Jermain Defoe Picks Up Ankle Injury

In case you were concerned that Tottenham Hotspur were going to get healthy, your concerns have been eased today. The injury train keeps on rolling! News comes to us today that Jermain Defoe has managed to pick up an ankle injury during a training session in Dubai, where Harry Redknapp brought his team to train in the warm weather during their long lay-off between games, caused by Arsenal making the Carling Cup final, which got the North London Derby postponed.

There's no news yet on how serious Defoe's injury is, but supposedly it's not looking good and he could be out for a couple of weeks. This means that we're down Defoe and Rafael van der Vaart, which presents a lot of interesting (read: crappy) tactical options. We have been effective in the past playing old-school 4-4-2 with Defoe partnering a big man or in our 4-4-1-1 setup with van der Vaart behind Crouch or Pavlyuchenko, but when both are out, all options are considerably less potent. Spurs will likely be without Gareth Bale on the weekend as well, though he will be fit for the AC Milan match, so attacking options are thin.

So, what should we do in the absence of Defoe and VDV, CFC community? Steven Pienaar or Niko Kranjcar as an attacking midfielder behind Pav? Straight 4-4-2 with the two big dudes? I'd love to hear your say. Somehow, I feel like we're going to get a lot of votes for a 4-4-1-1/4-2-3-1 with Niko in the middle.