Tottenham Hotspur are drawing closer to ending their long trophy drought. Up 1-0 on aggregate over Chelsea in the EFL Cup semifinals, they are inching closer towards a title game appearance against, well we can say with 99.999% certainty that it will be Manchester City.
So if they can emerge with a stalemate or better at Stamford Bridge Thursday night, they’ll be one step closer towards lifting the first trophy of the Mauricio Pochettino era…but that last step is a doozy! Pochettino has a full blown injury crisis on his hands right now, so he’ll have to go with a patchwork, makeshift starting XI in this one.
He has a real selection headache in both midfield and attack, with the latter becoming an even bigger problem given the disastrous showing by Fernando Llorente this past weekend. Poch may have to put midfielders in attack, defenders in midfield and central defenders on the edge.
That said, here’s our Tottenham starting lineup prediction, in a 3-4-3 formation. For what it’s worth, we think Chelsea are going to win this one, and thus move on to final against Manchester City.
Attack: Lucas Moura, Christian Eriksen, Erik Lamela
Midfield: Harry Winks, Eric Dier, Kieran Trippier, Ben Davies
Defense: Davinson Sanchez, Toby Alderweireld, Jan Vertonghen
Goalkeeper: Paulo Gazzaniga
Tottenham Hotspur at Chelsea League Cup Semifinal Leg 2 FYIs
Kick-off: 745 pm (BST), 2:45 pm (EST) Tuesday January 24, Stamford Bridge
Starting XI Predictions for both teams: Chelsea
Injury Report, Team News: go to this link
Odds via Betfair: Chelsea to advance 9/4, Tottenham to advance 5/4
League Cup Series History: Chelsea wins- 4, draws- 2, Tottenham wins- 3
As always, feel free to post your own final score predictions as well as your Tottenham and/or Chelsea starting XI predictions.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.