Tottenham have something of an injury crisis to contend with as they return to Champions League action on Tuesday night. Spurs travel to Italy to take on AC Milan in the San Siro in the round of 16.
And Spurs have fond memories of going there in Europe's elite competition before. In Tottenham's maiden Champions League campaign in 2010/11.
Spurs travelled to the San Siro for the first leg of their round of 16 tie almost to the day 12 years ago, with Peter Crouch notching the only goal in a 1-0 win for Harry Redknapp's side. Tottenham would go oin to draw the second leg 0-0 to secure their place in the quarter-finals of the competition, where they would ultimately be knocked out by Real Madrid.
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Spurs will want to pick up a positive result on the road tonight against a Milan side who have only won once in their last eight games. But Antonio Conte will have to do it without a number of key first-team players.
Hugo Lloris picked up an injury late on in the win over Manchester City last week and is out for a number of weeks. Rodrigo Bentancur went off injured against Leicester City at the weekend and will miss the rest of the season with an ACL injury.
Yves Bissouma is also out, as is Ryan Sessegnon, while Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg is suspended for the first leg in Italy tonight. That leave Spurs short of options in the middle of the park, but Conte has no plans to utilise Eric Dier in his former position.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference, Conte said: "We did not have the time to take into consideration this option. Rodrigo had an injury two days ago and for this reason to take also another option, to think of another option… the time was so short to prepare this game that I did not think of another solution."
And Conte namechecked the two young players who will be starting againt Milan in the San Siro tonight, with no other options in the midfield area. "We have the solution in our house, with the two young players, [Oliver] Skippy and Pape Sarr," he said. "You know we are talking about two young players, their first game in Champions League, they are really young - 20 and 22-years-old. Especially for this reason we have to be good to help them to overcome the emotion, and then we trust them."
Skipp and Sarr will start in the midfield two, while, with Lloris and Sessegnon out injured, that also means Fraser Forster and Ivan Perisic are guaranteed to start. As captain, Harry Kane is also guaranteed a start, with some supporters calling for Kane to be utilised in a deeper number ten role with Richarlison ahead of him.
The other six places on the team are up for grabs, but it will be six from the following nine: Eric Dier, Cristian Romero, Ben Davies, Clement Lenglet, Emerson Royal, Pedro Porro, Son Heung-min, Dejan Kulusevski and Richarlison.
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