Spurs vs Bournemouth | Ange's preview: "Every week's a challenge, but a good challenge"

Ange Postecoglou is aware that every game is a test in the Premier League, regardless of form, and that has been seen in black and white over the festive period as we prepare to face the league's in-form team, AFC Bournemouth, at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on New Year's Eve (2pm UK).

Everton had won eight in 12 before we toppled them 2-1 at home last weekend, we then took our three-match winning streak to Brighton, who had won two in 12 before putting us to the sword 4-2 on Thursday evening.

Having kicked-off life under Andoni Iraola without a win in their first nine matches of 2023/24, Bournemouth now arrive in N17 with six wins in their last seven and a draw against Villa, climbing from 19th to 12th in the table.

"Every game is tough," said Ange. "We played Everton, they were on a great run as well. Brighton weren’t but that doesn’t matter. Every week’s a challenge, it's a short turn around for us, but a good challenge for us. We’re at home, whilst we’ve had a couple of losses at home, every home game we’ve been well in, and we’ll need to be at our best to match Bournemouth on Sunday."

Asked about Iraola, Ange responded: "He’s done a great job. They didn't have a great start, and it would have been very easy, not just him but the whole club, to shy away from what they were trying to build, but they’ve stuck at it, and the results recently have been very, very promising. It’s credit to him and the football club that they’ve stuck to what the plan’s been."

This is our first return match of the campaign - we beat Bournemouth 2-0 at the Vitality back in August. Asked if this would be a different game to what was the third of season, Ange said: "Yeah, fair to say it will be different. We’ve had some challenges, there will be more challenges for us on Sunday. It will be a different challenge, obviously Bournemouth are in good form, they do play good football as well, they play football in terms of they want to play and get the ball down. It will be a good challenge for us."