Tottenham Hotspur 1 (Alli 86) v Watford 1 (Doucoure 6), played at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, on Saturday 19 October, attendance 58,754.
Welcome back to Premier London derbies (PLDs) with the questions: “Was Spurs v Watford a real PLDs game?”, and “Was it a goal?”. One thing it wasn’t was Mauricio Pochettino’s last game in charge of Spurs. He was very much in charge of a Spurs team, themselves in total charge of the game against a weakly competitive Crvena Zvezda (“Red Star Belgrade” to you and me) when we visited the iconic Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Tuesday evening. No need for V.A.R. to rescue Tottenham again, as it may have done eventually allowing Dele Alli’s late equalizer, to cancel out Abdoulaye Doucoure’s early goal for the Hornets, and absolving Jan Vertonghen’s foul-looking lunge to clear from Gerard Deulofeu in this game against Watford.
This weekend though we are back to a full-scale PLDs game which will be Crystal Palace’s 100th F.A. Premier League London derby when they are away to the Arsenal on Sunday 27 October. That will be 3 straight away PLDs for Palace this season already, with their fourth to come against Chelsea on 9 November. Can the Eagles emulate last season’s win (2-3) at the Emirates Stadium and make it a quarter-century (25) of wins in their century (100) of Premier London derbies (PLDs)? We shall see.
Until next time, enjoy your football, Andrew at PLDs