Newcastle United will host Tottenham in the Carabao Cup fourth round on Wednesday night and the Magpies will face a much-changed lineup after the visitors were hit by another injury blow
Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Archie Gray is set to miss Wednesday's Carabao Cup clash against Newcastle United - becoming the 10th first-team player to be sidelined due to injury for manager Thomas Frank.
The 19-year-old former Leeds United player was expected to start Wednesday night's League Cup match at St James' Park. However, it has been revealed that the versatile young player sustained an injury during training and will not participate in the game.
While there has been no official confirmation regarding the severity of the issue, reports suggest that the highly-rated star could be out for approximately a month after injuring his calf. This is a significant setback for Gray, who might have started in his preferred midfield position on Wednesday night.
He was utilised in defence under Ange Postecoglou last season, and Frank has also taken advantage of his versatility. Frank now finds himself with 10 first-team players unavailable as Cristian Romero, Destiny Udogie, Ben Davies, Radu Dragusin, Kota Takai, Yves Bissouma, Dejan Kulusevski, James Maddison and Dominic Solanke are all currently out of action for Spurs.
In other news, Frank has expressed his desire for Tottenham to go all the way in the Carabao Cup this season, but questioned why the semi-finals were still two-legged. Spurs will face current holders in the fourth round on Wednesday after the Magpies beat Liverpool in last season's final at Wembley.
Tottenham featured in 60 fixtures during the 2024-25 campaign and the midweek journey to St James' Park will mark the club's 15th match of this season, prompting Frank to propose alterations for a domestic competition frequently criticised amid an increasingly packed football schedule.
"By the way, one thing I've been thinking about is that there should only be one semi-final," Frank said.
"I think two reasons. For the smaller clubs, if you want to beat a bigger club, it's much much easier to play only one game, so we really want someone to break out and it's not the same boring same teams winning – of course except from Spurs!".
"Then we need to skip one semi-final for everyone else that plays so many games. It should only be one.
"If it's about money, then someone needs to fix it. If it's Premier League paying money to EFL (English Football League), because as far as I understand it, it's because of that. So someone has to fix it. It should be very, very easy."
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