please log in to view this image Thursday 1st October 6pm Stade Louis II Europa League Group Stage Three Premier League wins in succession were broken up by a poor loss to Arsenal in the League Cup, so this is our only cup competition until the new year. We opened the group with a fairly comfortable win in what was probably the easiest fixture, on paper at least. Our opponents Monaco earned a draw against Anderlecht in the other tie, so this is an important one for both teams. Our hosts are currently 10th in the Ligue 1 table and are on patchy form. They were dumped out of the Champions League qualifiers by Valencia and have been unsteady since then. Their seven games have seen three wins, two draws and two losses, though they've got a game later today against Guincamp who are 13th. Their goal difference is at -1, having scored 9 and conceded 10, but their 3-0 loss to PSG might be the guiding factor there. Lineups for the last Europa League fixture: Spurs: Lloris; Trippier, Alderweireld, Wimmer, Rose; Dier, Carroll; Townsend, Alli, Lamela; Son. Subs: Vorm, Fazio, Davies, Winks, Onomah, N'Jie, Kane. Monaco: Subasic; Toure, Raggi, Santos, Elderson; Fabinho, Moutinho, Pasalic; Silva, Cavleiro, Coentrao. Subs: Nardi, Carrillo, Bakayoko, Lacina Traore, El Shaarawy, Adama Traore, Lemar. Notable players for Monaco: I'm sure that we're all aware of Moutinho and our ongoing saga with him in the transfer market. Pasalic is one of Chelsea's many loan players learning their trade elsewhere, so he'll be out to make a point. Coentrao was another one linked with us from Real. I believe Monaco are using him as a winger. Their bench throws up a couple of interesting names. Lacina Traore is a towering Ivorian striker who had a disastrous loan at Everton. A real handful when he's fit, but a bad injury put and end to that move and he's suffered since. El Shaarawy has had similar problems, having been touted as the next big thing at Milan. The Italian international has Egyptian roots and was nicknamed The Pharoah, but his fitness issues have seen him drop away. It'll be interesting to see how Pochettino approaches this one. It's probably going to be an important game in the group, so you'd expect a strong side. We've had a lot of games recently though, with some players involved in all of them and we visit Swansea on the Sunday. We do have a midweek break after that, so this might not be the time to rotate heavily, especially after our League Cup exit. Do we need to make any changes following our latest win? Rose, Chadli, Wimmer, Trippier and N'Jie are probably going to be the closest to starts, but do any of them deserve one? If any of our injured players are available, is it worth giving them a shot or should they return from the bench?
On paper, Monaco would've been a far scarier prospect last season - they lost Martial, Kongobia and Carrasco over the summer...and, even though we were linked to all three of them, sold them to Man Utd, Inter and Atletico Madrid instead. That counts as plentiful incentive to beat them, right?
Trippier must have had a busy night last time out, playing both RB and LB. Now if it were Eric Dier doing that I doubt any informed person would raise an eyebrow...
I think we should prioritize the PL and have to be careful not to burn out our key players. We may be at a similar spot to where we were after the Chelsea game--on a big high which came to a considerable extent from outworking other teams. As fit as our players may be, the ones I think need a break certainly include Dier and Son. Resting Kane, Alli and Lamela may be a good idea as well. Either take them off early or bring them on for the second half. The good news is that we have a number of positions where the backup is only debatably a backup. Rose, Chadli and Clinton should start, and probably Trippier as well, despite his shaky last couple of outings. I can’t decide whether Townsend should start or come on in the second half.
Son is injured (foot), and they don't know how long he's going to be out for. Just when things seemed to be going our way!
Looks a good team, would have liked to see Clinton have a start though, hopefully we can get him on to cause havoc for the last 30 minutes or so.
