When Tottenham visits the City Ground on Friday night, they will be without several important players.
Tottenham’s 4-1 Premier League victory over Newcastle United over the weekend marked their first victory in almost a month. Before then, Ange Postecoglou’s club had lost five straight games and the season that had started so promisingly was on the verge of disappearing fast.
With Pape Matar Sarr making a comeback to the starting lineup this past weekend—his first since the 2-1 loss to Wolves prior to the November international break—the injury situation is gradually starting to improve.
Even though he is unable to participate in the action on the field, James Maddison, who is sidelined until next year, was there in his box at the Tottenham Stadium for the Newcastle match.
The players who are not returning, namely Micky van de Ven, Eric Dier, Ivan Perisic, Manor Solomon, Rodrigo Bentancur, Ryan Sessegnon, Alfie Whiteman, and Ashley Phillips, will not be present when Nottingham Forest, led by Steve Cooper, visits the City Ground.
The Spurs manager, Ange Postecoglou, commended his team for their performance against Eddie Howe’s club, emphasizing how hard it is to win when playing with a thin lineup. He said following the victory on Saturday: “Yeah, look I have been struggling with that a little bit all week because we’re trying to build something here and part of that is through the tough periods to not allow the lads too much latitude in terms of excuses but the reality is and I have probably been too hard on them in retrospect but we got decimated after the Chelsea game and it is no coincidence that now we are getting some players back that we are starting to look a lot stronger.”
Tottenham wants to regain momentum and potentially return to the top four, while Nottingham Forest needs to win to go farther out of the relegation zone.
