Marko Arnautovic – having played the pivotal role in the victory over Bolton – is more than ready but warned: “It’s not only about Harry Kane.”
The record signing was in outstanding form last night and commented: “I’m really pleased with this, how we played, how we acted. Of course, we can always improve, we had many chances to score more goals, but I think we played very solid and we can progress like that.
“The first three games of the season was not West Ham, but now we’re progressing and getting better.
“Bolton had nothing to lose. They came here and wanted to impress, but I think we handled this perfect. We didn’t let them have any chances, we played solid and we showed good personality and this is the most important thing.
“We have done our job and played well, but the game is gone and we have to focus on Saturday.”
“I don’t know about how the previous matches have gone against Spurs, as this is my first year here, but this is a London derby and we are playing at home, so of course we want to win this game, but it’s going to be a tough challenge,” he said.
“Tottenham is a very good team, but we’re going to see on Saturday. We will recover on Wednesday and then on Thursday and Friday we’re going to work hard to see that we can win this game on Saturday.”
“It’s about the whole team, it’s not only about Harry Kane. It’s never about one player. We need to stop everyone, but we need to focus on us and not on them.
“We need to play our game and we are playing at home, we have the crowd with us, so let’s play on the front foot and we’re going to see how it is.”
The big picture asks do we keep the stable base we have developed during the last couple of games, and therefore don’t make too many changes, or do we take a chance by changing the formation and personel?
On the evidence of last night, which was a breeze against hopeless opposition, we showed we have some players looking for a first team chance. On the other hand we have to switch back to the real world of playing a very strong Tottenham side.
With Ginge missing, we could bring in Ogbonna who scored last night, but I would still rather see Rice take that place in a back 3.
I think Bilic will want the same holding players as the last 2 prem games, even though Check is still re-finding his feet.
Arnie up front? At whose expense? We can’t say Nobles this time, because he hasn’t played lol.
I can only think we will have a very good bench waiting to come on.
Arnie was the standout man for much of the game,will be great if he stays on form and with Antonio and himself switching sides will be a pain in the arse for a lot of full backs.The only worry I have as I have spoke to a Stoke fan,he says he will play superb 1 game in 3-4, although he was gutted he’d left.He added that you’ll end up frustrated with him.Seems I might have been speaking to Nostradamus, but we shall see. COYI