Tottenham Hotspur have a monumental task in front of them tomorrow night, but at least it just got a bit easier now that they won’t have to face Luis Suarez. The high-flying, prolific goal scoring FC Barcelona forward won’t be involved in the UEFA Champions League group stage clash finale at the Camp Nou Tuesday night.
Suarez is recovering from a knee injury, one that required stem cell treatment, and could be on the shelf for a couple weeks. That said, Spurs still face a massive uphill task in Catalonia, given how Barcelona haven’t lost a UCL home contest since early 2013, an unbeaten run of 28 straight and counting.
Tottenham need a better result than what Inter Milan achieves against the grouping’s bottoms side PSV Eindhoven.
Which means it’s win or go home for Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino. He knows that his side will still be getting Barca’s best shot, even despite the Catalan club’s having clinched a knockout round berth.
“It will be a massive game, they have qualified for the next stage but in the Champions League no-one is going to give a present,” Pochettino said. “We need to win and deserve to win. The mentality is going to be 200 per cent to try to win. We are going to arrive in the best condition, Barcelona are one of the best teams in Europe.”
Tottenham Hotspur vs FC Barcelona FYIs
THFC Starting XI Prediction: go to this link
Kick-off: 8pm (BST), Tuesday December 11th, Camp Nou
Google Result Probability: FC Barcelona Win 45%, Draw 27%, Tottenham Hotspur Win 30%
Odds via Odds Checker: FC Barcelona win 9/8, draw 13/4, Tottenham win 9/4
Injury Report: go to this link
Prediction: FC Barcelona 4, Tottenham Hotspur 2
Feel free to post your own starting XI predictions, as well as your best guess as to what the final score will be.
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.