3. Tottenham can silence Fer
Sigurdsson has rightly received a lot of praise this season for his play, but Leroy Fer has been the Swans’ top performer. His Whoscored.com player rating of 7.33 leads the squad and he’s also contributed an impressive six goals from his spot in the midfield.
Fortunately for Pochettino, his squad is well suited to deal with the threat of Fer. Mousa Dembele and Victor Wanyama should both start the match pretty healthy, and very well rested. That’s exceedingly bad news for Fer.
He’ll be the marked man in the Swansea midfield. Specifically, I’d look for Wanyama to try to establish his physical supremacy over Fer early in the match. As long as the Kenyan doesn’t take things too far, he could take him out of the match with his brutish play.
That’s going to put a lot of pressure on midfielders like Jack Cork and Jay Fulton to pick up the slack. I’m not a big believer in Cork’s talent and I don’t think Fulton is ready for a match of this caliber or physicality. Look for Tottenham to use their defensive midfield pairing to run over the Swansea midfield trio.