Game will be won or lost in midfield. Unfortunately, Dembele starts for us which means Mason will have to do all the legwork while Dembele strolls about not doing much of anything. Livermore and Huddlestone with points to prove will dictate the game.

Although our front 4 look good we'll probably be spending more time defending, our weak right side is likely to be exposed regularly. Hope I'm wrong but I'll go 2-0 to Hull.

The subs bench is interesting as well - I can only assume that players are being rested.

And another early goal against.

Here we go again, another up hill game!

Chadli, Adebayor and Townsend are injured but Kaboul and Capoue should be on the bench at least.

Must be a good chance of Ceballos making his Premiership debut in the second half.

Fazio is pointless.

And mason needs to work on his temperament.

Much as I thought so far, we're being pressed and niggled at in midfield but we are just so slow to react to everything. Hull drop back deep and we have the usual problem of not being able to find a way through.

Second half I'd take Dembele off and put Stambouli on to sit in front of the back 4, tell Mason to break forward more and tell Kane or Soldado to get in Dawson's face and sit on his shoulder. Most of all we have to move the ball quicker with better anticipation and compete more for the second ball.

On mason's temperament, I'd give Mason the armband.

Really re Mason? I'm all for passion but he's a tad too hot headed IMO.

You wanted Dembele off. But you got Lennon!

Eriksen class act!

HA-HA @ the Tottenham fan being bundled off the players by 4 stewards and he is still cheering while being bundled off

Who'd have thought we'd be 3 points clear of Liverpool in 10th spot ?

Lennon should be starting. His performance today highlighted the lack of pace that we have when we play narrow. He also works hard to track back & protect his full back too.

Lennon should be leaving, not starting.

a 5 min flurry of activity against 10 men from Lennon isn't enough to just magically erase 3 years of next-to-nothing that we've been getting from him.

not sure why Vertonghen is being blamed for the red card there Ramirez scissored his leg, causing him to fall over, and HE'S the one at fault? He didn't even make anything of it other than turn around in surprise to ask wtf Ramirez was thinking. bizarre...

Eriksen gets the plaudits, but I thought he was lazy for a lot of the game, especially before the red card when he wasn't getting as much space. On the other hand, I felt Lamela was probably the only player working anywhere near his hardest, and I wish he'd taken that chance on his right foot late on.

I'm a big Eriksen fan but I agree, he wasn't getting anywhere for much of the match. Not sure what has happened to him this season but the free kick that rattled the post woke him up - maybe he is having a confidence issue like many of the others seem to have.

Conversely, I'm not a Vertonghen fan but he was hacked down off the ball so yes to the red but he does have history so he will get tarred.

And what was the 'private matter' that kept Kaboul out?

Mason's stats today, 103 passes, 90% completion, 2 shots, 3 tackles and was largely responsible for linking up with Eriksen and driving us forward in second half. I wouldn't call him hot headed, he's vocal yes but he's not a nasty player, he wants to win and giving him the armband would help him mature as a player.

I see Lamela being criticised on Twitter by some but statistically he was our second best player today. He was a constant thorn in Hull's side, battled for everything and once again played for the team. Lennon comes on puts one decent cross over and then a few 10m runs with the ball, stops and passes backwards and same fans have multiple orgasms. One specific incident summed him up. A diaganol deep cross from our left and Lennon was coming in at a great angle but Vertonghen ended up trying a bicycle kick because Lennon wasn't screaming for it. The replay clearly showed Lennon was silent, he then had the cheek to have a go at Vertonghen for not leaving it! Hopefully, he's moved on in January.

They are impressive stats for Mason and I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise and look forward to being proved wrong.
Hopefully the Benteke incident that led to the £20k fine is not going to be typical going forward but there were a few angry incidents early in today's game.

A spurs fan friend of mine said that this was the worst you have played in the last 2 month's but still managed to get a win.

My thoughts exactly, almost word for word.

Strange to think that if we had another 3 points on the board, we would not be in 10th but be up in 4th!

I don't know, we were pretty awful in the loss to Stoke at WHL. Granted Hull were all over us first half and we kept on giving the ball away.

Crazy that, isn't it ?

Just nothing more than a few dropped points by the teams above us and we're right back in it again. Liverpool and Stoke below us are playing each other next weekend as well so a draw there would also be rather nice.

I think it goes to show that there isn't a whole lot of difference between the 8 or 9 teams below the top three at the moment. A couple of decent result and a team will be challenging for a Euro place, a couple of losses and they will be back down in mid-table.

Yeah I think we've got a decent league run for a few weeks against teams we should really be looking to beat. If we can get a win on Sunday against Everton then the inevitable loss to Chelsea next Wednesday won't be that damaging in terms of league placing I suppose. After that it's Palace, Swansea, Burnley and Leicester.

I suspect the odds on us winning at Stamford Bridge will be long enough to have a punt just in case though

Stats-wise, I see that Davies had a good game yesterday - 87% pass accuracy, one chance created and six crosses put in. Might be enough for him to retain his place.