Tottenham face a huge game in the battle for European football when they travel to Anfield to take on Liverpool on Sunday afternoon. In the top four for the vast majority of the season, Spurs have fallen out of the Champions League places in recent weeks and now have Aston Villa, Liverpool and Brighton & Hove Albion to battle with for European qualification.
In action on Thursday evening as they secured a point following a 2-2 draw against Manchester United in Ryan Mason's first game as acting head coach in the wake of Cristian Stellini's exit, Spurs will be intent on following up that point with another positive result. The Lilywhites showed plenty of fight against Manchester United and that will certainly be needed on Merseyside with the Reds in good form and scoring plenty at present.
So who will start for Spurs at Anfield on Sunday afternoon? football.london takes a look below.
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Fraser Forster will once again continue between the sticks as Mason confirmed in his pre-match press conference that Hugo Lloris remains out through injury. In defence, the boss has a decision to make following Eric Dier's woes in midweek coupled with the recent return to fitness of Clement Lenglet and Ben Davies.
Pedro Porro and Ivan Perisic both performed well in Thursday's game but the latter could potentially miss out in order to bring Davies in at left wing-back and give Spurs some more defensive stability up against Trent Alexander-Arnold and Mohamed Salah. Persisting with Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Oliver Skipp in the middle of the park, Mason's next decision comes in terms of his attack with Richarlison and Dejan Kulusevski in a fight to start alongside Harry Kane and Son Heung-min.
Richarlison's battling qualities could see him win the race, meaning Kulusevski will have to bide his time on the bench to begin with once again. A key game for both as they chase European football for the next campaign, Mason has made it clear that Sunday's result won't determine the outcome of the season.
"Honestly I think this game is always big just because of the history of the two football clubs," explained Spurs' acting head coach. "We understand we've got five games left until the end of the season and the game on Sunday won't determine the outcome of the season, but of course, we understand that Tottenham and Liverpool at any stage of the season in any circumstances is going to be a big game for the players and fans as well."
Here is our predicted Tottenham team for this afternoon's match against Liverpool:
Predicted Tottenham XI: Forster; Romero, Dier, Lenglet; Porro, Hojbjerg, Skipp, Davies; Son, Kane, Richarlison.
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