Tottenham Hotspur vs. Norwich City: Match Preview, Projected Lineups & Predictions

Surprise. Tottenham Hotspur take on Norwich City at Carrow Road today in a rare Tuesday mid-week match, just hours after the close of the January transfer window.

Spurs are a few days removed from a dominating, yet strangely unconvincing, 4-1 FA Cup victory at Colchester United, and are now back in league action. Boasting the joint best goal differential in the Premier League, Spurs are five points behind league leading Leicester City, and just two points out of second place. A win today, combined with Leicester dropping points to Liverpool, makes prospects of a Spurs title challenge extremely exciting.

Norwich, by contrast, are struggling and are only two points above the drop zone coming off of an exciting but demoralizing 5-4 home loss to Liverpool last week. Any kind of result against Tottenham should be considered important points, and the four goals they scored against ‘Pool show that they have some offensive weaponry that Spurs shouldn't take lightly.

And Tottenham will likely be debuting its new defensive partnership, with Austrian center back Kevin Wimmer making his first Premier League start alongside Toby Alderweireld. This match could be a bellwether as to Spurs' defensive efficacy for the next few weeks. A solid match from Wimmer should help assuage any jitters from Spurs fans about the wheels falling off the wagon.

Can Tottenham continue to keep pace with Leicester, Manchester City, and Arsenal with an away win today? We shall see.

How to Watch

Date/time: Tuesday, February 2, 2016, 7:45 p.m.. (UK), 2:45 p.m. ET (USA)
Venue: Carrow Road, Norwich, UK
Official: Kevin Friend
TV: NBC Premier League Extra Time [The "extra channels"] (USA), not televised (UK), Sportsnet World (Canada), Fox Sports 2 (Australia), other listings at livesoccertv.com
Streaming: NBC Sports Live Extra (USA)
Radio: Audio streamed at tottenhamhotspur.com, also BBC Radio London and TalkSport

Projected Lineup

The biggest question surrounding Tottenham's lineup today basically comes down to whether Erik Lamela or Son Heung-Min gets the nod. Mauricio Pochettino often has his set players, and lately it's been Lamela getting the starts in the attacking midfield band ahead of Sonny. But Son made his move into the side in Spurs' last league match, with Lamela playing 90 minutes against Colchester on Saturday. With only three days rest between matches, my guess is that we'll see Sonny alongside Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen today, with Lamela coming in as an impact substitute late.

I don't anticipate many other changes, apart from Wimmer stepping in for Vertonghen. We've seen the Dier-Dembele pivot enough to know it's Poche's first choice pairing, and with Rose/Trippier playing at Colchester, the rotation puts us back to our "first choice" league fullbacks of Kyle Walker and Ben Davies. I am dumb: Davies started at Colchester, not Rose, so I don't know what we'll see fullback-wise. But I'm sticking with Davies because reasons.

Prediction League

The rules remain the same in the Prediction League -- one point for a correct prediction and a bonus point for getting the score correct. Here are the current standings:

Name	Score
Mechanick	16
Ed F.	14
Matthew Pachniuk	14
Ben Daniels	13
Dustin Menno	12
GN Punk	11
Jake Meador	11
Luke Zimmerman	10
Michael Caley	10
55thVin	10
Skipjack	9
Bryan A.	9
Earl of Shoop	8
Salmon Chase	8

Dustin Menno: Norwich’s two big signings were Scottish Messi and a super young kid from Coventry. I think we’ll be okay. 3-0 Spurs

Michael Caley: TBD

Skipjack: 69-0 Spurs. It will be nice.

Ben Daniels: 4-1 seems to be our favorite scoreline so I'm going with that. 4-1 Spurs.

55thVin: F*** you, Ben, for picking this scoreline one minute before me. Ben Daniels is an a***hole. That's my analysis. 4-1 Spurs.

Luke Zimmerman: Norwich City gonna Norwich City. Spurs are going to let off some steam to the tune of a 2-0 win that won’t even feel that close. 2-0 Spurs

Earl of Shoop: Good clubs beat Norwich.

Tottenham are a good club.

∴ Tottenham beat Norwich

Spurs 3-1

Matt Pachniuk: We've always had Norwich in our back pocket and today will be no different.  Don't think we will sweat too much.  3-0 Spurs.

Jake Meador: Matt - Other than the time they beat us late in the season at the Lane totally screwed us for top four.But yes, we should win today. I'll say 3-2 Spurs--probably due for a couple defensive wobbles w/ Wimmer making his first EPL star.

GN Punk: I don't expect to see the feisty, upbeat Norwich that took it to Pool. We're much better and we're playing well. Spurs 3-0

Brian Mechanick: I am quite scared about the Jan-less defense, but I'm feeling a big Eriksen game gives Spurs a tough road win. Spurs 2-1

Ed F.: In a league with fewer hopeless teams Norwich would probably be struggling to avoid the drop zone this season. You can almost bet that Steven Naismith will get to have a little fun of his own with Jan out though, so calling this as a 4-2 win for Spurs.

Bryan Ashlock: In this same fixture on boxing day, Spurs won 3-0. Since then Norwich have signed Timm Klose, Steven Naismith, Ivo Pinto, Matt Jarvis and Patrick Bamford. They've also lost three consecutive games. Here's to a fourth. 2-0 Spurs