56 min: Van de Ven over-elaborates when dribbling out from the back, and is nearly stripped by Longstaff. Had the Leeds man completed the challenge, he was through on goal. Van de Ven breathes out.

Half-time postbag. “Both feet are off the ground. That’s Bogle’s entire weight on Tel’s Achilles. That can lead to a serious injury. Bizarre decision” – Martin Perring

“Why do red cards exist if not precisely to protect players?” – John from Norway

“The most insane thing about VAR, and there are so many insane things about it, is that we have to watch replays of a player OBVIOUSLY doing a red-card challenge one thousand times in slow-motion, and it ends with not even a yellow. The chicken-shit nature of it all, the incompetence, all elevated because of technology. I hate it so, so much” – Øivind Idsø

“There’s overthinking it, as you say, but this is like they’ve been given a task to find a reason for not giving that as a red, rocking and rolling desperately, frame-by-frame. The explanation they release for not giving a red should be a corker. Meanwhile, whatever happened to ‘clear and obvious’? VAR is almost single-handedly turning me into a grumpy old man. I’ll be off out now to shout at some pigeons” – Rob Knap

“I’ve supported VAR from the start. It was always going to have teething issues as it was implemented, and it was never going to 100% eliminate mistakes. Subjectivity is still a thing. But, my word, they don’t half make it hard to defend at times. It should be established now, a mature technology with most of the errors ironed out. If anything, though, It’s getting worse. I’m not in the ‘Bin it’ camp yet, but I’m a lot closer than I was at the start of the season” – Matt Dony

“Committees are an extremely useful method for decision making, especially when people have time to deliberate. But perhaps football refereeing isn’t suited to committees” – Kári Tulinius

“That would have been a red card at Elland Road in the 70s” – Gary Naylor

17 min: Tonali plays a cute ball round the corner, hoping to release Porro down the right. Not quite. Goal kick. Porro is looking lively, though, and soon after he comes again, his long cross miscontrolled by Tel, just inside the Leeds box on the left. Had Tel killed that, it would have been a big one-on-one chance.

Pre-match postbag. “Hands up who had Tottenham challenging for Europe and Manchester United challenging for the, er, Championship on their 25%-of-the-season-gone bingo card? No, me neither” – Dave Estherby

“Let’s just nip this talk of Tottenham rounding into form in the bud, shall we? Three wins on the bounce is nice until you take a closer look at them. Coventry: ‘nuff said. Chelsea: missing Joao Pedro, and with a dreadful tactical setup in response. Crystal Palace: down a man before the match before the match was a quarter-hour old. You need a fair glob of polish to put a proper gloss on that run” – Eric Peterson

Leeds United: Trafford, Justin, Elvedi, Muharemovic, Bogle, Ampadu, Tanaka, Gudmundsson, Longstaff, Nmecha, Calvert-Lewin.
Subs: Zetterer, Rodon, James, Wilson, Aaronson, Bijol, Okafor, Bard, Gruev.

Tottenham Hotspur: Kinsky, Porro, van Hecke, van de Ven, Robertson, Gray, Tonali, Kudus, Fernandes, Tel, Marmoush.
Subs: Gunter, Senesi, Gallagher, Maddison, Solanke, Kulusevski, Bentancur, Davies, Williams-Barnet.

Referee: John Brooks
VAR: Tony Harrington

So after all that time, Roberto De Zerbi’s team can finally feel some wind rippling their sail. They’ve just reeled off three consecutive Premier League wins, against Coventry, Chelsea and Crystal Palace, though it’s mainly the one against Chelsea that’s really got them going. Throw in a draw at Old Trafford which really should have been a comfortable win, and it feels a long time ago now when they were three goals down at home to Aston Villa, and folk were beginning to wonder when De Zerbi was going to blow. Everyone happy in N17!

Leeds meanwhile are hardly in a bad spot, comfortable in 12th, with only two defeats suffered so far. But both of those losses have come in the last four games, a run that’s yielded just two points, and the early-season excitement of unexpectedly strong progress under Daniel Farke has dissipated a wee bit. They could do with a momentum-recovering result this lunchtime.

All of which means Spurs go into this game with higher expectation … and that’s before you fold in the recent record between these teams. Spurs have won five of their last six meetings, drawing the other, to the cumulative tune of 17-7; they’ve won on all of their last three visits to Elland Road, the running score of those, 10-2, even more impressive. But winning runs are there to be snapped, which is what Leeds did by drawing in north London back in May, so everyone has hope. Kick-off is at 12.30pm GMT. It’s on!