:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/25351137/186369395.0.jpg)
Tottenham Hotspur last won a trophy in 2008, lifting the League Cup after sacking their manager mid-season. We were crap in the league, but hey, trophy! Arsenal haven't won one of those for a long time! Yay us!
There will be no Arsenal to face in the semifinal this time around and no Jermaine Jenas to go HAM on them, but there's still a trophy out there to be won if the squad feels like stepping up to the plate. On Wednesday, Spurs host West Ham United, one of the teams that played a very big part in getting Andre Villas-Boas fired.
We know who Tim Sherwood does not have available to him for his first game as interim boss, but it doesn't exactly give us too many hints about who he's going to throw into the starting XI. Michael Dawson, Paulinho, Sandro, Jan Vertonghen and Younes Kaboul are all definitely out, but Vlad Chiriches should make his return in this game, while we should get glimpses of Christian Eriksen and Danny Rose as well.
Zeki Fryers will get into the 18-man squad at the very least and could definitely start, but will there be spots for other youngsters that Tim Sherwood coached in the Under-21s? With both Jermain Defoe and Roberto Soldado struggling for form while Emmanuel Adebayor has been exiled, there have been calls for Harry Kane to get a shot in cups and the Europa League. Does Sherwood give him a chance to shine on Wednesday? How about Nabil Bentaleb, Ryan Fredericks, Adam Smith or Shaq Coulthirst?
I'm expecting to see Sherwood make quite a few changes, but not ones that are necessarily indicative of what he sees as his first team going forward. That will probably get saved for the Southampton match, seeing as they're one of the teams that looks like a very legitimate threat to break the Sky Six monopoly on the top of the table.
On West Ham's end, they're dealing with a lot of the same injuries that have plagued them all season. Andy Carroll, Ricardo Vaz Te, Stewart Downing, Winston Reid and Mladen Petric are all out. James Tomkins will face a late fitness test. Ravel Morrison and Mohamed Diame are both still healthy and still terrifying.
Manchester United are also playing a quarterfinal today, so Spurs will not be on TV for just about anyone here. Sorry! There's no outlet carrying this game live in the U.K., as far as I can tell. If you're a subscriber to beIN Sport in the United States or Canada, you can watch the game on their streaming service, beIN Sport Play.
