Antonio Conte has said he hopes to see Tottenham Hotspur captain Hugo Lloris in action in Saturday's North London Derby at Arsenal.
The 35-year-old Frenchman was released from international duty after a scan on his arrival found a small thigh injury and the skipper is a number of Spurs players who have returned from their time with their national sides with knocks and problems, including Swede Dejan Kulusevski.
While Conte is keeping his cards close to his chest, he has now indicated that he hopes to be able to name Lloris in his starting line-up at the Emirates Stadium for Saturday's lunchtime kick-off.
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"To be honest, we have to check some players because they returned from the international break with some physical problems," the Tottenham head coach said in an interview for SpursPlay. "Tomorrow, we have another training session to check their physical condition and then to make the best decision for Saturday. Hugo is one of the players with some physical problems, but we hope to see him on Saturday."
Conte had told football.london that he needs to be careful with his players and not risk putting any of them out for this frantic run of fixtures before the World Cup.
"Honestly I don't want to speak about the injury because I don't want to give advantage to Arsenal, but for sure we have to face some problems, some physical problems and we have to know also that we have just started to play the first game in a run that we have to play 13 days in 43 days," he said.
"We have to try to make the best solution and to try not to take big risks because if we take big risks and lose players for the rest of the games, it will be a disaster. To play every three days I need to count on the whole squad and we try with the players to also make the best decision."
In his interview with SpursPlay, Conte also said he was happy to see Oliver Skipp and Djed Spence get much-needed game time with the England U21s and Matt Doherty with the Republic of Ireland.
"For Skippy, it was important," he said. "But for me it was the same for Matthew, for Spence to play games and, for sure, Skippy played his last game in January and has been suffering a bit to find again his physical condition, but we are talking about a really good guy with a great desire, great will and it was important for him to play one game and then 20 minutes in the second game."
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