8 hours ago
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Thomas Frank faces the unusual prospect of picking two Tottenham teams for two different matches on the same day.
Spurs face a double header of friendlies on Saturday as they take on Wycombe Wanderers and then Luton Town. The behind-closed-doors match against Wycombe was added at late notice to the schedule and kicks off at 11am. Four hours later, Spurs will kick off their previously scheduled friendly at Kenilworth Road against another League One outfit in Luton, who could feature former Tottenham goalkeeper Josh Keeley after his £1million move last week.
Frank will be in charge of both games on Saturday and must select two matchday squads from the 32 senior players potentially fit and available as well as using plenty of the under-21s development squad.
"We wanted an extra game in our schedule to give as many players as many match minutes as possible, in order to put them in the best position, physically," said the Dane. "We will play two even, strong teams and they will play between 60 and 75 minutes, maybe more. By the end of Saturday, 22 players will have played a lot of match minutes and they will be in a very good place before we go on tour."
Manor Solomon is unlikely to be fit after suffering a calf injury in training while Dejan Kulusevski, Radu Dragusin and Bryan Gil remain out after their different knee injuries and subsequent surgeries. However, James Maddison has returned to full training with the squad and Kota Takai was expected to return to training this week following a small training ground knock.
Richarlison missed last weekend's win at Reading but Frank said afterwards: "Richy has trained well, we’re just building him, that’s the big thing, He trained earlier today, and we expect a full training week next week and, right now, we expect him to play next week."
The trio of Archie Gray, Mathys Tel and Wilson Odobert, who were granted extra time off after their exploits at the U21 European Championships should also be back in contention.
Yes we know it's near impossible to guess two teams on one day in pre-season but here are our attempts at predicting the two Spurs starting line-ups Frank could put out as he takes the chance to look at some different combinations.
Wycombe XI (4-2-3-1): Kinsky; Spence, Danso, Van de Ven, Udogie; Sarr, Bissouma; Johnson, Son, Moore; Richarlison.
Luton XI (4-2-3-1): Vicario; Porro, Romero, Vuskovic, Davies; Bergvall, Bentancur; Kudus, Donley, Tel; Solanke.
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