Tottenham Hotspur injury news ahead of their trip to Liverpool in the Premier League at Anfield.
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Igor Tudor has revealed that Tottenham Hotspur will be missing their key centre-back duo against Liverpool.
Spurs travel to Anfield on Sunday firmly in a Premier League relegation battle. Tottenham are 16th in the table and just one point above the drop zone.
Despite sacking Thomas Frank as head coach and bringing in Tudor for the rest of the season, the decision has so far backfired. Spurs have lost all four games under the Croat, most recently a 5-2 Champions League last 16 first-leg defeat at Atletico Madrid.
In the reverse to Atletico, defender Cristian Romero and midfielder Joao Palhinha clashed heads and were both forced off. Concussion protocol means that they are unable to face Liverpool.
Romero and Micky van de Ven are Tottenham’s first-choice centre-half pairing and the latter is also ruled out because of suspension. To add to Tudor’s woes, Yves Bissouma and Conor Gallagher may not be able to feature.
Speaking at his pre-match press conference. Tottenham boss Tudor said: “No Romero and Palhinha out. Micky is out. Bissouma has a problem and Conor has a fever but we hope he will be ok. Always something happen. Very rare and I've never seen this in my career.
“Tough, for sure. Not just because of last game, but because of the period and the past. Not easy situation, not an easy moment and from other side a big challenge to change things. Like everything in life, you can choose how to see the situation. So, you can stay and cry or you can fight. You can be the victim or you can say I can change something. This is the message I want to start and what I told to the players.
“Everyone speaking, everyone has opinions and the life is always how you see it. The bottle is always half empty or half full. Here, there is nothing full, there is a lot of empty things but difficult moments don’t last forever. It will pass and I believe the players who will take this as a challenge, as an opportunity will stand up with the courage to change things, after this period they will become better people and better players.
“So, in tough moments it’s always about that, it’s always about us. In the last period, a lot of things about what is the club, the problems, no one can do nothing and this like victim-ism, like we were victims. I said this morning to the players totally opposition things. We are the team and we are the staff. It’s all about us. All the bull****, all the other things are bull**** and sorry to use this word, but it’s on us.”
Along with Romero and Van de Ven, fellow defenders Destiny Udogie and Ben Davies remain sidelined. Spurs’ squad will be depleted to face Liverpool as Dejan Kulusevski, James Maddison, Mohammed Kudus, Rodrigo Bentancur, Lucas Bergvall and Wilson Odobert are unavailable.