Tottenham Hotspur-Hull City Preview

Aug 17, 2009 - 4:28 PM CHRIS TUPLING STATS European Football Writer=

LONDON (SE) - Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp is refusing to bask in the glory of an opening-day win over Liverpool, fearing Hull may spring a surprise at the KC Stadium on Wednesday.

Phil Brown's Hull came away from Chelsea with a deep sense of grievance after losing in injury time to a Didier Drogba fluke and are anxious to make Spurs pay for it, as Redknapp knows.

Redknapp said: "Hull looked like they were going to get a draw and probably felt they deserved one. But that's the Premier League for you and Chelsea have such quality."

While Tottenham's 2-1 win over lethargic Liverpool was one of the results of the first round of matches, Redknapp is anxious to build on the result.

"We were poor at times away last season and if we want to do anything in terms of winning honours we have to play as well on opponents' grounds as we can do at White Hart Lane.

"There is no point in being brilliant one day against a team as good as Liverpool and four or five days later losing somewhere else.

"What we have to do now is go to Hull, where it will not be easy, and do it all again."

Spurs will again be without injured defenders Michael Dawson and Jonathan Woodgate who will be replaced by Ledley King and new signing Sebastian Bassong.

Redknapp is spoiled for choice up front where Robbie Keane and Jermain Defoe are likely to be preferred to Roman Pavlyuchenko and Peter Crouch.

"We have a good-sized squad now and I might make a change or two but I have not decided. Hull is a different kind of challenge but no easier than Liverpool."

Aside from the late Chelsea defeat, these are exciting times for Hull fans with talk of a 12 million pounds raid for Real Madrid striker Alvaro Negredo.

Hull look like succeeding where Roma, Villareal and Zenith St Petersburg have failed in matching Real Madrid's valuation and Negredo is expected to travel to talk terms later this week.

Better still, Brown insists that the sale of defender Michael Turner, possibly to Liverpool, is not key to the potential signing of Negredo.

Brown said: "We still need to sign some players before the end of the transfer window and we are doing what we can.

"The Chelsea result was a sickener but it reinforces what we discovered last season that the Premier League can be a cruel place.

"For 90 plus minutes, we matched Chelsea and looked like we might get a point, which was something no one outside this club was expecting.

"But now we are at home to another expensive team and we need to put that Chelsea result behind us and get some points on the board.

"Spurs have got some fantastic players but then so have so have many of the clubs at this level. We just have to bring in one or two of our own if we can."