Tottenham Hotspur travel to Moscow in search of their first three points of this season’s Champions League.
Clive Allen has told Talksport that Tottenham Hotspur can get a result against CSKA Moscow, despite being without a number of key players.
Spurs lost their opening Champions League group game at home to Monaco earlier this month and will be desperate to get off the mark in Russia.
Having already lost Harry Kane to an ankle injury, head coach Maurico Pochettino will also be without left-back Danny Rose and midfielders Eric Dier, Mousa Dembele and Moussa Sissoko on Tuesday.
Allen, though, does not envisage many changes from Saturday’s win at Middlesbrough, with Sissoko the only one of the above to feature at the Riverside.
“Pochettino has a little bit of a dilemma,” the former Spurs striker and coach told Talksport on Tuesday. “I can’t see him changing team too much. He’s lost Sissoko from the team that played Boro at the weekend, so I expect (Erik) Lamela to start, but when you think he’s had to leave behind Kane, Dier, Rose, Sissoko and Dembele, it is a Spurs squad that’s been stretched.”
He added: “I do think Spurs can come and get a result. It’s certainly an ageing CSKA side. Defensively they seem to have been the same back four forever and they’ve lost real pace from the team with (Ahmed) Musa going to Leicester and (Seydou) Doumbia going to Basel.
“I don’t think they have threat they had last year, although they won Russian league. I think with Spurs’ athleticism and pace, they can cause them problems.”
Despite having a smaller pool of players to select from, Pochettino still has plenty of options to consider in Moscow and is boosted by the form of South Korean striker Son Heung-min, who Allen believes has taken on Kane’s mantle in recent weeks.
A win for Spurs at the Arena Khimki could see them climb to second in Group E, provided Bayer Leverkusen do not win in Monaco.
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