Spurs boss Andre Villas-Boas says he will make wholesale changes at Villa Park.
Andre Villas-Boas says Tottenham face an ‘impossible’ task against Aston Villa on Tuesday night and has confirmed he will make wholesale changes for the Capital One Cup third round clash.
Spurs travel to Villa Park just two days after Sunday’s 1-0 win over Cardiff City in the Premier League, having also face Tromso in the Europa League last Thursday.
Villas-Boas warned a week ago that the schedule could lead to career threatening injuries and the Portuguese has reiterated that he believes the fixture pile-up is unfair.
“This is an impossible game for us to play, but hopefully our team spirit and motivation can get us through,” he said.
“It (the Capital One Cup) is not our absolute number one priority but I don’t think we have been given a fair chance to play in this competition this year.
“It could be possible for the players who played against Cardiff to play this game, but I am not sure I want to risk the players who played getting a hamstring injury which could take them six weeks to recover from when the Premier League is more important.
“This team has not experienced having to play again after just two days and we have not been given the same chance as the other teams. So we will have to rotate our squad as the players who played in Cardiff will not be involved.
“We are struggling a little bit with injuries but we have great strength in depth, although it is not going to be easy.”
Villa beat Norwich 1-0 at Carrow Road on Saturday and the Portuguese feels the extra 24 hours the hosts have had to recover could prove decisive.
“It is difficult, the ideal situation for us would have been to play Wednesday,” he said.
“I understand the situation for the police with a number of matches being played in Birmingham, but we do not have the same chance as other teams.
“Villa will not have to do the same (in terms of squad rotation) as they played on Saturday, so they have had an extra day of recovery.”
Danny Rose is definitely out for Spurs but could return for next weekend’s crunch derby with Chelsea, while Jermain Defoe is also a doubt.
“Danny’s injury is not on his ankle, it is on his big toe,” he said.
“We have good news in that there is no fracture but there is another extension of the toe which has left him with some pain.
“We will reassess him and if he is okay and there is definitely no fracture he will probably be back for Chelsea.”
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