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Tottenham Hotspur face a couple of selection headaches ahead of the Champions League final.
Mauricio Pochettino’s rag-tag group of players, so affected by injuries throughout the season, have travelled to Madrid and many have question marks hanging over them.
Harry Kane, of course, is the headline; he sustained ligament damage against Manchester City in the first leg of the quarter-final and it is not clear if he will be selected to play from the start. If he does play, surely one of the club’s attacking players will have to drop out; one of Dele Alli, Christian Eriksen, Son Heung-Min and Lucas Moura are likely to be on the bench.
Harry Winks, too, has travelled with the squad but he has not played since March and it remains to be seen if he will be trusted from the outset.
There is also the issue with the defence; should Spurs yet again attempt to field five-at-the-back in an hope of stifling Liverpool’s attacking threat or should they revert to the four-at-the-back that has proved so successful throughout the campaign?
Football FanCast takes a look at two potential XIs below.
Plan A
This is a bold selection, not least because Eriksen is on the bench, but it is perhaps Spurs’ best chance at balancing both defensive solidity and proper attacking power.
If Kane is fit, and we have to make this clear, that remains a big if, he has to start. He’s Harry Kane. It’s the Champions League final.
Unfortunately, that means someone has to drop out – neither Eriksen nor Alli are truly capable of playing in a two-man midfield and allying Winks with Sissoko, again assuming the Englishman is fit, gives Spurs a double pivot that has proved remarkably successful in the past.
Lucas scored a hat-trick against Ajax in the semi-finals and it would be something approaching sacrilege to drop him like a stone, while Son is perhaps the club’s best attacking player aside from Kane.
Alli, too, has shown signs of getting back to his former self and playing him behind his England team-mate will allow him the time to thrive.
Eriksen, then, is the main casualty but he was poor in Amsterdam and has been in something of a dip in form; if it was purely based on that, he would be the one to miss out.
Plan B
There is the possibility that Kane won’t start and neither will Winks.
That, surely, needs to lead to the 4-2-3-1 formation listed above.
There is a temptation to play with five in the defence and draft in Sanchez but he has a mistake in him and to do that would be to limit Spurs’ attacking thrust.
If Kane is out, the best course of action is to start Lucas up front, with Son on the left and Eriksen drifting in off the right.
Alli retains his position in the No.10 role, but Eric Dier is drafted into midfield; he is a more mobile option than Victor Wanyama and, while he is very much a back-up, starting him would free up Sissoko and allow him to maraud forward as he loves to do.
Pochettino, though, will be hoping he can call on both of his Harrys, as the club look to win the Champions League for the first time in their history.
