Tottenham Hotspur commence 2022 this coming Sunday with a home fixture against Unai Emery’s Aston Villa, with kick-off at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium being 2 PM BST and the match being televised live on Sky Sports. Read excerpts from Antonio Conte’s pre-match press conference here, the statistical preview here, and the match preview here.
Team news for this weekend’s encounter with the Midlanders is rather mixed, so let’s get the bad news out of the way early. Arguably the biggest blow for Sunday is the news that Rodrigo Bentancur has not recovered from an abductor injury sustained with Uruguay in the World Cup in time for the match.
It had been initially hoped that Bentancur would have been fit to face Villa, but instead, he will have an MRI scan to determine the further extent of the injury, as revealed by Conte in his pre-match press conference:
“Rodrigo is going to have an MRI today (Friday) and fingers crossed, the MRI can give us a good answer. He is an important player for us, a player who has improved so much during my time at Tottenham. For this reason, we hope that he recovers well.
As he did in Monday’s draw at Brentford, Yves Bissouma is expected to deputise for the Uruguayan in the middle of the park alongside Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, something Conte also alluded to in the presser:
“Bissouma has a great opportunity to show his capacity, and it’s important for him to play and take confidence.”
As well as Bentancur, Brazilian duo Lucas Moura and Richarlison will both be out for Sunday’s match, with the latter expected to miss up to a month of action with a hamstring injury, and the former’s return date from a calf problem unspecified.
In brighter news, Spurs will be able to welcome back World Cup finalists Cristian Romero and Hugo Lloris to the starting XI.
Conte spoke particularly about Romero and how he expects his triumphant involvement with Argentina in Qatar to mentally drive the centre-back in a positive way:
“[Romero’s] back in a good physical condition, also, the mental aspect. To win a World Cup gives you a lot of confidence, they celebrated a lot, and that was right because to win the World Cup is not simple, an incredible achievement for the players.
Now, I saw him really focused, I saw him with his mind back into our team, back into Tottenham, and he’s ready to play.”
There are no further injury concerns that Conte has to contend with ahead of selecting his XI for Sunday.