European football weekend preview

Tottenham v Chelsea, Saturday 1245

The early kick-off on Saturday has a few storylines running through it. The master and the apprentice relationship between Jose Mourinho and his former assistant Andre Villas-Boas being the main one. They have not exactly been the best of friends since their parting of ways and they bring two of the league’s best side’s so far to this match. Tottenham have somewhat slipped under the radar for their good start, probably due to not blowing sides away as yet.

I always put emphasis on defensive attributes now, having been stung previously when preferring attacking stats. Tottenham have so far only conceded a single goal this season and have also not lost a match. The signings made over the summer with the Gareth Bale money, for me, make them a much stronger side and I certainly wouldn’t rule out a serious push towards the peak of the table the way they’re going. If they sign another reliable striker in January, they would have almost a perfectly balanced squad. AVB also seems to be handling the rotation of players well in these early days.

Chelsea haven’t started as well under Jose Mourinho as many expected. You could even argue that Rafael Benitez had them playing better towards the end of last season. That being said, Mourinho is not doing terribly. The main gripe people have is with his, now typical, side-lining of formerly important players. The fact he has done this at seemingly every club he has managed has made his decision to keep Juan Mata and David Luiz away from the side seem a little childish to some observers. Chelsea look to me to be a typical Mourinho side currently, just without a reliable goalscorer. The decision to let Romelu Lukaku go out on loan and to be stuck with Fernando Torres and Demba Ba shows up the paucity of Chelsea’s options. I think Mourinho would happily leave this match with a draw and his side look a bit short for a win to me.

Hull City v West Ham, Saturday 1500

I’m struggling a little bit to find anything that stands out as a bet in the Premier League at the weekend to be quite honest. It’s never easy anyway, but only this and the Fulham v Cardiff match seem to represent anything like value for me. I’m going to plump for this as the payout will be bigger.

Hull have started the season better than many expected under Steve Bruce following promotion. I have mentioned before that I am not at all sold on Bruce’s abilities as a manager and think he’s often wasted a lot of money on not improving Birmingham and Sunderland. However, he can certainly get a side to a position of safety in the Premier League, I just wouldn’t expect any more. With Hull, he looks to be going the same way. To give him some more credit, I also believe the signing of Tom Huddlestone may well be one of the best bits of business this summer. Whilst he never lived up to his early billing at Tottenham, he showed that even in the higher reaches of the league he can be a valuable player. His early passing and settling influence in Hull’s midfield have been a huge boost to the side. Unfortunately with only Danny Graham as a striker, Hull do look a little light on goals.

West Ham are still after a first away win in six months in the Premier League. This didn’t harm them too much last season as they finished tenth and could be put down to a definite tactical approach by manager Sam Allardyce. Allardyce has always been a pragmatist and will know that his side aren’t going to crack Europe any time soon and that mid-table is about their position. With this in mind, their best chances is to avoid relegation scraps and hope for a good cup run or surge up the league. This will be done on the back of not losing many away matches and making the Boleyn Ground something of a fortress. So the set-up for away matches is damage limitation. They also lack a goalscorer, especially with Andy Carroll again suffering from an injury.