Tottenham Hotspur haven’t played a football match in two weeks and tomorrow they get to play one, so that’s good news. Destiny Udogie looks set to feature for Spurs as well, which is also good news.
But the rest of the news is bad. Ange Postecoglou, in what has become a regular feature of his tenure, posted a short injury update on social media and confirmed that both Pedro Porro and Richarlison will miss the match due to injury. Porro needs “another week” to recover, while Richarlison apparently picked up a knee injury against Wolves and is out for another 2-3 weeks.
In some ways, Richarlison is the easiest player to replace as Postecoglou and Tottenham are blessed with an abundance of offensive players who are positionally flexible. I think it’s pretty likely we’ll see Son Heung-Min shift into the center forward position with Timo Werner and Dejan Kulusevski playing on the flanks. Brennan Johnson is another possibility in one of the wide positions, but Ange has seemingly wanted to play him more as a late match substitute.
For the right inverted fullback role, Emerson Royal is Pedro Porro’s natural replacement and it feels likely that’s what we’ll see. He was a bit of a disasterclass against Wolves, but if Destiny Udogie is deemed ready to start, it feels like Emerson’s shortcomings can be ameliorated somewhat by having a more dynamic option on the opposite flank. If Ben Davies starts instead, then I get more worried, but playing someone else out of position ahead of Emerson feels like more of a risk than just tweaking the tactics to accommodate what Emerson can (and can’t) bring to the table.
Tottenham kick off against Palace Saturday tea time (10 a.m. ET / 3 p.m. GMT).