Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur injury news ahead of Wednesday’s Carabao Cup fourth round tie.
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Tottenham Hotspur will be without several first-team players for Wednesday’s Carabao Cup fourth round tie away to Newcastle United (kick-off 8pm).
Spurs have lost their previous three visits to St James’ Park, while head coach Thomas Frank is yet to win any of his five trips to Tyneside, which includes a 2-1 defeat at the quarter-final stage with Brentford last season.
And to add to that, Frank’s squad has a growing injury list, although that didn’t appear to affect them on Sunday after a 3-0 win at Everton moved them up to third in the Premier League.
Thomas Frank on Tottenham Hotspur’s injury list ahead of Newcastle United game
Frank has refused to use the injuries as an excuse, though there is no denying that the Dane is without some of his star players.
The 52-year-old highlighted the loss of James Maddison, who sustained his ACL injury in a pre-season friendly against Newcastle in August and Dejan Kulusevski. The Swede hasn’t played since May due to a knee injury.
Frank said: "Every head coach wants all the players fit and we get that, then we complain about the squad being too big! And then you need to disappoint players.
"Anyway, I’d rather want that, of course. It is what it is. I very, very rarely say anything about injuries because it is what it is, I need to deal with it. It's my job to put the best possible available team on the pitch and get it hopefully clicking.
"Of course there's some of these, especially Kulusevski and Maddison, proven players that prove in this club for goals and assists and creating things, so they would have been lovely to be able to use, but I think we have some very talented players who are growing."
Frank praised some of his attackers in the absence of Maddison and Kulusevski.
"Wilson (Odobert), Xavi [Simons], I think Mo [Kudus[ has been very good for us as well and I think Richy [Richarlison[ had a good start to the season," Frank added.
"Richy tried to get up to pace, but the reality is that we are working very hard on getting the flow with the front four and hopefully it will be better bit by bit.
"I think it's fair to say, I can't remember the amount of games we played, but there have definitely been some good games and good spells where we have been looking very good, so we'll keep working on it."
Tottenham Hotspur without seven senior players v Newcastle United
Maddison and Kulusevski are among seven Tottenham stars currently sidelined. The others are Ben Davies, Radu Dragusin, Destiny Udogie, Cristian Romero, Yves Bissouma and Dominic Solanke
None of those players are expected to be back in time for the trip to Newcastle.
Frank said last week: "Cuti (Romero) just walked out on the grass running with some of the performance guys, so positive, progressing, no time frame, but I don't expect it to be a longer one.
"Destiny is not on the grass yet but still progressing, so again, not a longer one.
"With Dominic, it's positive, he's taking steps in the right direction every day, was on the grass again today on his own but has now a sustainable amount of pitch sessions in him on his own, so it's progressing forward."
Newcastle United injury news ahead of Tottenham Hotspur clash
Newcastle, meanwhile, will definitely be without Yoane Wissa and Tino Livramento, but there’s a chance Lewis Hall could return tomorrow night.
Hall has missed the last three matches with a hamstring injury but was back training last week. Howe said: “He’s doing really well. He’s been on the grass for a while and is pushing himself. He’s done back-to-back sessions now. He’ll be hopefully not too far away now.”