Manager Mauricio Pochettino has said he hasn’t paid too much attention to Tottenham Hotspur’s line up or tactics in their Europa League draw against Benfica last night because he knows they will be shaking things up this weekend.
Speaking to saintsfc ahead of the game on Sunday, the gaffer explained that we couldn’t read too much into the fact they have won only one of their last four games, nor the fact that they have the worst home record in the top six, because football hinges on what happens over the course of 90 minutes and nothing else.
‘You never know if it’s a good time to play them. We know that it’s going to be a different game. Spurs are going to be a completely different side to the one that played Benfica, the squad is quite plentiful, they have a few players and we expect a really tough game.’
Having lost the first encounter this season, Pochettino has warned that we can’t be overly focused on just Emmanuel Adebayor despite the problems he caused us, because Spurs are not a one threat team so the focus in training has been on dealing with him, but also everybody else as we look again for a balanced performance that brings a positive result.
The spirit is good within the camp though, and he knows everyone is positive as we now have four more points at this stage of the season than we did at the end of last season, and we have eight more games to go so the improvement is there, and we just need to carry on with that.
We do have some knocks and fitness issues ahead of the game but Poch will be looking at them in late assessments so he knows exactly who he can call upon.
The gaffer is hopeful that Gaston Ramirez will be able to build on his showing against Norwich despite picking up a knock, but Victor Wanyama is very doubtful still. Jack Cork could be 50/50 but Morgan Schneiderlin seems to have picked up a knock in training and is also now a doubt along with Guly and Kelvin Davis.
Vital Saints on:
Vital Saints on:
Join Vital Saints
Share this article
Related Articles
