Tottenham Hotspur face Leeds United on Saturday afternoon in a game that could easily be described as a must-win for Spurs.
Tottenham have been in rotten form for quite some time now, and while their second-half performances have bailed them out in certain games, they, quite simply, haven’t been playing well.
If Spurs go into the World Cup break off the back of another loss, it could be hard to stop the rot, but a win here would preserve Tottenham’s top-four status throughout the winter break.
With that in mind, we’ve had a go at predicting Spurs’ starting XI for this one.
We think that Antonio Conte will make five changes from the team that was eliminated from the Carabao Cup on Wednesday evening.
Hugo Lloris returns in goal, while Emerson Royal, Ivan Perisic and Ben Davies return to the backline.
With Cristian Romero struggling for fitness here, Spurs’ backlines is there to be got at, especially with Emerson Royal in such poor form as of late.
The midfield consists of Yves Bissouma, Rodrigo Bentancur and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg.
Unfortunately, attacking injuries mean that Spurs can’t field their preferred 3-4-3 formation here, so the 3-5-2 persists.
However, there is some good news on the attacking front as Dejan Kulusevski returns to the starting XI after a lengthy injury layoff.
Antonio Conte stated this week that Harry Kane was ‘really, really tired’, and while that may be the case, we still can’t see Conte dropping the England captain as he’s far too important to this side to be left out in any circumstances.
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