but within that context, I still think we’re making progress. There’s no point looking at the table now because ultimately it’s where you are at the end of the season that’s going to count.”

Though Spurs look the clear winner on paper, Postecoglou urged caution, adding: “Every league game has the potential to hurt you if you’re not at your best.

“Ipswich will be no different. They were close last week (to winning) and they’ve been close in a number of games. Kieran McKenna has done an unbelievable job since he’s been there and they continue to grow.”

Tottenham faces sanctions from the English Football Association over homophobic chants by Spurs fans at a Premier League match earlier this season.

The chanting took place during Tottenham’s 3-0 victory over Manchester United at Old Trafford on September 29.

The FA charged Spurs with rules breaches because teams are required to ensure that their fans don’t use offensive chants or behave in an “improper, offensive, abusive, indecent, or insulting way with either an express or implied reference to sexual orientation.”

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Tottenham has until next Wednesday to respond to the governing body.

The London club had condemned the “abhorrent homophobic chanting” that took place and had vowed to work with police to take the “strongest possible action” against offenders.

Tottenham Hotspur head coach Ange Postecoglou is solely focused on the task at hand and not getting distracted by the Premier League table at this stage of the season, he said after his side came back from behind to crush Aston Villa 4-1 on Sunday.

Two second-half goals from new signing Dominic Solanke and a sublime James Maddison free-kick helped the home side make a comeback and overwhelm sixth-placed Villa, which was on a seven-match unbeaten run in the league.

Spurs climbed to seventh in the league on 16 points, two fewer than Villa.

“Yeah potentially, I don’t spend too much time thinking about it,” Postecoglou told reporters when asked if there is a more open field for Champions League qualification spots this campaign.

“But it looks like there’s a lot more congestion in terms of the field itself. Some of that I think is just the attrition rate of players at the moment, which is making it hard for teams to get into smooth water, so to speak.

“The table is only important for me at the end of the year. While we’re running in the race, I don’t like looking either side of me.

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“I keep saying to the players: if I was a race-horse, and I’m not, it would be one with blinkers. I’m just looking at the finish line.”

Spurs’ struggles to defend set-pieces continued when Villa’s Morgan Rogers poked home from a yard out after Lucas Digne’s corner was flicked on into the six-yard box.

“Yeah, look, we conceded from a set-piece. I know I’m on my own on this, I don’t like them. To me... it looks like a (rugby) scrum. I just don’t think that’s what football’s about,” he said.

“But it’s part of football these days, where you can just drop the ball in the box and people can fight over it. So disappointing for us to concede from that, but in general I thought we handled their set pieces really well.

“It was great for us to score another one again from an attacking set piece, we’re scoring goals from different areas, that’s important.”

Dominic Solanke scored twice as Tottenham thrashed Aston Villa 4-1 in the Premier League on Sunday.

The forward struck two goals in the space of four second-half minutes at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium after Villa had led at the break.

Solanke scored in the 75th and 79th as Spurs produced a stunning second-half performance to follow up its victory against Manchester City in the League Cup on Wednesday.

Morgan Rogers had given Champions League-chasing Villa the lead in the 32nd minute, but Brennan Johnson leveled the game four minutes after the break.

Solanke’s double put Spurs 3-1 ahead and James Maddison curled a free kick into the top corner in the sixth minute of added time.

Tottenham is up to seventh in the standings, while fifth-place Villa missed out on the chance to move into the top three.

Tottenham Hotspur captain Son Heung-min is regaining fitness but will miss Wednesday’s League Cup home game against Manchester City alongside injured Wilson Odobert, manager Ange Postecoglou said on Tuesday.

Son, who felt sore in his hamstring after scoring in a 4-1 win over West Ham United this month, was left out of last week’s Europa League clash with AZ Alkmaar and then missed a 1-0 Premier League loss at Crystal Palace on Sunday.

Odobert, who was out of action for more than a month due to a hamstring injury, returned as a substitute in the 1-0 win over Alkmaar, but Postecoglou said the winger suffered a serious setback in the “same area”.

“Son is almost fit, but probably from our perspective, we’ll aim for the weekend. We’re quite confident he’ll be right for the weekend,” Postecoglou told reporters.

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“The only other one missing out, which is a bit of a disappointment is Wilson, who has had a setback during the week, and it seems like it is a serious one, so we’re just waiting for more information.

“From the weekend, everybody is okay, and Djed (Spence) is back training.”

Spurs, which had a run of five wins in a row before its loss at Brighton & Hove Albion earlier this month, couldn’t score against Palace, but Postecoglou believed persisting with the principles and maintaining consistency can bring them back to winning ways.

“The players and everyone was disappointed with the way things went for us at Palace, both performance and outcome, but we’ve got to get away from these reactions and try to atone for something,” Postecoglou said.

“Part of the process for us is to make sure in every game we stick to our principles irrespective of what has happened in the past.”

With Manchester United sacking Erik Ten Hag, Postecoglou said, “There is no job security,” and he is working hard to bring success to Spurs while he is there.

“I understand I won’t be here forever, but I work as if I will be and make decisions that will get us to be a successful club.

“If you deviate from that, then the inevitability is the end will probably come sooner than you want,” he added.

Crystal Palace beat Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 in the Premier League on Sunday thanks to a Jean-Philippe Mateta goal to finally claim its first win of the season and climb out of the relegation zone.

Palace scored at the half-hour mark when Daniel Munoz pinched the ball from Spurs centre-back Micky van de Ven and put a cross into the box which was expertly flicked by Eberechi Eze to an unmarked Mateta who fired home.

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The home side played with far more intensity than Tottenham, who looked a bit fatigued after its Europa League win over AZ Alkmaar three days ago, while the absence of forward Son Heung-min blunted its attack.

Palace could have scored more if not for Spurs keeper Guglielmo Vicario who made several saves, but it was Oliver Glasner’s side that sealed the three points to move up to 17th while Spurs remain in eighth place.

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Tottenham Hotspur will seek to maintain its strong start in the Europa League without captain Son Heung-min against AZ Alkmaar on Thursday after manager Ange Postecoglou confirmed the South Korean will not be involved.

“Sonny was a bit sore after the weekend, he was never going to be involved tomorrow,” Postecoglou told reporters,” We’ll leave him out and we’ll see how he is from there.”

The London club has won its opening two games in the competition and Postecoglou said the visit of Alkmaar could allow one or two fringe players to impress.

Youngsters such as Mikey Moore, Will Lankshear and Lucas Bergvall all started in the 2-1 away win against Hungarian side Ferencvaros earlier this month.

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“We’ve started the competition really well. Whenever you play away in Europe, it’s a different challenge. We’ve exposed our younger players to European football which is a positive,” Australian Postecoglou said.

“We weren’t in Europe last year and I thought we missed it. We’ve started the competition well but there’s still a long way to go. One step at a time for us.”

Both Wilson Odobert and Richarlison are in contention for Thursday’s game after returning to training after injuries.

Tottenham sits third in the 36-team group with six points while AZ Alkmaar has three points.

Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou described his team’s second-half collapse in the 3-2 loss at Brighton as “unacceptable” and “as bad as it gets.”

Spurs conceded three goals in an 18-minute span soon after half-time in a meltdown that might be familiar to the club’s fans.

According to Opta, which supplies statistics for the Premier League, it’s the 10th time that Tottenham has lost a Premier League game in which the team has led by two or more goals.

“It is a terrible loss for us — as bad as it gets,” said Postecoglou, whose side was 2-0 up after goals by Brennan Johnson and James Maddison.

The Australian coach, who is in his second season at Tottenham, said it was the “worst defeat since I’ve been here.”

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“Unacceptable second half. Nowhere near where we should be. We got carried away with how we were going,” he said. “We kind of accepted our fate and it is hard to understand as we’ve not done that while I’ve been here. We paid the price.”

Tottenham was coming off a run of five straight wins, which included a 3-0 victory at Manchester United that was widely lauded for the way Postecoglou’s team played.

“The problem is we were travelling along too smoothly — football and life will trip you up if you get too far ahead of yourself,” Postecoglou said.

Maddison said his team “lost complete control of the game.”

“In adversity in the Premier League... the best teams stay strong in that moment and weather the storm,” he said. “We definitely didn’t do that.”

Brighton & Hove Albion staged a storming second-half comeback with Danny Welbeck sealing a 3-2 home win over Tottenham Hotspur in a topsy-turvy Premier League clash on Sunday.

Goals by Brennan Johnson and James Maddison gave a dominant Spurs side a thoroughly deserved 2-0 lead at the interval.

But the game was turned upside down after the break as Tottenham’s defence fell apart under pressure to concede three goals in the space of 18 minutes.

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Yankuba Minteh pulled a goal back for the host three minutes after the restart before Georginio Rutter levelled from close range. Welbeck then headed Brighton’s third after more flimsy defending by the visitor.

Brighton’s first win in five league games lifted it above Spurs into sixth place in the table with 12 points from seven games, while Tottenham is in ninth spot on 10.