Preview: Tottenham vs Everton: Rafa to strike opener

Tottenham’s lack of top quality firepower up-front was a large contributor to their failure to retain 4^th spot last season. That glaring weakness in the team has yet to be rectified by Harry Redknapp, but one position that he has strengthened is in between the posts, as 40-year-old ‘keeper Brad Friedel has come in from Aston Villa to provide competition to the blunder prone Heurelho Gomes.

However, Redknapp has repeated almost daily on Sky Sports News that the club are looking to add a striker to the squad. After his £8 million coup landed Rafa Van Der Vaart on the last day of the window last season, it could well be that Harry is waiting for the clock to tick down so he can strike when clubs are most desperate to sell and land himself another bargain buy.

David Moyes has had to endure another uneventful summer at Goodison Park, as Everton appear to have no money to spend on new faces and are unwilling to sell wanted men Leighton Baines and Phil Jagielka.

As well as inactivity in the market, another constant with Everton is their poor starts and strong finishes. Indeed, Everton failed to pick up a victory in their first six league games last season. Form like this in August and September for the Toffees has become the norm in recent years. A trip to White Hart Lane will hardly have the Everton faithful hopeful that this is the season they finally get off to a great start.

Punters will have long grown weary of backing Tottenham’s misfiring strikers to bag a goal. The quality of the Spurs midfield is the main strength of the team and appears the best bet to produce a goal. Rafa Van Der Vaart was sensational at the beginning of the last campaign. The Dutchman slowly faded as the season progressed and observant viewers of Tottenham will have noted that Harry Redknapp often substituted the former Real Madrid and Ajax midfielder with 15-20 minutes of the match to spare. Essentially, Van Der Vaart seemed to peak at the beginning of the season and Redknapp seemed to think he was not always capable of finishing the 90 minutes. With this in mind, Rafa to be the opening goalscorer on the opening day against Everton is 5/1 with bet365.

Bet365 also offer good half-time/full-time odds of 15/4 on draw-Tottenham.

Tip: Rafa Van Der Vaart to score first @ 5/1