Sheffield United VS Tottenham

Sheffield United and Tottenham lock horns in this English FA Cup 1/8-finals battle at Bramall Lane early Wednesday morning Beijing time. This is the most prestigious cup competition in England. However, FA is not the main priority for either team this season. Even so, both teams are surely motivated – especially at this point of the competition – lifting the trophy is much more probable than in the first rounds. Neither team have, after all, won too many trophies for decades. Tottenham's excellent Italian manager is, however, expected to moderately rotate his squad. Pedro Porro, Davinson Sanchez, Japhet Tanganga and Ivan Perisic are all pushing to start in defense after watching on from the substitutes' bench in Tottenhams's most recent game against Chelsea last Sunday. Pape Matar Sarr might force his way into center-midfield to replace either Oliver Skipp or Pierre-Emile Hojbjer. South Korean Son Heung-min, who as not been quite his best lately, and Arnaut Danjuma are in contention to replace Dejan Kulusevski and the ultra-skilled Brazilian Richarlison. The always dangerous Kane, Tottenham's most important player, is expected to continue as the centre striker. He has been strong the whole season and I expect him to create - despite not being super-fast - a lot of problems for the hosts' defense! He has said publicly that the possibility of winning the FA does hugely motivate him. I believe that the betting market is giving too much emphasis to the rotation factor – Tottenham do have good enough, even excellent players who are eager to prove their skills to replace some regular starters. I see Tottenham having a 63 % chance to win during the 90 minutes of play and would not be at all surprised to see the come down from the current 1.80-1.85 widely available on the betting market.

We must remember that Sheffield United have not faced a team even close to Tottenham's caliber for a long time. In their most recent game in the FA Cup they beat Wrexham 3-1 at home as massive favorites – priced around 1.40 to win during the 90 minutes of football. I was not overly impressed by their performance but they did deserve to win after all. The first leg in Wales was a 3-3 draw. I want to highlight that Wrexham play in the National League, fifth tier and are a very small team compared the Sheffield United, not to mention Tottenham! They are currently in the 4th place in the Premier League standings. They have won four of the latest five games in this league. Tottenham will most probably qualify for the UEFA Champions League once again - they made it to the Play Offs this season and lock horns with Italian champions AC Milan. Wrexham could easily have won the first leg as they recorded many more goal attempts (21-13), total passes, completed passes, attacks and dangerous attacks – 65- 35. The hosts play in the Championship, the second tier and are unarguably having a pretty strong season. They have 64 points to their account and have a good score difference of 55:30. We should, however, remember , that the difference between the Championship and the Premier League is massive! Sheffield United have not been very convincing in the Championship lately despite winning their most recent match against Watford 1-0 at home as clear favorites according to the betting market.Before this they lost two games in a row allowing a total of a whopping six goals in these matches! Their defense was surprisingly shaky and somewhat poorly unorganized against both Millwall away from home - final score 3-2 and at home against Middlesbrough at home (1-3). Both teams are good in the Championship but Sheffield United should really improve a lot defensively – or get - lucky to stop Tottenham's highly skilled offensive players. The hosts will surely struggle score here and one goal might well be enough for Tottenham. However, I believe Tottenham will net the ball twice! Yes, Tottenham can be a little erratic team sometimes and on a bad day they can indeed be pretty lame. However, these matches are rare after all and we must remember that even probably the best team in the world, Manchester City, and Arsenal have played several bad games this season! Tottenham beat Chelsea at home on Sunday 2-0 and fully deserved to win as they recorded 0.89 in expected goals (xG). Chelsea managed just 0.45. Indeed, I loved the way Tottenham shut down Chelsea's defense. I want to mention that Chelsea spent hundreds of millions of euros in the January transfer window and on looked better than Tottenham.. Before the Chelsea game Tottenham beat West Ham, a better team than the standings reflect, also 2-0 at home. Antonio Conte's men are surely high in confidence after beating Chelsea - quite weirdly as underdogs according to the bookies.

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北京时间周三凌晨，英国足总杯1/8决赛谢菲尔德联队和热刺队在布拉莫尔巷展开激战。这是英国最负盛名的杯赛。然而，英足总并不是这支球队本赛季的首要任务。即便如此，两支球队肯定都很有动力——特别是在比赛的这一点上——举起奖杯的可能性比第一轮大得多。毕竟，这两支球队几十年来都没有赢得太多奖杯。然而，热刺出色的意大利教练预计会适度轮换他的阵容。佩德罗·波罗、达文森·桑切斯、贾菲尔特·坦甘加和伊万·佩里西奇在替补席上观看了热刺上周日对阵切尔西的比赛后，都在争取首发防守。帕普·马塔尔·萨尔可能会强行进入中场，取代奥利弗·斯基普或皮埃尔-埃米尔·霍比杰。最近状态不佳的韩国孙兴慜和阿瑙特·丹朱马有望取代德扬·库卢塞夫斯基和技术超群的巴西人理查利森。总是很危险的凯恩，热刺最重要的球员，有望继续担任中锋。他整个赛季都很强壮，我希望他能给主队的防线制造很多问题——尽管速度不是特别快!他曾公开表示，赢得总冠军的可能性极大地激励了他。我相信博彩市场过于强调轮换因素——热刺确实有足够好的，甚至是优秀的球员，他们渴望证明自己的技术来取代一些常规的首发球员。我认为热刺在90分钟的比赛中有63%的机会获胜，如果博彩市场上的汇率从目前的1.80-1.85降下来，我一点也不会感到惊讶。

我们必须记住，谢菲尔德联队已经很长时间没有面对过一支接近热刺水平的球队了。在最近的一场足总杯比赛中，他们在主场以3-1击败了雷克瑟姆队，这是他们的最大热门——在90分钟的比赛中，他们以1.40英镑的价格获胜。他们的表现并没有给我留下深刻的印象，但他们确实值得赢。在威尔士的首回合比赛是3-3战平。我想强调的是，雷克瑟姆在国家联赛中，排名第五，与谢菲尔德联队相比是一支非常小的球队，更不用说热刺了!他们目前在英超积分榜上排名第四。在最近的五场联赛中，他们赢了四场。热刺极有可能再次获得欧冠资格——他们在本赛季打进了附加赛，并与意大利冠军AC米兰交手。雷克瑟姆本可以轻松赢得首回合比赛，因为他们记录了更多的进球次数(21-13)，总传球次数，完成传球次数，进攻和危险进攻(65- 35)。东道主参加英冠联赛，这是第二级别联赛，毫无疑问，他们本赛季的表现相当强劲。他们有64分，并且有55:30的不错的分数差距。然而，我们应该记住，英冠和英超之间的差异是巨大的!谢菲尔德联队在最近的英冠联赛中表现不太令人信服，尽管他们最近在主场以1-0击败沃特福德，据博彩市场显示，他们是最受欢迎的球队。在此之前，他们连输两场，在这些比赛中总共丢了6个球!他们的防守令人惊讶地不稳定，在客场对阵米尔沃尔(最终比分3-2)和主场对阵米德尔斯堡(1-3)时，他们的防守都很糟糕。两支球队在英冠联赛中都很出色，但谢菲尔德联队在防守端应该有很大的提高，或者幸运地阻止热刺的高技术进攻球员。东道主肯定很难在这里进球，一个进球对热刺来说可能已经足够了。然而，我相信热刺会梅开二度!是的，热刺有时是一支有点不稳定的球队，在糟糕的日子里，他们确实很差劲。然而，这样的比赛毕竟是罕见的，我们必须记住，即使可能是世界上最好的球队，曼城和阿森纳本赛季也踢了几场糟糕的比赛!热刺周日在主场2-0击败切尔西，他们的预期进球数(xG)为0.89，完全配得上胜利。切尔西只有0.45分。的确，我喜欢热刺压制切尔西防守的方式。我想说的是，切尔西在1月份的转会窗口花费了数亿欧元，看起来比热刺要好。在与切尔西的比赛之前，热刺主场2-0击败了比积分榜上表现更好的西汉姆联。在击败切尔西之后，孔蒂的球员们信心十足——根据博彩公司的说法，这是一场相当奇怪的不被看好的比赛。