Tottenham Hotspur take on Sporting Clube de Portugal in the Champions League this evening and Antonio Conte faces some tough calls.
Tottenham opened their Champions League campaign last week, beating Marseille 2-0 in North London.
Richarlison’s two-goal display handed Tottenham all three points, getting their group stage campaign off to the perfect start.
Spurs head on the road this evening though as they travel to take on Sporting in Lisbon.
Sporting hammered Eintracht Frankfurt 3-0 last week and will be looking for another positive result, so Tottenham must be careful here.
Tottenham predicted lineup
Hugo Lloris is Tottenham’s obvious first-choice goalkeeper and we can’t see Fraser Forster replacing him for this one.
Cristian Romero and Eric Dier will surely start ahead of him in Tottenham’s back three but the left side is a little less clear.
Clement Lenglet has played in Tottenham’s last two games and looks to be forcing his way ahead of Ben Davies, so we will back Lenglet for another start here.
Emerson Royal is still Tottenham’s first-choice right wing back and with no sign of Djed Spence or Matt Doherty breaking into the team, we’ll back him to start again here.
The left side is a closer fight between Ryan Sessegnon and Ivan Perisic, but the latter is just such a threat in terms of supplying quality into the box that he should feature again.
Had Tottenham have taken on Manchester City as planned on Saturday, we would have predicted a change in midfield.
The passing of Queen Elizabeth II means that game was cancelled though and it means Rodrigo Bentancur and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg should be fresh.
That brief rest will have done them both good and they should fend off Yves Bissouma in the engine room.
Harry Kane will lead Tottenham’s attack but who features around him is unclear.
Richarlison has made a big impact of late and Dejan Kulusevski was superb off the bench against Marseille.
Son Heung-min is woefully out of form right now but dropping the South Korean would feel like a gamble given the immense quality he possesses.
We think Conte will stick with the same attack last week, going with Son and Richarlison either side of Kane.
That means Kulusevski – hailed as a ‘beautiful’ player by Owen Hargreaves – may well have to settle for the bench once again.
Tottenham predicted lineup: Lloris; Romero, Dier, Lenglet; Emerson, Bentancur, Hojbjerg, Perisic; Richarlison, Kane, Son.
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