Hope that Kane could return in Gameweek 34 as Bale thrives under new manager

Tottenham Hotspur 2-1 Southampton

• Goals: Gareth Bale (£9.2m), Son Heung-min (£9.5m) | Danny Ings (£8.4m)
• Assists: Lucas Moura (£6.7m), Sergio Reguilon (£5.6m)| James Ward-Prowse (£5.9m)
• Bonus: Son x3, Bale x2, Ings x1

KANE ABLE (TO PLAY)?

A Double Gameweek 32 score that had the potential to be season-shaping ended up being merely satisfactory for owners, captainers and Triple Captainers of Harry Kane (£11.6m).

The Spurs striker had already bagged 12 points in the Lilywhites’ 2-2 draw at Everton last Friday but was denied the chance to face one of the division’s most out-of-form defences thanks to an ankle injury he picked up on Merseyside.

Spurs blank in Gameweek 33 thanks to the clash with the EFL Cup final but then enjoy another hugely appealing fixture, against relegated Sheffield United, in Gameweek 34.

Mason’s comments before kick-off sounded optimistic, with a return in the EFL Cup final still a possibility:

It’s difficult, we are still not sure. We are treating it day by day. The hope is he will be on the pitch at the end of the week.

Mason went onto make very similar comments after full-time.

We’ve just launched a snap poll for Kane owners on our website ahead of Gameweek 33, which you can find in the sidebar and below.

As things stand, over half of you are planning to keep the premium forward for Gameweek 34:

YOU CAN TAKE THE MOURINHO OUT OF SPURS…

The fabled new manager bounce/honeymoon period wasn’t immediately in evidence in north London, with the Ryan Mason era starting in an underwhelming fashion.

It was initially a ‘more of the same’ attacking display from the hosts and a suspect performance defensively.

Southampton should have been a goal to the good long before Danny Ings (£8.4m) nodded in James Ward-Prowse‘s (£5.9m) corner on the half-hour, with Hugo Lloris (£5.6m) earning an FPL save point after just 12 minutes.

There was at least a reaction in the second half, with a superb Gareth Bale (£9.2m) strike restoring parity. Son Heung-min (£9.5m) won all three points with a penalty after a foul on Sergio Reguilon (£5.6m) – the VAR awarding that spot-kick having earlier denied the same two players attacking returns by disallowing the Korean’s strike.

Bale’s thinly-veiled dig at Mourinho after full-time hinted at a more attacking mindset in the weeks to come:

We’re a big team, we have great players, we need to attack more. We need to try and stay higher up the pitch and I think we did that today.

LINE-UP LESSONS

Whenever there is a change of manager at a football club, there is hope of a second chance for previously out-of-favour players.

There are plenty of those at Spurs, such was Mourinho’s scorched earth policy during his tenure.

Bale was chief among them and he was thrown straight back into the side on Wednesday, repaying his new (interim) manager’s faith in spades.

Having lost over a million FPL owners in the last three Gameweeks, there may be renewed interest in a Bale free of Mourinho’s shackles when Sheffield United visit Spurs at the beginning of May.

HAMSTR-INGS

Southampton, like Spurs, blank in Gameweek 33.

Ings may be out for even longer than that, with the striker limping out of Wednesday’s game with a muscle problem.

Ralph Hasenhuttl couldn’t tell us much about his injury-prone striker:

Hopefully he is not too injured. I don’t know. I don’t know his situation.

From a Fantasy perspective, the main headline was the benching of Fraser Forster (£4.0m).

That left more than one in four of the top 10k without a playing goalkeeper in Double Gameweek 32.

That’s because Forster is paired with either Bernd Leno (£5.0m) or Edouard Mendy (£5.2m) in over 26% of these squads.

Forster was one of five changes that Hasenhuttl made for this match, with local journalist Jacob Tanswell sounding words of caution:

Spurs XI (4-2-3-1): Lloris, Aurier, Alderweireld, Dier, Reguilon, Hojbjerg, Ndombele (Winks 73), Bale (Bergwijn 83), Lo Celso (Lamela 79), Son, Lucas.

Southampton XI (4-4-2): McCarthy, Walker-Peters, Bednarek, Vestergaard, Salisu, Walcott (Djenepo 67), Ward-Prowse, Armstrong, Tella (Redmond 84), Adams, Ings (Diallo 58).