Tottenham returned to winning ways for the first time in a month, beating Newcastle United 4-1 in the Premier League at the weekend. Before that, Angelo Postecoglou’s team had gone five games without a win and a season that had started so promisingly was threatening to unravel quickly.
Things are slowly improving again on the injury front, with Pape Matar Sarr returning to the starting line-up at the weekend, his first appearance since the 2-1 defeat to Wolves before the November international break.
James Maddison, who is suspended until next year, was also in his Tottenham box for the Newcastle game, although he was unable to contribute to the action on the pitch.
Micky van de Ven, ERIC DIER, Ivan Perisic, Manor Solomon, Rodrigo Bentancur, Ryan Sessegnon, Alfie Whiteman and Ashley Phillips did not return and will miss the away game at the City Ground against Steve Cooper’s struggling Nottingham Forest.
Spurs boss Postecoglou praised his team for the result against Eddie Howe’s side and stressed that it is difficult to win with an under-strength team. After last weekend’s win, he said, “We were very happy after the win against Howe and Howe: “Yeah, look, I’ve been struggling with that a little bit all week because we’re trying to build something and part of that is not allowing the boys too much freedom in terms of excuses in difficult periods, and in reality I was probably too hard on them, but we were decimated after the Chelsea game and it’s no coincidence that we’ve started to look a lot stronger now that we’ve got some of our players coming back.”
Nottingham Forest need a win to move further away from the relegation zone, while Tottenham want to regain momentum and possibly return to the top four.