Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Football London
Football London
Sport
Alasdair Gold & Rob Guest

New role for Emerson Royal, Pedro Porro call - The Tottenham team Conte should pick vs Leicester

Antonio Conte could be back in the dugout for Tottenham's Premier League match at Leicester and he is going to have to make a couple of changes to his starting XI.

The Italian returned to the training pitches of Hotspur Way on Thursday following surgery in Italy the previous week to remove his gall bladder. He will be forced into changing up the team that beat Manchester City in his absence as Spurs this time make the trip to the King Power Stadium.

We asked our Tottenham correspondents Alasdair Gold and Rob Guest to select the teams that they would like to see Conte pick for the trip to Leicester.

READ MORE: Pedro Porro illness, what Kane asked Conte on the phone, funny Lucas and Emerson's fitting post

Alasdair Gold - Tottenham Hotspur correspondent

Spurs overcame City last weekend with a top drawer performance but have since lost captain Hugo Lloris to a knee injury for up to seven weeks and then Yves Bissouma to a stress fracture of his left ankle that requires surgery.

Fraser Forster will come in for Lloris and Conte can play Rodrigo Bentancur and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg together to face the Foxes but will have to call upon Oliver Skipp or Pape Matar Sarr against AC Milan in the Champions League in midweek with Hojbjerg suspended and Bissouma injured.

Cristian Romero is also suspended after his red card against City and the likely change would be to bring Davinson Sanchez in on the right of the back three. After his impressive display at the weekend though, Conte could be tempted to make a big change and use Emerson Royal as the right-sided centre-back with a debut for £40m January signing Pedro Porro at right wing-back.

The only issue with using both of his right wing-backs in one game is that Conte will also have to think about who plays in Milan just three days later so he could make a couple of changes elsewhere if he wants to rotate the side across the week, with a home match against West Ham next weekend.

Gold's team: Forster; Emerson, Dier, Davies; Porro, Bentancur, Hojbjerg, Sessegnon; Kulusevski, Kane, Son.

Rob Guest - Tottenham Hotspur correspondent

Conte is unfortunately going to have to change his Tottenham team following last weekend's win over Man City as Hugo Lloris and Cristian Romero are unavailable. It is a simple choice when it comes to replacing the Frenchman between the sticks, however, as Fraser Forster will take his place.

In terms of the position on the right of the defence, Conte has a couple of options available to him, including the possibility of handing Emerson Royal a new role to bring Pedro Porro into the team for his Tottenham debut. Although Emerson has the qualities to be a success on the right of the back three, Conte may not want to trial the experiment in an important league game that Spurs really need to win to up the pressure on the top four.

Davinson Sanchez will be the favourite to come in and he deserves another start after performing very well for Conte in the recent win over Preston North End in the FA Cup. Elsewhere, the team remains the same from the 1-0 win over Man City as there is no reason to change it.

Guest's team: Forster; Sanchez, Dier, Davies; Emerson, Bentancur, Hojbjerg, Perisic; Kulusevski, Kane, Son.

READ NEXT:

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.