Tottenham will have to overcome two new injuries if they are to keep pace in the race for the top four and avenge one of their poorer performances of the season when they host Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday.
Spurs (14-5-5, 47 points) moved above Aston Villa and into fourth place in the Premier League with their dramatic 2-1 home victory over Brighton last Saturday.
Brennan Johnson’s winner deep into second-half time secured the points for manager Ange Postecoglou’s bunch after Pape Sarr leveled in the 61st minute.
That extended Tottenham’s unbeaten league run to five matches and returned them to control over their destiny in terms of qualifying for next year’s UEFA Champions League.
But it came at a cost, as the central midfielder Sarr and left back Destiny Udogie both left with injuries in the 80th minute and will be unable to feature against Wolverhampton.
That will rob Postecoglou of two players who have combined to play 41 league matches and start 38, against a Wolves side that pulled off a dramatic 2-1 home win over Tottenham on Nov. 11. That match remains one of Postecoglou’s least favorite moments of the first season.
“Yeah look there hasn’t been many games this year, probably less than a handful, where I felt we ended up playing for a result,” Postecoglou recalled of a match in which his side took an early lead, then spent most of the rest of the contest on defense.
“Even if we had won that game 1-0, it wouldn’t have left me feeling any better about our approach.”
Instead, Pablo Sarabia and Mario Lemina both scored in second-half stoppage time to send the Molineux into delirium and Spurs to the second of three straight defeats at the time.
Meanwhile, it was the fourth of nine consecutive home matches without defeat in all competitions — eight in the league — for Wolves (9-10-5, 32 points), who are currently 11th in the league table and 13 points clear of the relegation line.
But Gary O’Neil’s side have lost two of their last three to fall back to earth a bit. And while he expects club scoring leader Hwang Hee-Chan to be available for the first time since late December following his call-up for South Korea to the Asian Cup and then a brief calf issue, second-leading scorer Matheus Cunha is out with a hamstring issue.
O’Neil expects a better performance from Spurs in front of their home supporters, where the North Londoners have won nine of 12 league games.
“They will ask us a lot of questions, so we will need to be ready to answer them and respond with our attacking threat,” O’Neil said. “They don’t change, they play the same way a lot, really comfortable with the ball, have a lot of it, really aggressive without it. I’ve prepped the lads for what that might be like.”
–Field Level Media