Hey kiddies, I won't be around to provide play by play for you in this game thread, but I wanted to provide you with a venue to talk amongst yourselves. With as poor as Werder Bremen has played in the Bundesliga this season, we really should be bulldozing them at the Lane. They have the talent to beat anyone in the world, but that talent is playing like total crap right now. So much so that Richard, the editor at the Mothership predicted Spurs would pull off a 3-0 victory. With Jermain Defoe and Rafael van der Vaart sitting while Jermaine Jenas starts I can't imagine it will be that emphatic, but surely we should win. We can clinch passage through to the UEFA Champions League group stages, let's get it done.
Tottenham Hotspur lineup (4-4-2): Gomes / Assou-Ekotto, Gallas, Kaboul, Hutton / Bale, Modric, Jenas, Lennon / Crouch, Pavlyuchenko
Werder Bremen lineup (4-4-2): Wiese / Schmidt, Proedl, Mertesacker, Fritz / Kroos, Bargfrede, Jensen, Marin / Hunt, Sandro Wagner
Werder are without both of their top two true strikers, Almeida and Pizzaro. They're also without the versatile Wesley, who was probably their best player before he got injured. The previously impressive Per Mertesacker has been poor this year, and so has the rest of his defense. Normally I'm very against the Crouch-Pav partnership because of its incredible lack of speed, but Werder's defense is pretty poor. Expect a 45th minute cameo for Defoe if we're awful, a 60th minute appearance if it's a close one, or a very short appearance (15 minutes or less) if we're kicking ass and taking names.
Kickoff is at 2:45 pm ET. I won't be commenting and Ryan's at a bar where the internet is down, so you'll be talking amongst yourselves today. Hopefully either Ryan or myself will be available to provide some commentary for the Liverpool game. COYS!